Let me say right from the start that I have nothing to do with the development or marketing of We happy Few. I have no contact with any entities associated with making or publishing this game. But this is really getting out of hand.
This week Microsoft’s new early access program started(May God have Mercy on their souls). In that we got a few games that are in EARLY ACCESS(this means they are not done). One of these is We Happy Few which is still in early ALPHA. Which means in this case that over 50% of the game is not finished or in the build that was sent out for people to play on XBOX LIVE and Steam.
Most game journalists, I would imagine, would be familiar with this concept as they do get preview builds of games and are shown such builds at trade shows(behind closed doors, no less). But this week we had a glut of journalists decide that We Happy Few was not only not worth their time but was misleading it’s audience. Really? Because they aren’t showing a part of the game that they admit isn’t even included in the preview build? Because their are problems with a game that probably won’t be launched for another year? Really? I would say that the only “problem” I have with the way that We Happy Few was handled was the fact that they want to charge for access to the early access part of the game. You get to play a preview portion on XBOX but you must pay for any access on Steam. But this is normal for Steam and apparently this is what Microsoft is trying to do on XBOX ONE. So I can’t really criticize.
Most of the press haven’t played more than a few minutes of this game, not read anything more about it than the initial press release and written it off as some kind of failure. This certainly doesn’t bode well for anyone else making a high profile Early Access title. If I were a developer I would NEVER let my game be seen this early by press or public just because neither one seems to be able to handle it.
What I think is most ridiculous is only one person in the press, Jim Sterling(who is VERY ACQUINTED with Early Access games) was able to actually explain everything that was going on and that he was glad that they had so much time to fix the game before it actually came out. I will post his video below. He is a contributor to the game both monetarily and he does some voice acting for it. Which I’m sure will keep his opinion from being taken seriously by most people. Which it should! He is certainly better informed and has a much better video than any other outlet.
It never ceases to amaze me what levels of laziness and unprofessionalism that can be reached by the current crop of video game coverage outlets. These people literally have hundreds of thousands of people standing in line for their jobs and they treat said jobs as if they were doing an independent study class for high school. Show up, do the least required of you and get out as early as possible. Thanks… I really appreciate all your hard work…
Oh yeah, Thank God for Jim Sterling….
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