Devs should not be "forced to run on a treadmill until their mental or physical health breaks", says publisher of Manor Lords, citing how gamers seem to be trained to expect endless content work now
Devs should not be "forced to run on a treadmill until their mental or physical health breaks", says publisher of Manor Lords, citing how gamers seem to be trained to expect endless content work now
Manor Lords' publisher has hit back at claims the game is an "interesting case study in the pitfalls of early access", …
This really does not sound healthy. The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don't like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
But by now gamers have been so trained to expect to endless content treadmills and all their ilk like mtx and battle passes that publishers/developers get egged on if they don't work on their game 24/7 and forever.
Until they ditch the "live service" model, this will continues. How many big title games today are really sold in a complete no BS state where DLC actually means extra contents? No much I guess.
That stems from the revenue model, and not by gamers.
I feel like Paradox games falls into this category, problem is everyone is so used to playing the okder title with all of the dlc that people feel the new title is barebones and unfinished.
Definitely. Age of Wonders 4 was awesome to play at launch, but it definitely feels more "complete" now that all 4 DLCs are out. It feels like it was clearly hacked to pieces to be sold separate.
Minecraft falls squarely in this category. I paid 15$ some 12 years ago and am still getting a yearly update for free.
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc... I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
I'm not crying for Mojang/Microsoft but I can't imagine how it feels to be an indie dev and have people shit on you because the work you do for free is not good enough.
Minecraft is a special case. They promise a lot and what we got is a version of the game that's microtransaction hell. Texture packs, mods, maps, etc all cost outrageous amounts of money in the console/windows10 version of the game. The community is mad because they're clearly spending way more money on making content for the store than doing any actual updates for the game. The most we get is something like a new mob every six months...
And yet if you go in the MC community, one of the most common complaints people have is that the updates are never enough and the Devs are lazy etc... I guess this goes to the point of this article, people can easily be trained to have unrealistic expectations.
Tbh I think a big part of the problem is Mojang's failure to communicate with it's players, less so the lack of features being added.
I’d almost love if games were released and getting no updates after that. But only if the games are released in a complete state.
I hate the fact that you shouldn’t play some games as soon as they are released, because you’d be playing the inferior version.
That needs to change.
Eh, EA can certainly be a problem, but it's also an incredibly useful resource for devs operating in good faith, opening up the field for talent that would otherwise be priced out of making a game at all. Personally, I'm ok ignoring money grabs if it means the barrier of entry for resource starved talent is lowered.
Yeah same. I mean EA is a bet and you can't expect to win every bet ever. Just don't wager money you'd miss if it was completely lost.
Manor Lords is early access. At least one patch is to be expected. And of course the publisher is absolutely right. If my memory serves me well one dev developed the game all on his own so far and the challenge of meeting expectations after being a massive success is huge. Hiring more people to get developments going is likely necessary but expanding takes time. Some players have unrealistic expectations in general but even more so when it comes to small indie productions.
I just had flashbacks to Dead State. It was a AA title written by one of the guys from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines so I was watching it closely during development.
Suddenly, it went from EA to full release. I was surprised, but picked it up without reading many reviews.
I enjoyed the game and put maybe 15 hours into it, but then I had to move and had to pack up my PC for a few weeks. By the time I got settled and booted it up, it had gotten a massive patch which fixed a ton of bugs, filled in missing content like item descriptions and a bunch of other polish that would typically be done during pre-launch.
Meanwhile, one of the devs had gotten into a high profile pissing match with the community over accusations they had rushed it out the door. I normally try to sympathize with devs over a reactive community, but I couldn't help feel like I got punished for buying the game at launch and experiencing those relatively non-replayable opening hours in a non-optimal (Dead) state.
There used to be an unspoken contract with game developers and gamers:
- "I'll release a finished game that you will never need to talk to me again if you don't want to, and you can play it on any offline computer that meets the minimum specs. You will pay $X one-time for this and expect $0 spent on this game ever again"
- "I may release an expansion pack for this game at some point in the future. It will usually cost 10% to 30% of what you paid for the original game. You are NOT required to buy this. If you like the original game the way it is, keep playing it that way. If you are a new player, you will have to buy the base game and then the expansion pack to play expansion pack content"
- "I may, in the future, release a stand-alone sequel to the game. This game will have the same themes as the original, but I will increase the quality of the graphics/length of story/sound. You will NOT be required to buy the original game or the expansion packs to play this game. You will pay full price for this finished game"
Somewhere that evolved into shipping unfinished games, subscription based games, battlepasses, endless DLC, loot boxes, and forced online connections for single player games.
The game studios broke the contract. If they want endless money, that comes with endless work.
Because it is a much safer investment to send out a 50% costed demo to see if you can break into the market then trickle out updates to make up the rest of the cost
If your demo doesn’t land then you’ve saved half the cost of a full project that would fail anyway
Good luck trying to win market share with a half baked game.
That's why I'm really glad to see Hooded Horse and Greg Styczeń have this mindset, and that they're actually speaking out against the GaaS mentality. They're going back to the unspoken contract and saying the current status quo is stupid.
The headline is poorly chosen. They aren't saying that studios should be earning endless money without work. They're saying the GaaS model to try and earn endless money is putting devs on a treadmill, and that this shouldn't be the case.
I hope to see more like this going forward. I don't think gamers nor developers are a fan of GaaS trying to stay constantly relevant.
While I agree with this for bigger game companies the problem is people apply the attitude of deserving infinite content to smaller games as well even if they don't participate in all the things you talked about. For example with Manor Lord the only thing from what was listed that might apply is it being unfinished since it's in early access. And while that does come with an expectation of more content the speed people expect it at is wrong especially since this game is basically being made by one person.
And while that does come with an expectation of more content the speed people expect it at is wrong especially since this game is basically being made by one person.
I appreciate the solo developer, and that they are doing most everything else right, but he opened this can of worms because he sold early access. He could have chosen to wait until the game was finished to release it, but I imagine wanted the money up front from early access to help finance the development.
If you release unfinished, you open yourself up to your customers wanting it finished, and also wanting a say in how it gets developed. I'm not saying he doesn't have a right to sell via early access, but he brought this on himself.
Exactly and now they found that doesn't work, they're blaming the consumer, again, for things that are their own fault.
Agreed.
The contract was broken as soon as devs and publishers started pushing the digital download lies, because if you buy the game digitally they wont have to pay for shipping, boxes, manuals, cds, storage, etc etc etc, so the games will cost less and the devs/pubs will still manage to make more money on it than they ever would have otherwise!
and now we have 70-80 dollar charges for the standard, base version of games, with triple digits for the super mega special elite deluxe ultra edition. And you don't even get to own the fucking game, cause sony and ubisoft have both shown zero issue with going into your account and removing things you've bought.
You highlight another point in the unspoken contract:
- "After you buy the game, you can play it for as long as you own it with $0 additional dollars spent. At any point in the future you're welcome to sell your copy of the game for whatever someone will pay you for it. That new buyer will be able to play the game forever paying $0 additional dollars."
That's gone too.
and now we have 70-80 dollar charges for the standard, base version of games
Keep in mind that games have cost $60 for fucking ages, regardless of inflation.
Games Are Cheaper* Than They’ve Ever Been | Extra Credits Gaming
Games Should Not Cost $60 Anymore - Inflation, Microtransactions, and Publishing - Extra Credits (6 years old)
The game is released, for a certain amount of money. If people don’t like what they get for their money, they simply should not buy it.
The problem does not lie with gamers. It lies with 'AAA' developers who publish unplayable cashgrabs that need years of bugfixing before reaching a playable state, thus leading to expectations of ongoing development. Not that Early Access has helped in that regard.
Oh I meant that, that's why I worded it that way.
If someone complains about buying a finished game and not getting more of it later, they're idiots and there's nothing you can do but ignore them.
Publishers that do ultra-early access/roadmaps/live services with promises of content/bug fixes/trust me we're making the rest of the game later, are clearly to blame for the mess too. They're the ones poisoning the well.
But plenty of games release in a final state and that's okay. They have to be firm about it though.
It's a tough line to walk. You want to create reasonable hype and you have an idea where you want to go, but as you correctly point out, it's really easy to over promise and under deliver.
I think part of the problem is down to how a lot of games come out as "Early Access" which implies it's more bare bones and will get fleshed out over time.
If a game releases as EA then the expectation is you will get more content until release, if a game just comes out without EA then it's assumed it has all content and anything new is dlc/mtx/expansions.
I'm not gonna bother addressing Live Service games, wish they would go in the bin with most other MTX.
Absolutely. I will never buy another Early Access game - it's buying something that is clearly unfinished, and you the player never get a second chance at the first impression. There's too many other games to expect us to come back and try it again once there's more content and the bugs are ironed out.
I'm not against early access as a whole, if devs want to get player feedback earlier on in the life cycle and players are happy to be pseudo testers then it's fine.
I get some people would rather wait and buy when it's finished, and some studiosd/devs would rather bypass EA and just release the game outright, but I feel both paradigms can exist as long as both parties (devs/consumers) continue to benefit.
I just want to buy a game that's actually finished. Early Access has ruined that first play experience.
I swore off early access after Phoenix Point. It sucks to already be bored with a game before it has the major kinks worked out.
Dead Cells is kind of a counterpoint, though. I'm not sure if I got it as "early access" per se, but since I bought it, they made some major balance changes that completely changed the meta, and those changes got me playing way more enthusiastically than I was before.
Few games do it well, and I suspect we are getting those games because of early access. Other games exploit it, they can get fucked
Spend years releasing unfinished and incomplete work.
Gamers expect work to be unfinished and incomplete.
🫵
Thank you for all the free updates ConcernedApe. I hope you're enjoying your time with your millions and if/when you release the Haunted Chocolatier I'll get that too. You're great and your game is great.
The article says that comment came from a CEO of another game company, not players. Tim Bender, the CEO of the publisher for The Manor Lord, said "Players are happy, the developer is happy, and we as publisher are thrilled beyond belief." I don't understand where the post title that says he cited gamer expectations came from.
Game Publishers: complains about how users expect endless content
Also Game Publishers: Mostly pushes for live service games and Free-to-Play
surprisedpikachu.gif
Alternatively
Game Publishers: Release unfinished game that gets horrid backlash until they work overtime to patch it to a slightly more playable hell, get caught in an update loop, game inadvertantly becomes live service.
Sometimes, it works out (No Man's Sky)
Most of the time it ends up shovelware, though.
is Manor Lords live service? seems like they're arguing against the notion that every game must be live service.
I was speaking of the gaming industry as a whole. I know very little about this developer. Perhaps they're one of the good ones swept up in unfortunate-ness.
No, but it is still Early Access.
see elsewhere: doubt about whether all game publishers are the same
Not saying they are. Just the ones that are the biggest and make the most money
Sorry, but I for one am not going to accept these companies blaming everything on gamers. I'm not into bootlicking. Gamers are annoying af for sure, but I'm not blaming systemic industry problems on gamers. That's complete horseshit.
Who are "these companies"? Game publishers and developers certainly aren't a monolith. To me, this publisher's complaint seems like an implicit critique of how big publishers have trained gamers to have expectations that are unrealistic for all but the most high-profile games.
There are a lot of articles like this one lately saying Gamers don't appreciate the products we're given and that we complain too much. Those companies. All of them. Manor Lords is still Early Access on steam. If the developer can't be bothered to develop his unfinished game while taking our money then that's on him, not us.
Neither are gamers. They aren't a monolith either. This article smacks of the "millennials kill billion dollar industry " nonsense. There's definitely mitigating factors on both sides as far as the expectations during such transactions. When I pay for something that is promised to be complete I have an expectation in my mind that it will be completed. If it's an early access beta, I spent the money to support that product and developer.
However a lot of developers big and small have engendered this reaction because they fall victim to the hype train. They market the game. People are interested. People's interest begins to wain because the game is taking too long (cyber punk), or the company doesn't want to lose the hype wave so they release even though the game isn't finished (no mans sky, and cyber punk honestly), and this is what we get. On the other hand, we see the backlash that happens when games get canceled by larger studios. And we see smaller studios constantly miss their launch windows or expected release dates with little to no contact with the fan base or the public (Team Cherry/silksong).
It doesn't matter if you're an indie developer or a triple A studio, what most gamers want is a complete game at launch, or (in the case of an alpha/beta release) updates.
A vocal minority is being shitty here and the article is acting as if gamers are just getting together to hold developers big and small's feet to the coals or something.
A good game will stand on its own merits. It will be complete and self-contained at launch. And any DLC released later will have been planned from the very start.
Endless updates is just another word for cosmetic micro-transactions and an excuse to make you keep the game online all the time.
Meanwhile Terraria: "So we are releasing this last final update, but you can expect bugfixes for the next two years, and a last last final, followed by finally last last final updates in the following two quarters"
Before you throw stones be advised that this team is like 5 people at most, the game just blew up and some gamers are giving it the Valheim treatment wanting faster and faster updates.
Such a childish take expecting AAA speed from tiny homebrew dev teams imo. Obviously progress is going to come slower in most instances, they don't have a tiny island nation's worth of man power to throw. That and, I'm sorry, if my homebrew passion project blows up stupid big when I go for early access for seed money / water testing, I promise you I will be taking time off to celebrate the accomplishment.
This shit is a grind. Lots of dedication over a long period of time. Go on, hit that resort life for a minute, you earned it. Come back and finish up when you get some r&r. 🤙
Obviously still expecting progress down the line, but if I'm supporting early access I know what I'm getting into. Indie scene is where the love is, but it's ma & pa shit. Plus there's thousands of other ways to waste my time, I'll check back in later if I'm bored with the game's current build.
Waiting sucks, but chill. Save outrage for where it really matters, like genuinely shitty devs. Juuust my pocket change. 🙌
Sounds like a management issue, how is the guy paying for the services gets shitted on here
I also don't understand why I am being scolded by a guy I paid 30 bucks too for alpha testimg...
I never complained.
I don't think it is targeted at you or me. Ofc there are some gamers out there that would be whipping the dev given the chance.
But the main issue seems to be unrealistic and poorly managed expectations. From management, devs themselves and gamers.
I think the silent majority knows what they are getting into and understand sometimes you buy a melon, but mostly devs just take longer than people want.
Never preorder. Never surrender.
Sadly this even has evolved into never buy at launch
I've seen people say 'I played forza for 150 hours and now it's boring"
Like dude, wtf
and they get offended if you tell them to go play a different game, then.
Cause some of these idiots out there, I swear to god, act like the game they are currently playing is the only game in the world, until the next new hotness that catches their attention comes out, then that will be the only game in the world.
The dev seems to have a good publisher that's on their side, which is nice to see. I find it bizarre that this rebuttal comes in response to the CEO of Hinterland Studios, the devs of Long Dark, which was in early access itself for ages. Dunno if they think they're above it all now, but you'd think they would at least be sympathetic of devs facing that kind of shit. Probably just CEO saying CEO shit. Hopefully the Manor Lords dev doesn't let it get to them much, or at all.
Why only devs though? No worker should be exploited like that, no matter the occupation!
A lot of gamers use the term "devs" colloquially when a lot of the blame for many of the evils of modern gaming should actually go to management and publishers.
If workers only made unfinished parts and products and complained that consumers don't appreciate it enough, then that would be a serious problem. This dev is complaining that people badger him on how to improve and finish his game while still selling it as Early Access on Steam.
Generally speaking it’s impossible to define a standard for how much output is “enough” for a developer.
Management always wants to extract as much as possible.
Well actually there is something of a standard:
Manor Lords is sold as Early Access. Meaning it doesn't reach the "enough."
Excellent write up by the publisher and good that they warned Greg of the shit storm ahead.
I bought it, played it. It was already fun. The patches fixed some of the issues that made playing it not fun.. so good choices there. I left him some small feedback on the game and some words of encouragement in the hopes that helps.
I hope he can continue his development to deliver his vision for the game. I feel like I got my moneys worth already and I'll spin it up when the next series of updates are done.
Till that time I just saw Timberborn (another one of these jewels) had a cool update so I'll go and try that or one of the mysiad of other cool Early Access games that still receive a lot of love.
Going Medieval is another colony sim, more akin to Rimworld, but it's constantly getting updates and patches. They're almost done with their roadmap.
I don't know if this recaps the situation accurately, to be honest.
Sounds like the publisher is complaining about some article that's trying to use the game as a reference on why early access can be a bad thing.
I don't see how the gamers are an issue though. They will expect what you tell them to expect, this is something for the publisher to manage, and I don't even think this is a problem for Manor Lords.
All of it just seems like news sites trying to come up with their clicks.
I don't want a fucking endless game I want a finished game for the price I pay at release that doesn't require $3000 gpu to render the most obnoxiously detailed graphics of a game that has the fucking depth of mine sweeper.
Especially with this game, where the dev and publisher have actively worked to manage expectations before early access. That it’s not at all complete yet. There were so many people super hyped, comparing it to total war and what not. So they made it clear this game is on another scale.
If it had been the other way around, if they had hyped up the game like crazy and made huge promises about the post EA launch content, then yeah, it would be a failure.
And I suppose in practice it also would’ve been a “failure” if they hadn’t managed expectations, due to the hype and the general expectation from post launch content these days… (sigh)But what we got is exactly what was promised, so what on earth is that Hinterland guy talking about.
Good thing I double-checked to see if someone else made this point yet.
Yeah. Not only that, but the splash screen when you launch the game makes it incredibly clear that it's one guy called Greg (very humanizing) and he's working on it, but he's not some superhero.
Riiiight... it's the users of the product that is forcing the producers to work under toxic conditions, and totally not their money-grubbing capitalist bosses.
Riiiight.
Very reasonable, I hope the dev sticks to his guns and keeps a manageable pace. I feel that it's right to expect content updates coming in if the game is marked early access, but so long as you don't pull a Valheim, people shouldn't be mad at you
I don't care about extra content, it is a welcome addition for games with long-term support like Stardew Valley. If the dev and publisher have a lot of money I do expect long-term bug fixing.
I felt this way about Back 4 Blood. The game came out, it was genuinely fun and had a good amount of content, and they added DLC that expanded the game while also not ruining things for anyone who hasn’t installed it.
But there was an unending cry from gamers that it was getting “abandoned”. You can still gather 4 players, or fewer with bots, and have a good time. It’s a different appeal from Left 4 Dead with the card system, and that was fine to me.
Agreed. I think it was an OK game but that doesn't mean that the devs should work to their death to make it totally what I or other people think it should be.
I'm kind of confused about the whole early access thing and why devs do it. Is it to get support and funding to finish the project?
Basically, yeah. If your game is in a playable state, launching in early access allows devs to get feedback from the community, who help shape the game all the way to the full release. Generally EA games are discounted, with the expectation that it isn't finished or polished, full of bugs, etc.
Adding to the other reply to this: You can get natural growth of fans and wishlists, you can get free media attention so your brand/gamename grows in popularity, you can receive enthusiasm from randoms about work you have been keeping to yourself for a while, which can help motivate. I mean I'm super hyped about my own videogame project, but having other people be hyped about it is very rewarding :-). I used to shun early access until they became 1.0, because I got burnt a couple times. But If the dev(s) are transparent and communication is ok, I don't really care anymore for the same reason as this dev is pointing out: "It's done when it's done" is good enough in 95% of the cases for me.
I'm dabbling in game development myself, and that's part of why I asked the question originally- I'd be terrified to put something out there for the public if I wasn't already confident it was ready. Early access seems like a double-edged sword. But you list some good points about the benefits of doing so.
By the way, I am interested to hear about your game project if you would like to share some details.
AFAIK u get a half release before to get some attention and media/youtubers coverage and people to test your game and make suggestions.
Then you get another release when exiting EA (notifies whishlist and steam gives boosts visibility to released games for a short while and it gets extended if it goes well)
Weird post. I thought we were all aware of the enshitification in gaming, they had a head start on the rest of the tech industry.
The other day I saw a Developer that was sad people don't like the new Fable commercial. I was interested so I watched it and it's some Mulan/Captain Marvel cookie cutter plot where the entire commercial is some dude singing the praises for a random woman (presumably the playable character), and then an evil smoky hand holding an evil wizard staff appears on screen for like 2 seconds. For all we know that female MC could be literally Hitler, we were told absolutely nothing about the game, setting, or characters except that the narrator is a retired hero. They have no depth or motivations.
Hopefully it was just a damn awful trailer and not the death of the series.
I had to go watch it. You're not wrong, it tells you absolutely nothing about the game. Everything looked per-rendered. It reminded me a lot of the Beyond Good and Evil 2 trailer from 2017... where it could just as easily be a CGI movie than a video game.
The dude was talking about the antagonist and not the playable character. That’s why the playable character says “She’s back” at the end. Also it was just a teaser trailer to remind us that the game still exist and to show some gameplay. It was definitely not a commercial to sell the game to us. The development is probably no where near finished.
There was zero gameplay in the trailer, except for maybe a walking animation, but I admit I missed the nuance of them describing the antagonist while a bunch of scenes of not-that-person flashed inbetween dialogue.
Storywriting needs to come before all other aspects of a narrative driven RPG like the Fable titles. The development being ongoing is no excuse for that. The only time I can think of that story changes to an ongoing development resulted in a decent product was FFX and maybe the movie Emperor's New Groove but at the same time it's hard not to feel like we were robbed of the story it could have been.
I don't want the devs to kill themselves for a game, obviously. I don't think anyone does. People just want content updates for a property they love. In an industry that lays off people after they ship a game or starts work immediately on the franchise yearly $70 sequel, I just want a game developer that does better than that. That's why the whole world waited patiently for the follow up to the GOTY of 2022 with Shadow of the Erdtree. Elden Ring didn't get a ton of free content updates in that time, they didn't make it a live service or offer mtx, and they didn't pump out their massive expansion in an unreasonable time frame. They built an incredible game and incredible world, and then they continued development on the game they had poured their hearts into for years and spent the time they needed to create the expansion the game deserved, and at a reasonable price.
I remember a few games which didn't require such sacrifices from developers.
Some even commercial. Like NWN, with people making their own campaigns without, you know, any effort spent by the developers of the game itself.
Of course when the business model is milking players and making it problematic (either technically or by paradigm) to satisfy interest with community-made modifications, then all the load is on the devs or else the game becomes irrelevant. Well, guess whose fault that is.
Don't take early access money if you don't plan to be giving frequent updates. It's the nature of the beast.
People don't expect constant updates from pokemon because when you buy it, it's "a complete game". They may drop patches and add content but it's not expected the way it is from a game supposedly in active development like an early access game is.
Nah screw that.. don't buy early access games if you don't think it's worth it in it's current state.
Both are true though.
If you want to release your game in Early Access, you should expect to update the game and community frequently.
If you want to buy a game (early access or not), take a look if it's what you want to play right now, never buy any game, software, service or device that is promising the functionality you want will be coming later. If it does come later, buy it then, never buy on promises.
Naw screw that. Don't label it early access if you don't plan to update it from its current state at a rate that the majority of your fan base expects.
That said the dev in this article has provided 3 updates in 3 months. They're totally fine by the expectations of all but the most unreasonable people.
How long should they be forced to walk on a treadmill for, then?
PC/Console games take massive amounts of man hours to make and as I see it the point of Early Access is to give smaller Indie Developers the funds to hire more people and get the entire game made in an achievable time frame (though some of these things still take almost a decade to get there).
It's a bit like Kickstart, but for Early Access there needs to be enough of a product to appeal to gamers (and hence quite some time invested into creating it up to that point, plus a decent idea and an actual game play which is deep enough and has at least a good enough basis of gameplay design that it's actually fun to play), which also means scams are far less likely because just getting the game all the way to a level that qualifies it for Early Access is already quite the investment in time and possibly money plus worse comes to worse and the developer stops development immediately after caching in with Early Access, buyers still got themselves immediatelly a small game at a cheap price, though not the "dream" full game they were promised they would eventually get.
Remove 'gamers' and insert 'bloated management'.
Is it bloated management who complains on social media and forums?
Gamers are not asking devs to work until burnout on social media or forums, that's management and usually in person or department/company policy and procedure.
Edit: more specifically to the article for solo devs they are talking about critics complaining they should have made something bigger which is not a bad problem to have for securing funding for future games if people like your art enough to request more and doesn't require working burnout hours.
Every single aspect of video game development is trash. From executives to absurdly whiney and entitled gamer population.
It depends on the game. If I buy a game from a smaller publisher I expect it to be a complete work with full story line. Unfortunately... When I buy from a large publisher I expect to be getting a ¾ complete game that will give me expansion packs.
This isn't the case with Nintendo games though. I feel like and Nintendo game is just done and any extras are... Extra.
Read back what you just wrote, and go for a walk to let it brew for a bit.
Why the fuck would anyone slave their only life away, for any employer?
I'm not saying anyone should work without pay. I'm saying that with the way publishers release games I expect AAA releases to be unfinished works at this point.