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I was a designer on an early-access title named Smalland. I write this not in retaliation to my poor treatment as a developer but as a warning to the backers of this and any other early access game.

Early-access titles have surged the Steam store marking a pretty stark precedent for publishers and development teams introducing content and profiting before games are completed. When you pre-order a game, you’re paying for it upfront based on a marketing campaign or glossy pre-release trailer. Before the game releases, you have no reviews, footage from YouTube or Twitch, or other impressions to go off. The video game industry comparative every other creative industry is able to get away with this. Why? There’s an assumption on behalf of the consumer that the video game is given to them just as it was presented in the advertisements.

Using screenshots and videos that weren’t actually from the finished product (known as “bullshots”) lead to a false perception of the quality in the game. The backers of Smalland are to be sorely disappointed in finding out that the game is not at all what the concept lends it to be. Instead, it’s an empty, poorly implemented mess led by project managers lacking experience in the game development field. Of course, the backers don’t know this because all they’ve been shown is a cinematic trailer, screenshots of set design, and a photoshop mockup of my user interface.

This is not a working UI model — It’s a Photoshop mockup.

Here’s a comparison of what comparison of what is implemented into the game vs. what is shown to the public.