The Stomping Land, the dinosaur survival crafting game is no longer available to purchase on Steam. The game is still on Steam, but is unable to be bought. There is no description of why, however, the game is no longer for sale.
There’s two sides to this story. On the one hand, it could be seen as a good thing, as the developer might have pulled the game in order to stop copies being sold before the move to the Unreal Engine 4. The game was being moved “to take advantage of technical and creative opportunities”, says SuperCrit founder Alex Fundora.
On the other hand, before Alex announced the engine change, from May 30th, Fundora went silent for two months, sending all the Kickstarter backers into a bit of a worry. “Do we get refunds?” and “What’s happening to our game?” were among the few questions asked.
What do you think about this? Unfortunately, on Steam it is stated that you pay for the content currently available, regardless of the state that it’s in, so while SuperCrit didn’t do anything illegal, it’s still a bit of a cheeky move to stay silent on the radio for two whole months. Should you hold onto hope that this is only temporary? Not really, if Fundora, the founder pulled the game, common sense dictates he would have announced it somehow. Either through Twitter, or through the official forums, but he hasn’t done this yet. In fact, their official Twitter feed and Facebook page still haven’t been updated since May. This doesn’t bode well for anyone who bought the game.
All in all, funding a game on Kickstarter, or buying it when it’s still in early access, is, to me, more of an investment rather than an outright purchase. You buy the game in early access to help fund it, knowing that in due time, the money that people have spent will be put to good use in developing the game. Unfortunately, as shown, this isn’t always the case. It’s a risky move buying games when they’re still in early access. It’s not always necessarily a bad thing, games like Starbound and The Forest have received continuous updates since being put up on Steam.
One might say that while some early access games flourish, The Stomping Land alas, has gone…extinct.
I’ll show myself out.
If you’d like to hear more about this author, contact him on Twitter @TKazGaming.
