Why are people frustrated by "unfinished" games?

[Doorknob22]

Taking off my game dev hat and wearing my supporter hat.

I often see in this forum people who are frustrated by "unfinished games". I personally support 4 games at the moment, none of them is finished and no ETA is in sight. But I don't care much because of two reasons:

1. They release consistently release updates
2. The updates are filled with good content

Why should I care whether the games I support are finished or not? As long as developers release good, satisfying updates on time, why would anyone care if the game is done? Frustration should be directed towards developers who stop releasing updates or endlessly tease and don't deliver but why should anyone obsess so much about a game's end credits?

As for claim "developers don't complete a game so they'll continue to milk their supporters", I disagree with this claim as well. When good developers finish their game, they usually start another one and their fans continue to support them, so good developers don't have an interest to prolong the game needlessly anyway.

 

[Fzeren]

The only thing I think is frustrating about unfinished games is when the advertised tags aren't actually in the game yet. Other than that, I'm more interested in seeing a game expand over time rather than finishing.

Btw, does Vae Victis have more gay stuff than the ntr bit?

 

[Bev_]

I don't really see much of that kind frustration around here (I'm probably hanging out in the wrong threads). The one I see is mostly about not updating the games

But I can see three reasons:
-Game becomes mundane, drawn-out, despite content being good. I have that problem with MrDots Games. I really like his art, story, characters... But DMD is so damn long. I've tried playing it twice and both time I gave up (Ch.2&3), and it's not even finished yet
-How do I say it... Ending kinda valides the journey. Gives it meaning. Especially in games (or for players) that put a lot of emphasis on story.
-People may fear that the longer the development takes, something in the game might change that'll break the whole experience for them, like a bad ending in GoT. + "It's not the same anymore" kind of complaining is always present, whether if it's justified or not, it becomes more frequent with time.

 

[fyl3toys]

When good developers finish their game, they usually start another one and their fans continue to support them, so good developers don't have an interest to prolong the game needlessly anyway.

That might be the reason right there. Good developers. They seem to be few and far between. I mean no disrespect by that. Plenty of people work hard to put out a game. I'm getting a good sense of that by working on my own game at the moment. But just taking a look at the number of abandoned games on this site it's difficult to trust that a game you try out and like will get to the payoff you want. So you begin to question is it even worth waiting for the payoff. And then when an update shows up and it doesn't go anywhere or provide any discernible progress you are looking for frustration can set in at that point.

But if the updates are there, and they continue to be good I don't see the issue.

Maybe it's actually just a byproduct of our instant gratification culture?

 

[Geralt_R]

Maybe the reason is that quite a few games tend to add more side characters or sideplots as time goes by instead of focusing on what's really important and to actually end a game by progressing the main story. Sure, good developers may not do that. But how many are there? So an unfinished project that has been going on for two+ years or so often means (based on the games I checked out of course, may not be entirely representative) that it's yet another meandering mess.

For me "unfinished" (especially when there already are a dozen or so chapters) often means a game is unfocused and "unfinished" also has a high risk of never getting finished and while many games are forgettable many others feature characters you'd like to get a happy end with... A Mother's Love is a prime example.....it goes off on completely irrelevant tangents way too often and then it ends on a nasty cliffhanger... and now the dev has some severe personal issues that prevent him from working on the game.

I wish the production of VNs etc was more like that of your typical indie game. Substantial updates / episodes and everything is finished in a reasonable amount of time. Not three or four years later. But of course most VNs are hobby projects or made by extremely small teams, many have just one dev and thus the piecemeal release schedule is almost unavoidable. But it hurts my overall enjoyment of VNs since almost everything is "unfinished".

 

[CaptainBipto]

Taking off my game dev hat and wearing my supporter hat.

I often see in this forum people who are frustrated by "unfinished games". I personally support 4 games at the moment, none of them is finished and no ETA is in sight. But I don't care much because of two reasons:

1. They release consistently release updates
2. The updates are filled with good content

Why should I care whether the games I support are finished or not? As long as developers release good, satisfying updates on time, why would anyone care if the game is done? Frustration should be directed towards developers who stop releasing updates or endlessly tease and don't deliver but why should anyone obsess so much about a game's end credits?

As for claim "developers don't complete a game so they'll continue to milk their supporters", I disagree with this claim as well. When good developers finish their game, they usually start another one and their fans continue to support them, so good developers don't have an interest to prolong the game needlessly anyway.

Completion. You know, that sense that you went on a great journey and now, having arrived at the end of that journey, you can reflect on what you have done and how you can now look forward to your next great adventure/journey.
That is something you don't get from a 'never ending story'. As long as the game is unfinished, you are left with rehashing the same old content with a new shiny bit or two to play with and you (myself at least) get bored with plodding through the exact same things over and over.

If the Dev is 'good', as you state, they should have no problems with bringing their game to an end and then starting up a new endeavor, with a new (or similar) setting, new characters, and new interactions. NLT Media (I think that's the name) is a good example of this, to me. Lust Epidemic, then Treasure of Nadia, and now The Genesis Order. Now, imagine if they had stuck with Lust Epidemic and just kept throwing more side content and more side characters to the story and never finished it, it would get pretty stale after a while.

 

[Jofur]

I don't mind games that are in perpetual development as long as the routes have a satisfying conclusion(be it story wise or porn wise) and the story still makes sense.

When characters are being teased months before they become properly available or decently developed I hate however. I'd rather they just not be added to the game until they become available to fuck. It's so frustrating when you see a hot character and the game just goes "nope, fuck you, you ain't touching that".

 

[Doorknob22]

Completion. You know, that sense that you went on a great journey and now, having arrived at the end of that journey, you can reflect on what you have done and how you can now look forward to your next great adventure/journey.
That is something you don't get from a 'never ending story'. As long as the game is unfinished, you are left with rehashing the same old content with a new shiny bit or two to play with and you (myself at least) get bored with plodding through the exact same things over and over.

If the Dev is 'good', as you state, they should have no problems with bringing their game to an end and then starting up a new endeavor, with a new (or similar) setting, new characters, and new interactions. NLT Media (I think that's the name) is a good example of this, to me. Lust Epidemic, then Treasure of Nadia, and now The Genesis Order. Now, imagine if they had stuck with Lust Epidemic and just kept throwing more side content and more side characters to the story and never finished it, it would get pretty stale after a while.

How is it different from a long, good TV series with multiple seasons? Or a good series of books?

 

[HarveyD]

How is it different from a long, good TV series with multiple seasons? Or a good series of books?

Those usually have professional writers.

A good TV series also has seasons that end at the right time, with each season generally revolving around a particular story beat.

Also look at shows like Supernatural, a lot of people felt it should have ended much sooner.

 

[Geralt_R]

How is it different from a long, good TV series with multiple seasons? Or a good series of books?

It's not really... too many tv shows get canceled without a proper resolution, it's equally frustrating. Or we have very long pauses between releases like Westworld which had a 2+ year hiatus or so. Or The Orville where season 3 took forever to be released. Or think of all the Game of Thrones fans who will probably never get their conclusion of the book series, since the author will probably die before that happens, maybe his estate will hire Brandon Sanderson to finish the series then.....

The difference is that most VNs are not really "good", some are certainly brilliant with a captivating main story and interesting and fleshed out characters, say something like City of Broken Dreamers or Artemis which feel like "tv shows" in a way, but many are pulpy trash that lead you from one sex scene to the next, using the patented build-up and progression system and several utterances of "no, it's not the right time yet, I don't feel ready, ask me again next week, but let me give you 10 handjobs and blowjobs in the meantime" (where next week means this chapter will be released 1 year later....). No disrespect, pulpy trash can be lots of fun, but these things hardly warrant a production time of 2, 3 or even more years before it's completed.

Most VNs would greatly benefit from a more focused approach and thus shorter production times (since you don't have to waste development on inane sideplots or useless side characters). And "unfinished" wouldn't be such a common label perhaps and more games would actually be "completed".

 

[Rafster]

I'm more frustrated when "unfinished" becomes "abandoned" and leave incomplete storylines just because the dev wanted to do a different project. That, and the milking case.

But incomplete TV series, games, books ... sometimes drive me crazy. It's silly, but that's who I am.

 

[Deleted member 229118]

Same reason i hate early access, trillogies, serries, etc.

I have grown to hate unfinshed pieces of crap that remain in developt for years or decade's.
Meaby i am just geting old and fear i wont be around to play a game when it is finaly released.
Meaby it is because the dev's seem content to milk a game while never advancing the story life.
https://f95zone.to/threads/corrupted-kingdoms-v0-15-1b-arcgames.31912/
Come to mind.
It was fun.
I did enjoy it.
Then i started to notice the endless side quests, the countless we dont tell anything story moments.
It was clear to anyone with a working brain the dev had no idea what to do going forward(or worse he believe's not telling anything to the mc is good story telling.
The former is sad the latter is rage inducing)

The problem with a lot of games is that they end up dead because the dev ran out of idea or desire to contine.
Like:
https://f95zone.to/threads/superpowered-v0-45-03-night-city-productions.124/

Simply put.
I like to be able to finesh my games.

I also get very suspesion when i see a new game having an old name like mass effect andromida or age of wonder planetfal.
It screams: We dont trust the game is good enough to sell on its own so we attach a populair franchise name to it.
Or star wars episode 8.
From what i have been told the directed wanted his own story and just painted star wars over it.
I think it is the most hated of the 3 hated not accepted by fan movies.

In short.
I am tired.
Tired of having to wait for years to finesh what i started.
I dont even bother with unfinshed games anymore.

 

[Doorknob22]

Btw, does Vae Victis have more gay stuff than the ntr bit?

Two gay scenes overall.

 

[Guntag]

I absolutely don't mind "work in progress" games. Actually, if the game is good, I'd like it to continue as much as possible, as long as there is progression and the content is good.

About the TV show, it's even worse. If I like a TV show, I don't want it to end, no matter how good the end is. For example, many people liked the end of Breaking Bad, but I didn't, because I just didn't want the show to end

About a game, I know that if I want a game to end, it's because I'm getting tired of the game and I'd prefer the author to try something new. It's not because because I want a "complete game".

 

[TSSG59]

I wondered why so many went unfinished until I tried to write a story line for one, a simple one at that. Forgetting all the other work and expense for a moment, the writing alone takes forever, even a short scene requires many, many hours of work and that's without any rewrites to make the plot work. Perhaps some developers, starting out, underestimate exactly how much work will be involved and jump ship or realise that the story just isn't working as they hoped it would. Whatever the reason I take my hat off to anyone who steps into such deep water. Little wonder some games take many years to reach their end. Ask yourself how much is your time worth?. It has to be a labour of love or no one would do it, certainly not for the money.

 

[E_nigma]

That might be the reason right there. Good developers. They seem to be few and far between. I mean no disrespect by that. Plenty of people work hard to put out a game. I'm getting a good sense of that by working on my own game at the moment. But just taking a look at the number of abandoned games on this site it's difficult to trust that a game you try out and like will get to the payoff you want. So you begin to question is it even worth waiting for the payoff. And then when an update shows up and it doesn't go anywhere or provide any discernible progress you are looking for frustration can set in at that point.

But if the updates are there, and they continue to be good I don't see the issue.

Maybe it's actually just a byproduct of our instant gratification culture?

I won't name any games but I think what separates a game from being accused of milking is when, as you said, the payoff isn't there. As in, the game is unfocused and the plot doesn't seem like it's developing at all and new threads or characters just keep getting tossed in and you get a sense of feature creep and that the dev has ideas but they would be better for a new game but they don't want to start a simultaneous project or wait to implement the fresh ideas into a new project after finishing the current one or frankly they don't have any ideas and are just throwing in random suggestions.

Sometimes people don't know what they want until they have it and should be a cautionary tale to devs to have a clear outline of what exactly the game is and isn't going to be. That seems to be a good marker of a good dev and a not so good dev, they know exactly where the destination is, maybe not all of the details but you can't make a sandwich without a top and bottom. I know I'm biased but look at something like ntr and how often it is the first question about the games content, say no and add it later and you're probably going to get accused of milking because a lot of those folks will pay a lot to get it.

There are a lot of games built on a shaky foundation but there are some tags or characters or render quality that drew people in but the game was never actually there to begin with. All flash no substance, it's how you get so many games that are like 0.2 with 5 stars cause too many people rate on potential and then the game fizzles and all the recent reviews are 1s and 2s but when they get updated (figuratively) it's crumbs or if there is a character people really want to see with some scenes and they keep getting pushed back further and further.

There are a good number of titles here going on 3+ years but aren't accused of milking because they are actually developing or the updates are substantive (ok I will name one game just as an example) shut up and dance is going on 5 years and no one is accusing them of milking even though they started remastering the game in the middle of development because the step up in quality and consistent updates. On the other hand take the once incredibly popular game about milfs that has become sort of the poster child of milking. Dude raked/rakes in more than enough to hire people to lessen the burden on himself and also keep updating.

 

[Diagnosed]

As for claim "developers don't complete a game so they'll continue to milk their supporters", I disagree with this claim as well. When good developers finish their game, they usually start another one and their fans continue to support them, so good developers don't have an interest to prolong the game needlessly anyway.

I agree so much on this. If the dev has even just a little bit of passion for making games they probably have other ideas for new games that they can't wait to make, after working on one for some time. I think the milfy city guy has really done a lot of damage by himself in making people overly suspicious of devs lol.

 

[E_nigma]

I agree so much on this. If the dev has even just a little bit of passion for making games they probably have other ideas for new games that they can't wait to make, after working on one for some time. I think the milfy city guy has really done a lot of damage by himself in making people overly suspicious of devs lol.

I think because for a lot of people that game was pretty much the magnum opus/the last word/mac daddy/epitome on the incest/harem game and did basically everything right until it stopped. That feeling of betrayal is to be quite a bit hyperbolic, traumatic, as in it's the kind of thing that stays with you forever, like a bad breakup with no resolution. Forever changing how you look at all devs/games. It by almost all accounts did every genre it touched better than any of its peers with no controversial contents or tags and then it just died.

 

[BobKels0]

Frustrated by unfinished games, nop, some day they will be completed, right?
And there's tons of good games to play here while you wait for another game to be complete or get severals updates to raise your interest again.

But, disappointed / sad by pure gems abandonned for X reasons... yup!
I'm happy that T4bbo got the courage to continue Babysitters (thx for the swinging fetish unlock, dat scene in the pool......), maybe one day Nverjos will continue The Coceter Chronicles :/


Generally I wait a few updates and avoid playing 0.1 version of games, if the game is really good, with lots of content right away, and says, the dev use months to delivers an update, I'll be frustrated for sure, so I just no longer take that road.

 

[Synx]

I wondered why so many went unfinished until I tried to write a story line for one, a simple one at that. Forgetting all the other work and expense for a moment, the writing alone takes forever, even a short scene requires many, many hours of work and that's without any rewrites to make the plot work. Perhaps some developers, starting out, underestimate exactly how much work will be involved and jump ship or realise that the story just isn't working as they hoped it would. Whatever the reason I take my hat off to anyone who steps into such deep water. Little wonder some games take many years to reach their end. Ask yourself how much is your time worth?. It has to be a labour of love or no one would do it, certainly not for the money.

It doesn't help that most games don't have an overlapping story. They got a starting point (like going back home, or a new school) and then mainly just individual stories for each character. This can quickly lead to a point where the writer has no idea where the game is going, and the player getting frustrated since the story is becoming a meaningless, dragging mess. Just look at how many games start out strong but become shit pretty quick. Writing a good story becomes a million times harder if you got no ending to work to.

Could probably be one of the reasons why people get frustrated with unfinished games. Story leading nowhere and no indication if the game is close to an end.