I don't see a post about the game, and based on my experience with it and the numbers, it may be because half of you are playing it right now. Game went to the top of Steam's sales list on Day 1, which is impressive, because that list is by volume of revenue, and it displaced CounterStrike 2, the Steam Deck, and Helldivers 2. So, an early access game on sale for $29.99 on the first day made more money than CS2 skins, Helldivers 2, or the Steam Deck. Top concurrent players was in the 160K range, and the game had 3 million wishlists on launch day.
The game is excellent. Imagine if Banished and one of the earlier Total War games had a child, and that child married the offspring of Age of Empires and Cities Skylines and had kids of their own. There's seasonality, you have to plan ahead when you produce food-- but you don't have to micromanage-- and traffic is taken into account, so the more traffic a road sees, the wider and deeper the ruts get. You can double up families in housing if you lay the plots out correctly, and cottage industry can produce food and export goods.
And the game was developed by one guy. He contracted out some work (the music is stellar, and the voicework is atmosphere building), but this is a 7 year passion project from one guy.
Owned the game a day, have played almost 10 hours. 11/10, quintuple A game from one turbo autist with a dream.
I get it. I just see it as an investment in the kind of gaming ecosystem I want to see.
Haven't felt burned yet. The forest, m&b, rimworld, kerbal, subnautica. All yielded enough hours in not sour in the ones that didn't work out
Yeah those titles you mentioned bore fruit, but there have been many other projects there remained on perpetual early access (Hellish Quart is another fine example of a promising game selling well before its even finished, thus the devs lack the "encouragement" to actually finish the damn game)
i'd rather wait, and play a polished/finished product than be a "tester" to play early, regardless its just a matter of preference really
if i'm still unsure about it, again play-test it on the "one-eyed" sites and then decide if the game is "finished enough" for me to dip into the early access plan
because as you just said, its an investment.