Factorio exits Early Access after eight years of work

[Cal Jeffrey]

In context: One part SimCity, one part tower defense, Factorio was featured as one of our picks for great games you can play on budget PCs. That's because despite being in Steam Early Access, it is fully functioning, easy on the hardware, and very fun.

Wait. Did I just say Factorio is in Early Access? Scratch that. That's right, Factorio just officially moved to Version 1.0 last Friday. Last year, Prague-based developer Wube Software pegged September 25 as its release date. However, it decided that an eight-year wait was long enough, so why put it off any longer. The game is officially complete.

Wube began working on Factorio in 2012. It launched a funding campaign on Indigogo the following year, raising only a mere $25,643 with 1,776 backers. With such slim support it is no wonder the game got off the ground at all, yet by 2016, Wube was ready to release it to Steam's Early Access program.

More than 2,000,000 people have bought the game to date. According to Steam Charts, since its official release on Friday, it has seen a 20-percent rise in interest, reaching a peak of 32,392 concurrent players. The demo for the game spiked over 240 percent. That is not enough to put it in the top ten of most played games (Warframe is number 10 with 65,608), but the demo is currently trending in the number 2 spot just behind The Surge 2. So we could see those numbers grow.

Not much has changed with Factorio 1.0. It is still all about building massive automated factories and defending them from the angry denizens as your facility destroys their environment. Version 1.0 did get a pretty impressive fresh coat of paint, though.

If you have not played Factorio, you can try the demo for free on Steam. If you want the full version, it'll cost you $30, which isn't bad considering the game is 100's of hours of fun. Some of our staffers have been playing it for years.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/86399-factorio-exits-early-access-after-eight-years-work.html

 

[messy]

This game has fantastic mods too if it's not complex enough for your liking

 

[Adhmuz]

Alright, now time to wait for it to go on sale for 75% off and finally get to play it, think this should happen around the Steam Winter sale.

 

[tanpro260196]

Alright, now time to wait for it to go on sale for 75% off and finally get to play it, think this should happen around the Steam Winter sale.

Yeah, good luck with that. The dev has made a point of never going on sales, period. And infact it never go on sales before.

 

[TomSEA]

Yeah, good luck with that. The dev has made a point of never going on sales, period. And infact it never go on sales before.

That's OK - I can wait. I'll put it on my wishlist and sooner or later - no matter what the dev says - it'll go on sale.

 

[tanpro260196]

That's OK - I can wait. I'll put it on my wishlist and sooner or later - no matter what the dev says - it'll go on sale.

Sure. Hopefully it will be while you are still alive though.
Just be warn that it never go on sales in the past 8 years.

 

[Lew Zealand]

It's also available on GOG if you're vaguely interested in giving DRM the middle finger.

 

[amghwk]

Alright, now time to wait for it to go on sale for 75% off and finally get to play it, think this should happen around the Steam Winter sale.

That's OK - I can wait. I'll put it on my wishlist and sooner or later - no matter what the dev says - it'll go on sale.

I usually wait for sales too, but only for money grabbing corporates like Ubisoft or EA, but I believe people should support these Indie developers. These are the people who seem to bring in new designs, refreshing gameplays like those days, when games were genuinely fun and had design ingenuity. Not like the buckloads of sequels and remakes we see these days.

 

[astralcyborg]

Factorio is a great game. If you like that kind, you can also give a try to Mindustry (cheap on Steam, cross-platform and freeware as DRM-free version). It's a much simpler than Factorio, light on system resources and it becomes addictive too

 

[Adhmuz]

I usually wait for sales too, but only for money grabbing corporates like Ubisoft or EA, but I believe people should support these Indie developers. These are the people who seem to bring in new designs, refreshing gameplays like those days, when games were genuinely fun and had design ingenuity. Not like the buckloads of sequels and remakes we see these days.

As much as I would want to throw money at every indie developer under the sun I can't justify it, I have far too many games in my library already that I've never played, chances are this could become another one of them. I rather wait for the sale as it doesn't feel so bad if I pay $10 for a game I never play or play one time and forget about. Fortunately this game actually has a demo, which I downloaded and have yet to try, if I truly enjoy it I might consider the full price, but again, I'm in no rush rush and have too many other games and not enough time to play them as it is...

Yeah, good luck with that. The dev has made a point of never going on sales, period. And infact it never go on sales before.

Has the dev came out and said this? If so that's an incredibly arrogant thing of them to do, bad enough it took 8 years for the game to finally make an official release. That in itself is a little absurd to charge $40 for a now "8 year" old game. I'm still fairly confident the game will go on sale, if not the winter sale, next summer sale, I've waited 8 years already, what's another 3 to 9 months?

 

[amghwk]

As much as I would want to throw money at every indie developer under the sun I can't justify it, I have far too many games in my library already that I've never played, chances are this could become another one of them. I rather wait for the sale as it doesn't feel so bad if I pay $10 for a game I never play or play one time and forget about. Fortunately this game actually has a demo, which I downloaded and have yet to try, if I truly enjoy it I might consider the full price, but again, I'm in no rush rush and have too many other games and not enough time to play them as it is...

Has the dev came out and said this? If so that's an incredibly arrogant thing of them to do, bad enough it took 8 years for the game to finally make an official release. That in itself is a little absurd to charge $40 for a now "8 year" old game. I'm still fairly confident the game will go on sale, if not the winter sale, next summer sale, I've waited 8 years already, what's another 3 to 9 months?

Why even waste paying 10 bucks for a game you're probably not going to play?

What's the worth of boasting you're waiting for a cheap sale (that too this early at official release) and admitting something you're probably not going to play, but just keep adding to your backlogs?

Heck, you have not even played the demo.

Actually this message is not directed at you personally, but all those backloggers.

Coming back to the topic, this game is refreshingly different than countless 1st or 3rd person perspective games, remakes and sequels nowadays.

 

[Aus spot]

OMG love this game. Took the day off work go play it, many all night session since this article let me know the game existed.

I have no idea what the goals are, but getting the systems automated perfectly is a real fun challenge.

 

[Entrylevel]

Alright, now time to wait for it to go on sale for 75% off and finally get to play it, think this should happen around the Steam Winter sale.

I wouldn't hold your breath. The developers have repeatedly said that they do not intent to do seasonal sale price reductions. As it stands, I think Factorio's price is very good value on a cost/hour basis. Remember, this isn't an game with micro-transactions or "season passes", so it's an honest upfront price.

 

[Adhmuz]

Why even waste paying 10 bucks for a game you're probably not going to play?

What's the worth of boasting you're waiting for a cheap sale (that too this early at official release) and admitting something you're probably not going to play, but just keep adding to your backlogs?

Heck, you have not even played the demo.

Actually this message is not directed at you personally, but all those backloggers.

Coming back to the topic, this game is refreshingly different than countless 1st or 3rd person perspective games, remakes and sequels nowadays.

I'm genuinely interested in playing this game, I like this style of game and premise. Right now I know I won't have time to play the game and this is why I can wait for a sale, even when it does, if ever, go on sale I still might not have time to play it but would still buy it with the thought that one day I will have time to play it. At $10 I don't feel bad about it, and at least I supported the dev to an extent, better than not buying it at all no?