Im a single person working on this game. Im trying to get any money I can from it so I can keep working on it. I think that most other early access devs feel the same way. IMO its a lot better releasing something in alpha and getting money to keep working on it than cutting everything or making it episodic.
andreyin totally makes sense.. I just meant that some players seem to be totally unforgiving in reviews with unfinished works; they can't bridge the gap and see the potential game it will become. Not everyone of course, but getting any bad review spoils things a bit. Then you have the user reviews coming to the defense of a title, and others jumping on the hate bandwagon. Bottom line, your game now becomes controversy (maybe depending on the price) - which may or may not be good.
My game is in (early) alpha right now. I've just submitted it to an indie games festival (we'll see if they invite me to the showcase in the Fall). I don't think it will win any awards, but I'm hoping to get some feedback and some serious play testing done. Steam Greenlight is on my radar. Just trying to figure out the timing; how an HTML5 game would work on Steam; and what my fellow C2ers have done.