Steam updates Early Access FAQ to say games may never be finished

Valve has updated its FAQ on Steam's Early Access games program to explicitly state that games may never be completed by their developers. The response to the question "When will these games release?" now reads: "Its [sic] up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state." The old answer did not include any verbiage about developers' potential inability to complete the game, or caution buyers that they should be buying games based on their "current state" rather than their final "release" version, VentureBeat reports. VentureBeat asked Valve for comment, and spokesman Doug Lombardi told the site "The changes to the FAQ are intended to help set customer expectations of what may or may not happen over the course of development of an Early Access game." Last month continuing development of Towns was officially abandoned by its developers after selling over 200,000 copies and raising $2 million, sparking controversy and questions around alpha-funded games. UPDATE The original version of this story stated that Towns was an Early Access game. It is an alpha-funded game, but is not part of Steam's Early Access program. The error has been corrected.