It’s certainly a great way to have gaming companies get their bug tests done for free. The game in question? Conan Exiles. I figured out how to mitigate some of the REALLY annoying aspects of gameplay – mostly involving turning off that stupid ‘you lose all your stuff when you die’ feature – but dear Lord but the building crafting system needs work. The combat is likewise not all that inspiring yet. And I am not entirely thrilled with the concept of being a slaveowner, even though it’s certainly a part of the Hyborian Age.
But it’s still fun. Steep learning curve, but fun.
I’d question the gamers who pay money for the “privilege” of breaking unfinished games, but Early-adopters clearly get *something* out of the experience. Vive le free-market, I guess.
If it means more playtesting, I’m all for it.
I managed to avoid the games that shipped in an unplayable state, but that should simply never happen.
.
Or take Destiny. Its latest update was supposedly in the works for six months. It had a handful of changes, one of which had exactly the opposite effect as advertised, and another (which the community didn’t want in the first place) that broke a whole series of things in the game.
How the heck do you make a bad crafting system in 2017? It’s not as if there’s not a surfeit of examples showing you the right and wrong ways.