At first glance I thought this was another spambot posting.

Oh, I think most people do - Steam's patching is well-suited to this - and I would wager that a lot of people who prefer DRM-free are more conservative in their tastes, which means they would not really go for Early Access either.

The problem is that a lot of Early Access projects seem to have vastly overestimated the potential number of early adopters. Godus, for one, doesn't seem to have taken off at all, taking in just $100K from sales despite what must be its 7th or 8th sale now, and that's actually a more prominent Early Access title.

Obviously Starbound is one of the more successful ones, but I suspect the devs put the DRM-free mark there to get DRM-free gamers on board in anticipation of difficulties. Starbound had the benefit of a lot of positive media coverage beforehand.

For my part, I do think the game looks interesting, but I'll be waiting until it's complete so I can enjoy it to its fullness and be sure that a DRM-free version is actually coming out (not that the dev suddenly does an about-face and decides it suddenly wants to use the Steamworks API only).

Dust actually does have a DRM-free Windows installer on the Humble Store now... the reason for it lacking one when it was first put up there was that the developer was apparently just having trouble putting together an installer for it.

They should probably correct the description then.

Not to mention it saves you from burnout before the full game has even been released!

Good 'ol early access. You gotta be vigilant and watch out for that crap everywhere now.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about the early access stuff. Most of them did not grasp the concept that they were paying for an alpha/beta build and what they had was not by any means the final product. Hence frustrations, badmouthing and rage.

Personally, i stay away of the early access games. It's not my job to pay for development. Nor doing beta-testing. I'm not willing to pay for an incomplete product. I prefer to wait a lot until i get my games. See what problems they have, if they get solved. Only if i see that a game is stable, i use my wallet.

I read the fine print, because my trust in the human race is limited.

Just ask for a refund.

I understand the need to rant, but consider complaining constructively instead. When stores opt for misleading tactics, make them pay for it in terms of customer service time. Be polite, and be insistent.

Can coca-cola label cans "SUGAR FREE" and elsewhere on the can disclaim "Not actually sugar-free, we intend to send you a sugar-free drink in future." No.

If stores cannot be clear and unconfused about their products, they should receive complaints.

Shame on you for trusting the labels of a store that also accepts bitcoin. :L

Steam is actually a pretty good place to have your beta. They enforce updates and make it easier for people to keep patched up to the most recent version.

I do think that they should be clear about it being Steam only during the Beta period, clarifying what conditions they need to reach for it to be a full release and commit to a specific time frame when the game will be DRM free though. And I certainly wouldn't recommend buying in on it if one is that opposed to Steam until there's a non-steam option actually available.

Please note: Starbound is an Early Access Game on Steam. DRM-free builds will be added at a later date.

That's the first line on the page though, it wasn't hidden in the small text or anything like that.

Perhaps for you. It's the exact same cost as Steam in the US, except the Steam version also makes you pay an extra $5 for the soundtrack, making Humble the cheaper option.

OK, I've made a screencap to make things clear on how the products are presented on the humble storefront. Please notice that there is no text unless you click on the game. So there are only pictograms which are considered as valid informations. There are no differences of infos between Starbound and Tiny&Big (which hopefully provides a drm-free version). I used to be careful about the humble bundles since one year, now I'll be also careful on their store (at least the widgets provides more infos)

I wasn't talking about Steam, but about the Humble Android and PC 8 Bundle. There, you could pay a bit over 5$ and get a bundle (duh) of games including a DRM-Free version of Anomaly 2. The Humble Store version, on the other hand, offers no DRM-Free version (as of writing) and costs 15$.