4 ms·

Normally I’d be pretty pissed at a game like this that’s been “coming soon!” for a decade, but I’m not, and here’s why: The developer has not taken people’s mon

Normally I’d be pretty pissed at a game like this that’s been “coming soon!” for a decade, but I’m not, and here’s why: The developer has not taken people’s money. Unlike things like Star Citizen, whatever decisions are leading to this project’s extended timeline aren’t putting backers at risk of receiving nothing if things go pear shaped. Miegakure’s developer doesn’t seem to have sought to monetize the crap out of the hype he generated in the early 2010s, and as a result I’m cool with him taking as long as he wants (or even walking away, though it would make me quite sad). [EDIT] I know Star Citizen has started “delivering” recently. I still think the way they raised money and built the game was not a good model for others to follow.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Has it only been since 2010? I could have sworn I was first hearing about Miegakure in, like, 2003.
- Impossible 5y ago
  Miegakure was first shown at GDC in 2009. The first blog entry is also April 2009, so not as early as 2003, but it definitely began development in the late 2000s. It's been at least 12 years in development
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I can't recall where I first saw it, I think it was linked by this Linux gaming site (happy penguin?), or maybe it was some gamedev site. Anyway it might have been 2009, both years seem equally forever ago to me.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      Here, perhaps? https://xkcd.com/721/ https://xkcd.com/721/
    - poetaster 5y ago
      Genius. Thanks flat guy.
Laremere 5y ago
They haven't taken consumer's money, but they're not without funding. I know they've had investment from the Indie Fund ( https://indie-fund.com/games https://indie-fund.com/games ) Though I don't know if they've had other funding sources, eg the extent of self funding. I do expect that the nature of the Indie Fund (successful artists funding other artists) has put the pressure in the correct place: Take your time and make something great. I expect other types of investment would want you to staff a larger team, not spend so much time reworking things to perfection, and get that return on investment as quickly as possible...
- Uehreka 5y ago
  That sounds fine to me. On another note, I get that the “take as long as it takes! Don’t rush!” thing is a response to companies with short-term thinking who rush unfinished buggy products, but I worry that when applied to indie creators it can lead to a kind of perfectionism that can make it difficult to release things at all. My preferred way for developers to deal with this (speaking as a consumer here) is the Early Access method: Release a stripped down MVP, people who like the idea and want more will pay money to fund development, even if development halts they at least walk away with something (so there’s risk, but it’s lower), people with suggestions will offer them and possibly buy if you implement them, you quickly figure out what the big problems are, and you can keep building steam with iterative progress. I’m sure this has backfired on some devs (perhaps a game makes a big splash at first but the iterative updates don’t bring new customers) but a lot of my favorite games of the past 10 years have been developed using this strategy or a variant of it that focuses on iteration: Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Elite Dangerous, Dyson Sphere Program and Industries of Titan to name a bunch. (Btw, if you’re into one of these games but haven’t heard of the others, check them out. Dyson Sphere Program and Industries of Titan are a couple that are particularly slept on)
  - Zhyl 5y ago
    I think the early access model lends itself better to some kinds of games than others. Survival games, such as RUST, lend themselves quite naturally to early access because it's more straightforward to create a 'complete-feeling' and compelling demonstration of the core concept, and then to expand that with further content and further systems. In something like Miegekure or the Witness a lot of the 'work' being done isn't in content creation or additional systems, but with work to the engine and other underlying tech that permeates all areas of the game. Also, a survival game or a rogue-lite game has a lot of replayability that only gets more replayable as more content and options for a single playthrough are added. A puzzle game, or a game that is very narrative intensive, has a lot of the appeal being in the first run of the game. As such, if you experience a puzzle or an encounter when the game is only in the early stages of development then a lot of the intended impact of that content is lost, never to be recovered.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

Has it only been since 2010? I could have sworn I was first hearing about Miegakure in, like, 2003.

Impossible 5y ago
Miegakure was first shown at GDC in 2009. The first blog entry is also April 2009, so not as early as 2003, but it definitely began development in the late 2000s. It's been at least 12 years in development
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I can't recall where I first saw it, I think it was linked by this Linux gaming site (happy penguin?), or maybe it was some gamedev site. Anyway it might have been 2009, both years seem equally forever ago to me.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Here, perhaps? https://xkcd.com/721/ https://xkcd.com/721/
  - poetaster 5y ago
    Genius. Thanks flat guy.

Laremere 5y ago

They haven't taken consumer's money, but they're not without funding. I know they've had investment from the Indie Fund ( https://indie-fund.com/games https://indie-fund.com/games ) Though I don't know if they've had other funding sources, eg the extent of self funding. I do expect that the nature of the Indie Fund (successful artists funding other artists) has put the pressure in the correct place: Take your time and make something great. I expect other types of investment would want you to staff a larger team, not spend so much time reworking things to perfection, and get that return on investment as quickly as possible...

Uehreka 5y ago
That sounds fine to me. On another note, I get that the “take as long as it takes! Don’t rush!” thing is a response to companies with short-term thinking who rush unfinished buggy products, but I worry that when applied to indie creators it can lead to a kind of perfectionism that can make it difficult to release things at all. My preferred way for developers to deal with this (speaking as a consumer here) is the Early Access method: Release a stripped down MVP, people who like the idea and want more will pay money to fund development, even if development halts they at least walk away with something (so there’s risk, but it’s lower), people with suggestions will offer them and possibly buy if you implement them, you quickly figure out what the big problems are, and you can keep building steam with iterative progress. I’m sure this has backfired on some devs (perhaps a game makes a big splash at first but the iterative updates don’t bring new customers) but a lot of my favorite games of the past 10 years have been developed using this strategy or a variant of it that focuses on iteration: Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Elite Dangerous, Dyson Sphere Program and Industries of Titan to name a bunch. (Btw, if you’re into one of these games but haven’t heard of the others, check them out. Dyson Sphere Program and Industries of Titan are a couple that are particularly slept on)
- Zhyl 5y ago
  I think the early access model lends itself better to some kinds of games than others. Survival games, such as RUST, lend themselves quite naturally to early access because it's more straightforward to create a 'complete-feeling' and compelling demonstration of the core concept, and then to expand that with further content and further systems. In something like Miegekure or the Witness a lot of the 'work' being done isn't in content creation or additional systems, but with work to the engine and other underlying tech that permeates all areas of the game. Also, a survival game or a rogue-lite game has a lot of replayability that only gets more replayable as more content and options for a single playthrough are added. A puzzle game, or a game that is very narrative intensive, has a lot of the appeal being in the first run of the game. As such, if you experience a puzzle or an encounter when the game is only in the early stages of development then a lot of the intended impact of that content is lost, never to be recovered.