Greenlight Games...Really?

[haldarulon]

So, my question is easy!

Are Greenlight games worth purchasing?

 

I have now purchased a 5 greenlight games and NONE of them have been "officially" released.

BUT all have had ridiculous price drops?

and most of them are still in Alpha/Beta Mode 2 years later

[tmcd35]

I've been watching Jim Sterlings excellent coverage on YouTube. Either the Russian Mafia have found a new money making scheme and/or a bunch of 14 year olds are deluded in thinking Unity lesson tutorials make for releasable games. There are far too many good quality legit games in existence to waste money on half backed ideas that'll go mysteriously quiet once the money stops racking in.

[X-13]

Are Greenlight games worth purchasing?

 

As in early-access?

 

In general? No.

 

There's usually a few things that are well made and pretty much done [so the early access is paying for extras], but for the most part it's all garbage.

[Domo]

I for one am tired of seeing all the greenlit early access games on steam. I can't name one off the top of my head that has been released. Yes not ALL of them are totaly bad, but even the "good" ones stop seeing updates after a while. It's just an excuse to monetise unfinished games on the premise that "oh we'll finish them once you've all bought them" but by that time. whats the point?

[Grey-gear]

I'm going to vote no, I know the reason for green-light games but never them worth buying.

[JRowley]

I would avoid them, even big games like DayZ that are released in early access are pretty much always abandoned, this is the rule not the exception. It's rare to find a game that comes out in early access and does get finished.

 

Some Green Light titles are not in early access however and are finished games, those you should be ok to buy if one takes your fancy, generally speaking Green Light was for indie titles who don't have publishers behind them.

 

I voted No as the majority are early access, but the question somewhat confuses the two issues.

Edited June 22, 2015 by JRowley

[sted]

I can't name one off the top of my head that has been released.

 

isnt goat simulator about it?

 

the early access lego worlds one looks like a good bet to make it out but as a rule so few do you are effectively paying for a demo of a game that will in all liklihood never see te light of day

[LiamH]

I would vote for hidden option C "sometimes"

 

Most of them seem to be pretty bad, but there are a few gems in there, Minecraft is the obvious trend setter still technically in Beta. I know this wasn't "greenlit" but it set the whole beta release trend in motion.

 

7 days to die - another one that I have enjoyed, still in alpha/beta and still has some bugs.

 

Project Zomboid - I feel like i am setting a trend with zombie survival games but this is enjoyable and a isometric spin on things.

 

Black Mesa - Half life remake that is free!

 

Rogue Legacy - old greenlit game but still great

 

Besiege - Like medieval robot wars, i think this one is in full release now but started on greenlight

 

The way I look at it is if i get my money's worth of game time out of it, It's worth it. I always wait for reviews because a lot of them are oversold junk. But a few have made it to full release.

[haldarulon]

Greenlight games I own...

The Masterplan

Prison architect

Interstellar Marines

Wreckfest

 

to name: 4

they are all now CHEAPER than what I paid for them...and still NOT out yet

[CAM]

I've stopped buying Early Access stuff. If it is released then I will gladly look at it's store page, but as soon as I see "Early Access" I press back or skip over the item entirely. All you are doing is paying over the odds for an early peek at a title that will see it's peak popularity in a half finished state and forgotten about by release as it is "old" (assuming it actually reaches a finished state). Everyone wants to be the next Minecraft, they were the exception to the rule not the new de facto standard of early releases and development.

 

As for Greenlight, I never venture into there anymore. It's just a cesspit of indie developers starting drama and crying because someone told them their game isn't good enough.

[Pottsey]

Been waiting 5+ years for one game. On the other hand FTL was well worth the wait and is finished. Some of the smaller games like The Pit and FTL have been far better then so called triple A £30 games made by large teams. Games do take years to develop so I am not too surprised many games brought on green light are not ready yet after 2 years.

[Chris_Jones]

I would say sometimes, but make sure its either from a company who have released games previously or looks like it would be fun to play now - don't buy it on the basis it should be good when its finished!

[Garacesh]

I've been watching Jim Sterlings excellent coverage on YouTube. Either the Russian Mafia have found a new money making scheme and/or a bunch of 14 year olds are deluded in thinking Unity lesson tutorials make for releasable games. There are far too many good quality legit games in existence to waste money on half backed ideas that'll go mysteriously quiet once the money stops racking in.

Urgh, don't get me started on Unity asset games D: Jim did an excellent episode about it.

 

I would avoid them, even big games like DayZ that are released in early access are pretty much always abandoned, this is the rule not the exception. It's rare to find a game that comes out in early access and does get finished

Rust seems to be coming along really well, actually. I've easily gotten my moneys worth out of it.

 

Prison architect

Fantastic game, albeit it does drag on sometimes, but that's part for the course with 'constant' games with no victory states.

[abillybob]

Rust seems to be coming along really well, actually. I've easily gotten my moneys worth out of it.

 

Have you played Rust recently? My computer for some reason can't handle the graphics engine even though I have a GTX 770, i7 4790k and 16GB RAM. The aim is awful and the animals are too dayum fast to catch god dammit.

In my opinion they should have kept the original rust and just added things like new maps and craftable items, new animals etc, but I really thing they've ruined it. The game I paid for is no longer the game I want.

Edited June 23, 2015 by abillybob
Stupid Mac AutoCorrect

[Garacesh]

You need to press F2 an nerf some of the settings, but I can get a steady 30FPS on my Radeon 6600 (whose previous owner wasn't exactly the kindest to it)

 

The new engine is so much better than the old one but I'll be the first to admit it's unoptimised to buggery. I'm not 100% sure if I like procedural generation without the ability to have a permanent map (item), but they have a non-procedural map ('level') too so that's a good compromise. It's certainly far from 'ruined'.

 

The original engine was awful, the zombies were a terrible idea and I'm glad they removed them, and it was way too easy to get guns/c4/etc and just ruin everyone's stuff. Now there's material upgrade paths, item researching, and a much wider variety of structures and items... Though you still get wolf meat from horses Bases are still a little too easy to raid for my liking, but it's all part of the fun.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Garacesh

[Domo]

Bases are still a little too easy to raid for my liking, but it's all part of the fun.

 

At least they're not like they were before... self repairing structures that repaired faster than six people could damage it.

I also like those painting boards that they added in, though too many people use them to write not so nice greetings on their bases... xD

[Garacesh]

High school penii doodles everywhere D: lol. But it is a nice idea, yeah.

 

Self-repairing structures? Last I knew of the old Engine, structures actively decomposed if you didn't login (which was an excellent idea, but did somewhat limit the ability to steal someone else's base.. which is something me and my friends tend to do a lot of haha)

[Domo]

It wasn't that long ago that the bases self repaired, and when i mean self repaired if you hit it with a wooden hammer it would regain health extremely quickly and just stick like that forever.

[GuyJD]

I have quite a few early access games and on the whole I'd say they are worth it but that's pretty subjective because I'm going on the enjoyment I've had out of the ones I have, what does annoy me is when a developer charges full retail price for an early access game, I like the look of ARK: Survival evolved but there is no way I'm paying £30 for an unfinished game.

 

It seems that if a game isn't from one of the big developers it gets an early access release which is fine as long as the developer sticks with it and evolves the game, Unknown Worlds is a great example of this with Subnautica, they listen to feedback and the game seems to get updated every week and it's a great gaming experience because of it.

[Garacesh]

ARK does look intriguing, but yeah, I'm not willing to drop that much on it. It's on sale right now, though, isn't it? At least it was over the weekend.

[GuyJD]

yeah it was reduced by £8 to £22 in the Steam sale but even at that I still thought it was too much, early access should be £15 or under IMHO because you are essentially play testing the game for the developer.

[JRowley]

ARK is way too expensive, I thought it was pretty disgusting that a game in early access would be on the steam sale and still above £20, absolutely mental.

[Garacesh]

Yeah, that's a bit of a stupid price. I certainly won't be dropping dime on it. Dinosaurs does sound a more difficult and interesting concept than zombies, but I think I'll wait a good while longer before giving it another look.

[haldarulon]

awwwww cmon!

we wait all that time for for project cars to be released for them to turn around and announce... project cars 2 (crowd funded again!) so they are making money even though they are not investing their own money!

basically now the company have just stuck 2 fingers up to the early birds, and said we not going to invest any more time in this game lets get on to number 2

they really are taking the P122!

oh well no more early backing for me!

[localzuk]

The original "early access" game for me was Minecraft. Was super cheap pre-release (still pretty darn cheap post-release to be honest). But then, that was driven by a guy who was just a normal bloke who wanted to make good games!

 

A lot of these early access games are not being made for the sake of making good games - they're being made purely for money, hence prices like £20+ for a game in alpha.

 

I'll only buy very specific games early access. Often, I don't actually want the early access game anyway - I want the finished product! The main exception is sandbox/creative games.