Exactly. You're trying to put a value on another person's time. You simply can't do that.
Hmmm.... I dunno.
Spend 1 hour now learning a module that's 40% complete and is almost guaranteed to change drastically during development
Spend 1 hour later learning a module that's 80% complete....
I think it's clear to see how one has more value than another.
I've already done so in the past, you probably didn't accept it because it was contrary to your points.
You do know that saying
"I've already done so" isn't exactly the same as giving proof, right? Please be so kind as to link me to these instances you claim to have done as you say you did.
And I didn't accuse anyone of doing so.
Then why bring it up? Nobody was talking about creating or popularizing pre-orders until you brought it up. The issue here isn't about the fact that ED offers items on pre-order, the issue here is ED and their track record of their products and how they're abusing the pre-order system.
You have to look at things industry wide to determine what is good, bad, normal or abnormal. You claim ED is doing a terrible job overall. But how is that possible if we don't compare it to other companies with similar products?
Yes. Compare ED to Frontier, Laminar Research, 1C/777, HBS, etc. etc. Heck, you don't even have to do that! ED fails by ED's own metrics! Having to
"promise" a release date because your customers no longer take you seriously? Stating a 1-2 week gap between open beta and full release and missing that deadline by miles? Admitting to a memory leak then no, it's a memory allocation? Heck, compare your Persian Gulf performance vs. your Black Sea performance numbers? Is the building pop-up in Hormuz as bad as in Nevada or Normandy or Caucasus?
I'm doing the same in regard to Early Access. You can't complain about Early Access without looking at the industry as a whole. Complaining to one small developer who didn't allow the practice to become acceptable in the first place won't accomplish much if anything. You're going to have to make the model so toxic that all the small developers follow along. Can ED really be bad, slow or substandard if many other games follow the same business model?
The business model of pre-orders is fine and I've stated that I even supported that model at least twice in recent game releases, so the industry as a whole and pre-orders as a whole is fine. It's when ED does it that it becomes an issue for reasons cited ad nauseam.
Not really, there are a number of other games that come to mind easily.
None of which you've named but sure, let's add those games to the pile. The fact that they exist does not excuse ED's actions.
