Jake

sclpls, I think you are correct by and large, assuming that you are also acknowledging that no matter the wording, players buying early access games are taking a bigger risk than they would with a standard release plan.

What's there right now is only semi-relevant because part of the point with early access games is to look at what's there now, then see if the trajectory is exciting to you and seems worth the cost of admission now (and the potential exposure to a still half-baked version of an idea you see potential in) or if it would be better to wait it out and see how the game turns out definitively. If there was no early access and you were just pre-ordering the final game for $25 it would probably be seen as a reasonably fine price point. So why does getting early access make it a worse deal? Your ownership of the game doesn't go away as it's developed. Most long term pre-orders don't give you the game mid-development, they instead give you a bullshit CGI trailer and a lot of hype talk, and take it for granted that you'll believe it's all true and preorder at full price. With early access games instead of all of that garbage you get to see (and read about) the actual game as it stands now and judge for yourself. It is probably a lot to pay for what the game is today, but you're not buying today's build -- you are buying the final game and are being given alpha builds in the mean time. Early Access. If you don't want the game that is available right now, do not pay money for it. When the game hits 1.0, if it still not appealing to you don't buy it then either. If what you see now looks like you'll find it fun already, or if it looks like something with enough promise to you that you want to give the developers support, get early access

I need to listen to this episode still but that attitude as you describe it bums me out. I don't know that developers should feel the need to match other developers schedules for early access, as long as expectations are properly communicated. Prison Architect was basically nothing when it launched and they were clear about it and still developing it."Fully fleshed out game" just doesn't seem like it should be a defensible expectation for something called "early access" and labeled "alpha 1."

Is there truly a year of Waluigi on the horizon? That would be a great year. Waluigi is the worst.

What are you talking about....

I'm pretty sure it's being aggressively, sensitively sincere about things previously enjoyed only through ironic detachment.

STEAM

I don't feel that I need to watch this video as I have preordered the game before buying a 3ds.

You did it! The foundation being built upon was rotten to begin with. What you describe IS an issue of trust. Putting a man made abstraction over the content that goes directly into your brain and then claiming that it's real life seems like about the most dangerous thing you could ever tell yourself. Your own eyes come with your body, the same as everyone else's. You don't have full control over them, the same as everyone else, but it's a guarantee that nobody else has control over what they see, or where they look, and nobody else can see through them. The world you describe is built to be the opposite -- one where your eyes are built by, maintained by, and therefore editorialized by a third party, under the (therefore inherently false) pretense of putting you in control of your sensory life experience. That seems like some sort of intense 1984-style doublespeak situation. Sacrificing all privacy and the ability to be alone in the name of convenient access to a more personalized life (which is being passively, artificially limited and shaped by the goals of your chosen content provider) is everything wrong with the current crop of social network life filtering tools, so bringing that closer to direct control over how my brain actively perceives the world is about the worst thing I could imagine.

Oh that's odd. Good to know!

It's not an engineering issue. The system can already play all of those audio formats because developers use them in their game. The limitation is artificial, in the OS. They just don't want end users to be able to put content on the system that they didn't purchase through the system.

Yes! I forgot.

Idle Thumbs 129: A Reminder You're presented with two doors, and can only enter one. The choice seems simple but before you know it you've spent an hour in a psychosomatic tornado, endlessly circling around a subject you think you can grasp in full, only to realize you've been off on a tangent the entire time. This is The Stanley Parable. This is this week's podcast. This is a reminder. Games Discussed: The Stanley Parable, The Stanley Parable, The Stanley Parable, The Stanley Parable Demo Listen on the Episode Page Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Nobody has really noticed the mod made for recent streams.

Basically you're saying that the only place goatse exists is inside our own minds, projected onto unassuming objects.

I think all tone control episodes are spoiler filled.

Day of the Devs was great! I saw a guy in an idle thumbs shirt and said "that's a great shirt!!! you are the best!!!" and he said "yeah," and went over to look at SpyParty.

Pff. I wouldn't say it's the only reason.

We love the nonsense. It was us being self conscious about the same 3 non-surprise games of Chris Spelunky Jake Mario 3D Land Nick Dota.

"Sir it appears this alternate universe was created entirely from what we call DCRs, or 'Deep Cut References.'"

Yeah we'll talk about it on next week's show.

That totally makes sense, thanks for explaining that history/etymology. Did it evolve into streaming for entertainment within the WoW era as well or did that come later?

Had you guys posted this last week, Thumbs would have been all Q&A.

oh shit