Off-Topic Discussions

There is not much to say about the ideas of developers and publishers to get more money for less content in shorter time. DLC, F2P, Early Access, MMO, Season Pass you know the stuff.

But this thing is absolutely, fantastic. It's brand new released on steam named "Graphics Builder", you know a while ago Valve started to sell even software on Steam so you might think about another game creating software but: You're wrong.

The "Graphics Builder" has nothing to do with building graphics. Instead it's a collection of arts. Images, pictures. On sale for 144€ and if even that isn't worth a smile. The developers stated it as "Early access".

Steam store link:
Link

(I really consider requesting a trainer for this...)

O.o um what a waste of money.

Looks like a crappier version of Photoshop bundled with copyleft images from the internet. Can achieve the same with GIMP and Google for free.

They also have reached a crowd funding campaign before they start selling it on Steam. Don't get me wrong I think it might be very useful for indie developers as they dont have to spend that much time on making graphics but the whole package is kind of.. interesting. And it's also interesting that Valve allows these kind of things on Steam.

What can you expect, Valve charges developers/publishers 30% of every copy sold on Steam, so why stop crap like this getting released on Steam if it gets them money? I see nothing wrong with this as they are not forcing you to buy it.

Yeah. I just wish it wasent hald . Then it would be worth it. The folk that probably will buy it is those that just think its neat but those are the ones that are slightly out of wack. For that amount of dosh I would expect to be able to create something productive other than images. But then again am moody and complaining.

In my eyes the quality makes the difference. I don't care about the price or the collection of images. It's the bundle, the "all together" which is in my eyes questionable. Giving the fact that a collection of images are being sold as "Graphic builders" (Why the hell did they choose that name?) as EARLY ACCESS for 150 bucks even if they are crowed funded?

The argument of "Nobody forces you to buy" is always valid. But it's not point of this discussion. It's not the product itself, it's the way of (how) this is on sale. And what comes next.

First of all, you make money due to crowed funding. Now you put your unfinished product on Steam which gets listed on the newest releases (that is not allowed for early access [games]) with a misleading title for a high price which is more than most indie developers can pay for a few assets. What might happen is that other developers seeing this and start doing the same. The result is that the steam market is flooded by overall unfinished products. And if it's getting worse you end up by a product like "Sang-Froid" which stopped updating for a year although it's "in development".

By the amount of customers Valve have they also have a great responsibility and should have a kind of quality control or customer protection for these products. Because there is clearly a trend which points into the wrong direction.

If Valve tries to do some "Quality control", they'd need more staff for it in the first place = More investments. And then these products will be sold from another platform earning their competitors more market share. So why would Valve compromise market share and furthermore invest more into it? They already have a review feature that is helpful to customers before they go and buy. And if you're going to be a unwise customer (Not researching enough before making a big purchase like this), no matter how good their quality control is, you are going to end up buying something you'd soon regret.

[Edited by HonestGamer, 5/9/2014 2:22:46 AM]