Stardew Valley Creator Shuts Down Rumors Haunted Chocolatier 'Will Be Abandoned,' Insisting: 'It Will Come Out When It’s Ready' - IGN
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While I generally agree, I think there is some value in imposing some kind of deadline or limit to a project. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. There will always be more work that could be done on something. If you let yourself just keep going until you think it’s done it might never come out.
But it’s a balance and when publishers push those kinds of deadlines they’re not really considering that.
I recently launched a business as a solo dev / founder. It was agonizing trying to get all the last details done and be happy enough to finally say, this is what I'm going to release.
I could have gone on forever if I'd let myself. Oh they need this, oh they need that! This other thing can be better!
Now that it's out, that pressure is gone, and I can just do smaller updates now which are focused more heavily on the feedback I'm getting from customers.
I probably could have released 3-4 months earlier had I been better about it.
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Dude came out with a FREE update to stardew valley while in the middle of making chocolatier. I doubt any serious stardew fan is thinking this.
Two free (major) updates: 1.5 and 1.6 both came out after Haunted Chocolatier was announced.
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Publishers are considering return on investment. In a model where they are providing the game budget to the studio, every delay means more money out of their pocket. Case by case it might be worth it, but just allowing developers to infinitely say it's "almost ready, just one more delay" isn't reasonable.
I know from the hard core gamer audience that discusses this stuff online there is often this vibe that nothing should be cut from games. People look at various interesting cut content and lament it for not getting enough time, but there is always going to be cut content.
If there isn't a lead on the development team putting their foot down to control the scope and focus the team, and a similar push for focus by a publisher you get a meandering unfocused project that goes over budget.
In the solo/small amateur team dev, self-publishing model that ROI pressure isn't coming externally from a separate publisher. It is means solo devs are making their first games usually on a budget of nothing, as a side project to their day jobs. In some cases like with Concerned Ape it turns out great. In many cases development comes out tediously slowly, like with Death Trash. In innumerable cases the games just die.
In cases like Wasteland 2 it was a full professional team working full time using crowdfunding. An alternate model, but still limited by budget pressure. There was no publisher to pay back, but when the crowd funding money was gone, it was gone. That game did come out and it was enjoyable, but clearly it wasn't "done when it's done" levels of polish by the team since they used the profits from the game to release a "Director's Cut" which was a whole polishing pass on the game they simply couldn't afford the first time.
there is always going to be cut content
Or said another way, not having cut content means they released their first rough draft instead of editing and refining it.
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Presumably if he uses the same or similar engine then much of the groundwork is already done, so I would imagine it wouldn't take quite as long. But I could be wrong.
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Idk what it is about players now, but if there is an announcement, they want the game out immediately. Another game I follow is being made by a small dev team, and they give somewhat regular updates. Multiple a year, generally timed to monthly, but like Dec got skipped for holidays. It's almost daily someone is claiming the game isn't coming out, it's a scam, the game doesn't exist, etc. And this wouldn't have anywhere near the fan base ConcernedApe is dealing with. Just shut up and let people make the game...they don't owe you a game, or updates about the game.
Maybe it's cause GTA6 and TES6 are in dev hell and it's become a meme that they aren't releasing, but still. It's top-shelf annoying behavior.
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I can't see why not, but it's targeting a 2030 release so it's kind of early to be thinking about that sort of thing.
It's not targeted for 2030, it's a case of "it's ready when it's ready"
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Idk what it is about players now, but if there is an announcement, they want the game out immediately. Another game I follow is being made by a small dev team, and they give somewhat regular updates. Multiple a year, generally timed to monthly, but like Dec got skipped for holidays. It's almost daily someone is claiming the game isn't coming out, it's a scam, the game doesn't exist, etc. And this wouldn't have anywhere near the fan base ConcernedApe is dealing with. Just shut up and let people make the game...they don't owe you a game, or updates about the game.
Maybe it's cause GTA6 and TES6 are in dev hell and it's become a meme that they aren't releasing, but still. It's top-shelf annoying behavior.
We're burned by promised titles never appearing.
Where's by Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda?
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Rather than choosing an arbitrary time, you should choose a state of the game to call finished. Limited time will always lead to crunch inevitably.
In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time "until it's done"?
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Obviously, this is the only sane solution for a one-man team, but all game developers need to put their foot down and say “it’s ready when it’s ready.”
No marketing deadlines, no “crunch time,” make the game until the game is made, release it, maintain it, do it again if you think you have a good idea.
Beware Star Citizen.
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Just to compliment the creator, I have molded SV and the code is beautiful. Rarely do you go into a cold base and have little to complain about.
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Beware Star Citizen.
Vaporware is an entirely different animal.
A few people seem to think I meant a game like Stardew or Chocolateir should take several years because that’s how long they take with one person. Obviously if you have a studio of people, even a small studio like early Mojang, you can get more work done much more quickly.
Obviously, I think, I mean the publisher should defer to the developers regarding how long work would take to complete, not the other way around. And no one should listen to the demands of shareholders or anyone else that is completely departed from the production process.
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I highly doubt I'll live to see its release
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Two free (major) updates: 1.5 and 1.6 both came out after Haunted Chocolatier was announced.
And he's working on 1.7
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Concerned ape can afford to put this game out in 2035 lol.
Well yeah, but not every dev and company is ConcernedApe. I reckon the same can be said of Balatro dev, and Team Cherry, and a few others. It's awesome for them who can afford to do this, but that's definitely not the norm. Most companies can't afford to sit on a project for 8 years without releasing a product.
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A lot of gamers are fucking brats
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A lot of gamers are fucking brats
Seriously, remember all the bullshit they were giving cherry for silk song and it drops and it's actually a polished fairly glitch free experience?
It's almost like if you give people the time they need, you get what was promised. Wish psychonauts 2 had more time.
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In a publisher fronting money to developer situation, without a fixed time limit (or money limit, which functionally translates to a time limit) is the publisher just infinitely on the hook to pay for dev time "until it's done"?
Depends; do they want the game to sell or not?
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Presumably if he uses the same or similar engine then much of the groundwork is already done, so I would imagine it wouldn't take quite as long. But I could be wrong.
He states in the post Haunted Choclatier uses a different engine fyi.
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Depends; do they want the game to sell or not?
I'm not trying to be cute. If a publishing company gives money to a developer who is a separate entity to make a game, they've got to have some kind of contract. If there is no timeline or total budget written into the initial contract, how could a publisher pull out of that agreement?
If the answer is going to be "publishers can just pull out when they feel like it" then that's neither adhering to the "let devs develop 'until it is done'." philosophy that is the entire point of this hypothetical restructure, and it for practical terms it does impose a deadline based on the publisher's patience, except now that deadline is not expressly clear and simply defined.
If publishers can't simply pull out on a whim, then without some kind of limiting factor that denotes a failure to perform where by a specific time a publisher can point to that failure, it can't really be functional contract. Saying "the game must have x, y, z features" but never putting a time or budget limit in place means the developers can never have failed at implementing the features because they just haven't gotten around to it yet.
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I'm not trying to be cute. If a publishing company gives money to a developer who is a separate entity to make a game, they've got to have some kind of contract. If there is no timeline or total budget written into the initial contract, how could a publisher pull out of that agreement?
If the answer is going to be "publishers can just pull out when they feel like it" then that's neither adhering to the "let devs develop 'until it is done'." philosophy that is the entire point of this hypothetical restructure, and it for practical terms it does impose a deadline based on the publisher's patience, except now that deadline is not expressly clear and simply defined.
If publishers can't simply pull out on a whim, then without some kind of limiting factor that denotes a failure to perform where by a specific time a publisher can point to that failure, it can't really be functional contract. Saying "the game must have x, y, z features" but never putting a time or budget limit in place means the developers can never have failed at implementing the features because they just haven't gotten around to it yet.
No, no. You're right. It is absolutely necessary to put out incomplete, buggy, unplayable "games" and force us to pay $80 to wait for them to actually finish it..........................
