It's been a while since I've posted an update on the Steam page, so I'd like to take a little time and reveal some new plans for the Early Access release.
I've decided to release Kaz Ball for FREE during the Early Access period. There are several reasons for this, which I'll outline below.
1. This will (hopefully) allow me to grow the player community rapidly. Part of the release delay has been due to my terrible marketing skills, and my inability to find a great PR firm within the confines of my budget. Since this is a multiplayer game, it's a good idea to grow a community around it early on, before trying to capitalize on it.
2. I also feel that paid Early Access has become way too common in recent times. Asking players to pay for an unfinished project has the potential to bring on even more negative reviews by players who feel cheated out of their hard-earned money. I feel like players will be a lot more understanding, and forgiving of an unfinished title that was received for free.
3. Honestly, I'm just tired of sitting on this game. I enjoy working on it, but all of this work is for nothing if people can't play it, even if I don't make any money off of it while still in development.
This means, however, that I need to rethink a lot of the back-end services that allow Kaz Ball to function. In the current state of those services, I'm not sure that they would be able to support a massive influx of new players. I want to make the release as smooth as possible, and that means leveraging some different techniques that will take a little time to set up.
This does not represent any sort of shift in my promises to deliver a game without micro-transactions, or anything of the sort. During the E.A. period, and beyond, there will still be absolutely no extra paid ships/skins/content/etc.
I'll add another update once I have migrated some of these back-end services, and will update everyone with an E.A. release date very soon.
Thanks to those who have continued to express their interest in this project, along with all of the emails, Steam discussions, and Discord chat.