Exclusive early access for streamers to 1.0 feels like discrimination to OCDs, autists, loners, chronic anxiety victims, etc...

Do you feel the same way about the fact that there have been people who have and continue to have access to A22/1.0, and have had that access for months now? By which I'm referring to volunteer and hired testers.

Do you feel the same way about the fact that trusted close friends and family of the "The Fun Pimps" staff have surely had access to it for as long as the testers?


Would you feel the same if it was a Paid promotion of theirs, where they sent keys to a bunch of random journalists and had Paid them to post 72 hours of mixed review/gameplay footage on Friday?


It's not discrimination. Anyone was (and iirc still is) welcome to apply for streamer weekend access as a streamer. The requirements of that application are fairly applied to all applicants. ANY qualifying individual, regardless of who they are, how narrowly they pass the requirements, gender, race, age, disability status, etc, Are accepted. Just like any job; You meet the qualifications, you get hired. You don't, You don't.

What it IS, is a business decision. Streamers provide a business benefit, And in return, TFP 'pays' the streamers in the form of a few days of early access to the version being released; Enabling those streamers to capitalize on the pent up hype of 7DTD's fan base. Streamers get a few days of a great deal of focus on their channel, boosting their metrics and potentially bringing in donations and subscriptions from excited viewers, TFP saves money by not having to spend untold millions to advertising agencies and marketing firms. TFP also gets the benefit of having millions of eyes to catch things that go unseen under a testers eyes, and of getting the game tested out on a variety of software/hardware configurations. All in all, It's win/win/win for the business on both sides (Streamers and TFP).

Further, No one is actually Harmed by not receiving access a few days early. It does no actual harm to you, nor to anyone else to not receive the version 3 days early the way a group of, essentially, hired actors does. You might be disappointed that you can't do it on the weekend, But there's no reason you can't just do it next weekend. It's not a competitive game or an MMO where not being there on day 1 on the bleeding edge will set you back- It's a SP/Coop game where you can start your playthrough at any time.

And the date the public at large would receive access on is the same whether TFP does the streamer weekend or not. Public access WILL be on a monday, streamer weekend or not. Streamers, as part of the business trade, get it Early to show it off, and nothing more.

Originally posted by Boblogg: And yet, here we are, the subsequent Monday, and still neither an official date. If I had wanted an agressive and cold-blooded gaming market and econimic analysis of the situation I would've asked for it.

What happened on March 31st was a Developer stream; Not the Streamer Weekend. Two different things. March 31st was the developers themselves doing a stream to showcase some of the new stuff. The date for the Streamer Weekend Event hasn't even been announced yet. Public access to the experimental is the monday following that event.

And re your other post,

Originally posted by Boblogg: Earlier today I went back to see the Dev Stream from yesterday evening. People must have asked about 30+ times for a release date, NOT ONCE the devs deigned to answer or give access codes in a written form (in the chat, at least so far as I watched.) >_>

The devs won't give specific release dates until it's 100% absolutely ready to go out the door for a reason. The mantra is "It's done when it's done". They won't even give estimates anymore because the userbase as proven untrustworthy in that regard.

The community tends to take the words of the devs WAY out of context and meaning; And so the devs have responded by tightening down the hatches and avoiding giving any kind of date until it's ready to go.

When:
On being questioned on the subject of an Estimate for the A20 experimental release by a user, Rick responded "We'd like to have it out by halloween, but a more realistic projection would be more towards christmas"
The users:
took that entirely out of the context of being an Estimate and completely ignored the second half of the phrase, resulting in the userbase being under the understanding that the A20 experimental WOULD release on, or before October 31st of that year, and users were raising a fuss and then an absolute ♥♥♥♥ storm over it in the weeks leading up to the 31st and for weeks afterwards...
...And this is not the only example, it is one of many...:
It should no longer terribly surprising that the devs have gotten more and more strict and policed about the words they say publicly. Ya'll, spoken broadly, can't be trusted to actually read and understand the information presented.

That estimate was asked about in a dev stream; When Rick replied to that user, the other devs on the stream at the time all collectively groaned and jumped in to try and make it potently clear that it was an ESTIMATE and not in any way a concrete date... And it was still taken out of context and as a concrete guaranteed date.

There have been numerous people who have come to the forum since that dev announcement thinking March 31st was the drop for the update becuase they didn't actually read the announcement about the developer stream.
For example, There was a user who came to the 1.0 dev diary thread here on steam who had seen that Dev Stream announcement and interpreted May 31st as the release date of the 1.0, and was asking about what time it would be dropped.

The question they were asking was even already addressed within that very same announcement; 9PM. So they not only misinterpreted the announcement, They also didn't even fully READ the announcement or they wouldn't have had to ask what time it would happen. (And to be clear, I mean no ill will to the user cited here; They may have been tired, Or ESL, Or what have you.)


In short, No dates. It'll be done when it's done and you won't see a date before then. That you're seeing dev streams and hearing about the coming streamer weekend is your notification that the update is coming and at most a month or two off.