You're amazing. Nice way to do it!
Oh absolutely, I have quite a few that just died and went nowhere. Then you've got games like you mentioned, Rust, Planet Crafter, 7 Days to Die, The Forest, Sons of the forest.... Well, I think it's kinda obvious what kind of games I like now. And most start in EA, which is fun to watch evolve. I'm definitely more picky these days though due to the small graveyard of other games that went nowhere.
It's having experiences like this with early access games that keeps me coming back. I buy them less frequently now, but I love when an indie dev does it well and then ends up earning well from it.
Gmail has something like it too with the summary bit at the top of Amazon order emails. Had one the other day that said I ordered 2 new phones, which freaked me out. It's because there were ads to phones in the order receipt email.
Ah, pulling the ol' breaking bad scene. Of course.
Oh there can be so much walking back and forth in planet crafter, which could be considered grinding in a way. It does get exhausting, but late game that's changing a bit and it's kind of part of one of the main heth meters to watch.
I want to love the idea of ark, but I'm 100% with you. I can't play every day, so it's kind of a non starter.
Been playing the heck out of planet crafter. Definitely recommend if you want a chill survival game that has some idle mechanics. Number go up while you run around dealing with other things.