Not going to happen, and also not needed. There is already a big blue warning box displayed on all games in Early Access.

Game development is not so simple and can hit roadblocks. Roadmaps are NOT promises. They are what they plan to have reached said goal. If you purchased a game still in development under the Early Access system, and expect this and that, that is a you problem. Steam will not get involved. There are more then enough warnings, and even a notice on the games store page if the game has not received a recent update in last 6 months.

It only hurts the trust of people who do not understand what Early Access is or what they are selling under that header.

Roadmaps are 100% meaningless when it comes to EAGs. Allow me to tell you WHY.

Because you arent buying a full game. You arent buying the roadmap or anything in it.Not to mention there are plenty of AAA full release games that do not fulfill development promises.

You are buying the game as it exists at the time of purchase. Period. End of. There are no additional entitlements that go with that purchase, such as "a complete game".

If you want a complete game then you wait until the game is out of Early Access.

So you want half-finished games to be released as 1.0 with no sign of Early Access instead?

There many things I can list, but I list easier ones so you get the point.

- Act of God, no one can control, or predict when something happens in someone life.

- Financial situations which not everyone lucky to make a game that becomes a hit, which may have to take 2nd job setting away their time from working on the game.

- Major dispute with partners, meaning if dev form a group, and gave some rights to their partners, and those partners decided to spit off with those rights, or even be ass hat which causing major delay having to do workaround, or changes.

- Scammers, and trolls trying to sabotage ruin things for others.

I can list more, but if you sit to think more, you start seeing problems with your own suggestion/idea. As your suggesting is similar like others wanting to put gun to back of someone head, even if they're trying make a finish game, hence the issue call crunch time, and pressure aka bad updates, rush game content, skipping on optimizations, and etc... That why this suggestion isn't good, nor will it fly.


Note this doesn't stop people doing research, let alone stop people from leaving reviews, or warning others with proof of a there are scammers, and trolls. Also can always use report button on store if there fruad happening with proof.

Ah yes, the "I don't know anything about software development but I have ideas on how to complicate things to make myself feel better about projects I have no control over."

Also, every time I hear someone whine about "promises" kinda seems like they don't understand that not every plan and hope the developer shares is a promise or a binding contract. You want to penalize developers for revising plans? Well the simple solution for that is the developer makes no public statements about anything they want to do? Is that preferable? The developer keeping everything a secret, because that's the chilling effect you're going to get. And the fact that you're oblivious to the obvious is why your idea is absolutely DoA.

What is an Early Access game?

It does not get any CLEARER than:

"Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it DEVELOPS".

"This Early Access game is NOT COMPLETE and MAY OR MAY NOT CHANGE FURTHER. If YOU are not excited to play this game in its CURRENT STATE, then YOU should WAIT to see IF the game progresses further in DEVELOPMENT".

So the question remains is waiting a problem?

Thanks for all the comment. I got it.