There is no amount of transparency that would cause me to buy a game before it's been out long enough for me to watch a few random "let's play" videos from reasonably far into the game. Everything released about a game before it's out is manufactured PR hype, and even on release game reviewers at best might not share your tastes, and at worst are completely retarded and fucking the developer. User reviews can also be from morons, and suffer from selection bias- people buy games they like. The last X4 expansion has great reviews on steam, but that's because everyone with standards got driven away years ago.

A few random minutes from a couple of different let's play series at hour 50+ is the only thing I really value to judge a game. That or pirating it.

I don't care about unreleased games anymore. They never release on time anyway and even when they release it takes around a year until they're mostly bug free and fully released (DLC and all that).

I generally wait until around 6 months after the latest patch. By then the game should either be stable or won't receive anymore changes, at least for singleplayer games. With pure mutliplayer games you kinda have to play them while they're new.

Depends on the game honestly:

If it's a standard game, launches at full price then might get dlc, I'd like to see demos, gameplay stream but being honest I can wait for others and join a week or so later.

If it's a live service whether free to play or not, I'd like there to be monthly devstreams at least, so I know they are still developing the game, making improvements and addressing issues. You sign up to do a live service, you better commit.

Enough for what? To buy it? Preorder it?

If its delayed its delayed, I don't care as long as they post some progress still being made that it isn't abandoned entirely.

If its Early Access then I need to see considerable work being done semi-regularly. A game that went on to be one of the top games ever, Against the Storm, had weekly patches that were substantial during its EA period and at least half of them were noted as community feedback ones. AKA exactly what EA is supposed to be for.

Either way, a whole lot of transparency is good for making me feel more comfortable with certain smaller companies doing things haphazardly, like a Thing Trunk dev talking about getting autistically into making a new game mode in his spare time that can't be released. While I'm bummed how far back they've pushed their next game, little things like that let me know that there is still passion there and it'll happen eventually.

For major companies, a delay is often a sign of mismanagement and crunch, both of which make the game seem less likely to be good and needing considerable time after release to iron out.

Holy crap, a good discussion question.

The "transparency" I need is a trackable development log that keeps it readable for us non-programming mortals.

Their "community manager" shouldn't just be some random cunt with a marketing degree, but rather someone who is good at both communication and development and has a direct line of access to the dev team. That person we should be able to ask specific questions regarding the game. If the guy can't answer, just say he's not allowed to answer it, but answering basic questions that don't give away the entire game should be his job.

It should also have builds released, maybe in a quarterly or bi-annual fashion that allows us to preview how the game will be. I want to know a game will or will not suck before I buy it. This is why Demos are essential. Yes, I know Demos can also misrepresent a game, but I am using the old school 1990's definition of a Demo, where the Demo was an ACTUAL vertical slice of the final game.

A key point for current devs to realize right now is that the environment around game releases and the goodwill trust has been extremely damaged by hostile DEI, ESG, Woke activists. No amount of transparency can truly make up for post-release 3rd party honest gameplay reaction from arbitrary sources that individual gamers trust. Pre-ordering is dead in the eyes of prudent, smart gamers & only fools do so.

For indie's and honest, true devs who love the soul of games - continue to stay true to your vision, give small updates that reveal the true soul of your game, and stay honest & loyal to the fanbase you've built. Also never give out half-baked info dumps or conjecture. Under promise & over deliver.

The original StarCraft was delayed for years because they redesigned the game from a Warcraft II clone to…well…StarCraft.

So delays for gameplay related things is ok by me for any length of time.

What’s going on now has nothing related to gameplay.

Weekly seems more realistic than daily.

if you pre-order anything, you are a simp. Full Stop.

I don't buy games based off of trailers. I don't get invested in the hype machine for a game that isn't out, I just wait to see if it's actually good first.

This is why I didn't get suckered into helldivers 2, because ignoring the hype machine and looking at the game itself and the dev history, I knew they were untrustable fagbots and the game would be an exercise in frustration.

Too much.

Trust is developed not by transparency, but by a record of successfully delivering.

In a healthy setting none of this stuff matters. If Fromsoft (pre-nightrein) put out a bunch of dev videos or even had massive delays I’d like consume the related content, but I’d ultimately trust the process.

The b2c culture has become so toxic though that i just assume the worst by default. Even a studio put out constant dev videos and meticulously walked through how not corny they’re being id assume the worst until proven otherwise

I guess the main question for me would be: is it a commercial project or an artistic project?

For an artistic project, it's entirely irrelevant and the only reason to do them would be to garner feedback you can adjust to, which defies the point of an artistic project.

For a commercial project, you should be doing those videos on the things you are looking for feedback/input on with a sparse but consistent schedule. More like monthly. Too often and it's too much feedback on too many subjects and from a consumer's standpoint not enough time to even go through the feedback before the next round of feedback, nevermind act on/react to it.

"Comfortable with an upcoming game" is a terrible thing to try and garner. You want interest and excitement. People interested in the daily dev blog aren't interested in the game itself, they're interested in the nitty gritty side of development and the game is of almost no concern to them.

So if it's a video on a part of the game you're working on, what is it about the thing you're working on that excites and interests you as the developer and why? It's your enthusiasm on all of it that will do the heavy lifting.

As an aside, you should also add a barrier to feedback. Put a questionnaire in front of the feedback that should only really be loking at where they heard about the game, what interested them to begin with so you can better judge the angle this feedback comes from. Faceless feedback is worthless feedback. Finding out somebody who primarily plays Dating Sims was first interested in your FPS game because of the artstyle is valuable feeback, finding out that they don't like a lot of the system mechanics because they don't really like FPS as a genre is not.

An early-access is worth it if it's already fun enough to be your money's worth and the game isn't woke.

Stop preordering if you don't want to get scammed.

''Worth to get excited'' get excited about whatever, just don't set your money on fire.

In order to keep hype going through a delay such as that It would need to ship a demo which can showcase that work is being done. A monthly video going through the code and nitty gritty of the making it would be interesting, but most likely would not keep the hype for me.