"Coming soon" means that this game is in the Alpha/demo stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable stage! Those downloading it should consider it as a "preview" of a game that may be worth looking into! For more information, see here.
"Coming Soon" generally means that it's closer to release than just alpha/demo and it will be out in the next few months to a year (also known as the "release window"), but that no specific release date has been selected. I think you're confusing "To Be Determined" with "Coming Soon", here.
I think that you're the one who is actually confusing things. For example, the "Don't Move" game has been in "Coming Soon" for considerably far away more than one year from its Steam release date of Jul 12, 2016, as selected by its dev!
Also, if you look at the game's Update History, you can see that the dev had announced that he put the game in "Coming Soon" on April 16, 2016 and then two months later on June 15, 2016, he announced that the game's Beta version would almost be ready for release.
Thus "Coming Soon" means that this game is in the Alpha/demo stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable stage! Also, as far as "To Be Determined" and "Coming Soon" are concerned, they appear to be one in the same, unless you can find some evidence to the contrary - Believe me, I had tried earlier on to research it but found no information back then which would lead me to think otherwise. If you find some new evidence now about the difference between the two in order to differentiate them then please share it!
I agree, coming soon also indicates they don't know a release date yet. Something I associate with a demo or alpha, not with a beta that needs some polishing or whatever
I just wanted to add that there actually is a Steam announcement available for the Final Release Candidate stage. It is called "Planned Release Date" followed by an exact date or an estimation of a date. I momentarily forgot about it since I have seen it seldom used, though I have used it before as a notification on this site, where and when it was applicable. For example:
"Planned Release" means that this game is in or near the Final stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable Beta stage! Those downloading it should consider it as a Final or near Final "Release Candidate" of a game that may be worth looking into! For more information, see here.
Beta phase is not necessarily Early Access, as they can remain in closed development without opening to the public. Additionally, some games have released into Early Access in their alpha state, as well (a lot more were like that when the Greenlight program was still around than are today, as far as I know, but I have seen some when randomly browsing a few months ago, too). Either way, there no longer is "To Be Determined" or "To Be Announced" or any of those variations, due to the changes I mentioned above; they've all been rolled into the uniform dating format, so anything that did not have a dedicated time set for release is now just "Coming Soon".
In the interests of fairness, I found an article that supports what you've said about the term "Early Access" (See "What is an Early Access game?" in that linked article). It appears that "Early Access" is an "umbrella" or a "bucket" term for any game in the Alpha or Beta stage of development. Unfortunately, this appears to only make the terms "Early Access" and "Coming Soon" confusing as they can potentially mean the same thing in terms of the stage of development of a game, with the new date changes that now make "Coming Soon" also an "umbrella" or a "bucket" term but for any game that doesn't fall within the new date protocol (A game could be in the Alpha or Beta stage and not fall within the new date protocol).
BTW, No where in the article that you mentioned does it explicitly say or imply that the terms "To be determined" and "To be announced" will be abolished (You're just inferring that notion from the article, thus it is only your opinion but not an actual fact), although I and probably other people had found those terms to be easily confusing alongside "Coming Soon", so I wouldn't mind it if Steam did officially decide to abolish those terms. However, the date changes mentioned in the article you mentioned do seem to only affect the term "Coming Soon", apparently now making it an "umbrella" or a "bucket" term. IMHO, Steam's latest attempt to organize and clarify the release announcements and status of games appears to only add more confusion for users than provide clarification. I think that it would be better if they just followed more of an application software industry approach, despite it not being more "marketably glamorous" like what Steam is currently using (GOG and Epic are now also using the term "Early Access" but they might have different meanings apart from Steam's meaning) and just allow the game devs to announce whether a game is in the "Alpha", "Beta", "Release Candidate" or "Final" stage. Just forget all of the marketing bullshιt and let the people know what the actual stage of development a game is in! Okay, it appears that I must sincerely Thank You for pointing out the new information. It seems that I'll need to update my text for the "Coming Soon" notifications that I post in the future on this site. I'll have to think carefully about the wording. In the meantime for the immediate future notifications, I'll just link to this conversation and let the each viewer decide for himself or herself how to digest and interpret all of the new information for his or her own purposes.
Regarding Early Access alpha and beta builds, as that article notes, "Games should only be released to Early Access when they’re in a suitable condition to be seen by the paying public." but often aren't. Previously it used to be that alphas were what you'd seen in behind-the-scenes videos and articles, betas were equivalent to demos and similar where the main features are all complete but aren't entirely set in stone (so you can tweak values or alter designs at this stage, but the 'Villager A design' is still going to be for entity 'Villager A', in other words), and full release being, well, full release. Now it's a morass of anywhere from the lowest point to the highest, all varying depending on who is releasing it. One person's alpha build might be another person's beta build, or it might be just a few steps away from release quality for another, just not finalized in content; since Early Access became a thing, Alpha/Beta have ceased to mean what they used to mean, unfortunately, which was in line with any other program development (eg. "application software") and even Full Release is getting some devs trying to change its meaning, as with Coral Island's devs.
"BTW, No where in the article that you mentioned does it explicitly say or imply that the terms "To be determined" and "To be announced" will be abolished"
Except yes, it does. It says that those five options are the ONLY options going forward, specifically, "Separately, devs can also choose their desired store display from five options-- with the freedom to adjust between those options as they see fit prior to release" indicating it's only those five they can choose from now, and then further down the page, "If a public Coming Soon page has a custom date string entered, and the developer takes no action, then on January 1st at 0:00am Pacific Time the store will default the game to the most vague display of “Coming Soon.” ".
Previously it was a text entry field ("custom date string") that anyone with authority for the page could write in, such as Dwarf Fortress having it as "Time is subjective" before it released, and many other games that were non-English had their own regional variants of memes or date-time formats, but were all done away with.
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice if they could set Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate (RC)/Full Release (Final Version) as well as or in replacement of the current refactored system, but I highly doubt we'd get any such thing.
Regarding Early Access alpha and beta builds, as that article ... Yeah, things have been convoluted since the introduction of those terms in Steam. It's good that devs like the ones who released "Coral Island" are still keeping up the fight for more accurate terms to be used in Steam. Except yes, it does. It says that those five options ... Hmm, I see ... I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice ... Unfortunately, the Steam admins make all of the policy decisions and they appear not to really care what the devs and players want while continuing to believe that their "brilliant" marketing strategy is the right one to continue to use. It's too bad that the Steam admins won't create a poll and then let the Steam community vote for a proposal to make any such change in the system and allow comments to follow. If they listened to their customers (Both the players and the devs) they would have a better understanding of how to best cater to their needs and thus build more loyalty to the Steam system.
Turns out there's been a recent(ish) refactoring of things (back in late 2022) so what used to be commonly done no longer holds (eg. "To Be Announced/To Be Determined" are removed entirely); now there's just 5 methods it can be listed as, and these are taken from the notification page for the change that was made:
The exact date. “Aug 24, 2023” Month-and-year. “August 2023” The quarter of the calendar year. “Q3 2023” The year. "2023" No date at all. “Coming Soon”
So now "Coming Soon" is just the amalgam of everything that doesn't have an exact date, whereas before it used to mean "releasing soon" and the other two had varying states of readiness. TIL.
Who says that cancelled projects don't count (Other than you and maybe a few others)? Whether released in Steam in some form or not, any game that is listed on Steam still has to go through the same official Steam marketing process just like any other game. Also, can you please provide a link to the source(s) of your information in your second bullet point (I was courteous enough to provide my "sauces")?
I asked for a link to the source article so that I and anyone else reading our conversation would not have to do a little extra "leg work" to try to find it. That's not very courteous of you, dude. Anyway, to save people time, I found the article on Steam and have read it. BTW, that article doesn't say that "abandoned" projects don't count. Those games and any games in the future that may end up being "abandoned" still have to go through Steam's marketing process.
You should send a message to the FastComments help desk (Just click on the "Customer Support" button in the "My Account" page) and ask them about the problem and whether they can help.
I had problems with adding links that have the hashtag sign followed by a number (Usually used to automatically jump to specific sections within a linked page). The links were not displaying properly (Garbled text with parts of the URL was displayed instead of the text that I typed that was supposed to be displayed instead of the actual URL). After some changes to the FC system were implemented a few days later, the problem was fixed for URLs with hashtags preceding numbers but hashtags preceding letters are still reserved for actual use as hashtags - FC has other client sites that actually use hashtags and there's no way for them to isolate the functionality for separate sites that use the shared, FC user messaging system.
It's not the best solution but better than nothing - I have to avoid using the hashtags from any URLs that have hashtags preceding letters, type in the main URL in a link and then inform the viewers to click on the link and once in the linked page, to navigate to a specific section. Oh, I see. I always thought that the ASCII emoji, :P, just meant smiley with tongue sticking out in disgust like "Bleah" but never equated it with a joke. I've always equated the ASCII emoji ;) or "wink" with a joke and :D or "laugh" as the proper response to a joke that I've found funny. Anyway, I've been using graphical emojis for so long now that I rarely use the ASCII ones anymore, except on a very few sites that do not support graphical emojis. So, I was confused by your :P
Ya its a massive early test, and would not be shocked if it toke longer to be made then the sequel zombie game of similar style but more importance on human npc groups, I forgot name of.
"Coming soon" means that this game is in the Alpha/demo stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable stage! Those downloading it should consider it as a "preview" of a game that may be worth looking into! For more information, see here.
Also, if you look at the game's Update History, you can see that the dev had announced that he put the game in "Coming Soon" on April 16, 2016 and then two months later on June 15, 2016, he announced that the game's Beta version would almost be ready for release.
Thus "Coming Soon" means that this game is in the Alpha/demo stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable stage! Also, as far as "To Be Determined" and "Coming Soon" are concerned, they appear to be one in the same, unless you can find some evidence to the contrary - Believe me, I had tried earlier on to research it but found no information back then which would lead me to think otherwise. If you find some new evidence now about the difference between the two in order to differentiate them then please share it!
For those those who don't know, the three general stages before a full, final release of a game as announced via Steam are:
Development phase: Alpha
Steam Announcement: "Coming Soon"/"To Be Determined"
Development phase: Beta
Steam Announcement: "Early Access"
Development phase: Final Release Candidate
Steam Announcement: (N/A - There is no Steam announcement available)
BTW, No where in the article that you mentioned does it explicitly say or imply that the terms "To be determined" and "To be announced" will be abolished (You're just inferring that notion from the article, thus it is only your opinion but not an actual fact), although I and probably other people had found those terms to be easily confusing alongside "Coming Soon", so I wouldn't mind it if Steam did officially decide to abolish those terms. However, the date changes mentioned in the article you mentioned do seem to only affect the term "Coming Soon", apparently now making it an "umbrella" or a "bucket" term.
IMHO, Steam's latest attempt to organize and clarify the release announcements and status of games appears to only add more confusion for users than provide clarification. I think that it would be better if they just followed more of an application software industry approach, despite it not being more "marketably glamorous" like what Steam is currently using (GOG and Epic are now also using the term "Early Access" but they might have different meanings apart from Steam's meaning) and just allow the game devs to announce whether a game is in the "Alpha", "Beta", "Release Candidate" or "Final" stage. Just forget all of the marketing bullshιt and let the people know what the actual stage of development a game is in!
Okay, it appears that I must sincerely Thank You for pointing out the new information. It seems that I'll need to update my text for the "Coming Soon" notifications that I post in the future on this site. I'll have to think carefully about the wording. In the meantime for the immediate future notifications, I'll just link to this conversation and let the each viewer decide for himself or herself how to digest and interpret all of the new information for his or her own purposes.
"BTW, No where in the article that you mentioned does it explicitly say or imply that the terms "To be determined" and "To be announced" will be abolished"
Except yes, it does. It says that those five options are the ONLY options going forward, specifically, "Separately, devs can also choose their desired store display from five options-- with the freedom to adjust between those options as they see fit prior to release" indicating it's only those five they can choose from now, and then further down the page, "If a public Coming Soon page has a custom date string entered, and the developer takes no action, then on January 1st at 0:00am Pacific Time the store will default the game to the most vague display of “Coming Soon.” ".
Previously it was a text entry field ("custom date string") that anyone with authority for the page could write in, such as Dwarf Fortress having it as "Time is subjective" before it released, and many other games that were non-English had their own regional variants of memes or date-time formats, but were all done away with.
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice if they could set Alpha/Beta/Release Candidate (RC)/Full Release (Final Version) as well as or in replacement of the current refactored system, but I highly doubt we'd get any such thing.
Yeah, things have been convoluted since the introduction of those terms in Steam. It's good that devs like the ones who released "Coral Island" are still keeping up the fight for more accurate terms to be used in Steam.
Except yes, it does. It says that those five options ...
Hmm, I see ...
I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice ...
Unfortunately, the Steam admins make all of the policy decisions and they appear not to really care what the devs and players want while continuing to believe that their "brilliant" marketing strategy is the right one to continue to use. It's too bad that the Steam admins won't create a poll and then let the Steam community vote for a proposal to make any such change in the system and allow comments to follow. If they listened to their customers (Both the players and the devs) they would have a better understanding of how to best cater to their needs and thus build more loyalty to the Steam system.
- Abandoned projects don't count. :P
- Turns out there's been a recent(ish) refactoring of things (back in late 2022) so what used to be commonly done no longer holds (eg. "To Be Announced/To Be Determined" are removed entirely); now there's just 5 methods it can be listed as, and these are taken from the notification page for the change that was made:
The exact date. “Aug 24, 2023”Month-and-year. “August 2023”
The quarter of the calendar year. “Q3 2023”
The year. "2023"
No date at all. “Coming Soon”
So now "Coming Soon" is just the amalgam of everything that doesn't have an exact date, whereas before it used to mean "releasing soon" and the other two had varying states of readiness. TIL.
Also, can you please provide a link to the source(s) of your information in your second bullet point (I was courteous enough to provide my "sauces")?
The article is called, "Update: Date Displays and Listings for Upcoming Releases", released October 26th, 2022.
Also good grief, learn what a joke is.
I had problems with adding links that have the hashtag sign followed by a number (Usually used to automatically jump to specific sections within a linked page). The links were not displaying properly (Garbled text with parts of the URL was displayed instead of the text that I typed that was supposed to be displayed instead of the actual URL). After some changes to the FC system were implemented a few days later, the problem was fixed for URLs with hashtags preceding numbers but hashtags preceding letters are still reserved for actual use as hashtags - FC has other client sites that actually use hashtags and there's no way for them to isolate the functionality for separate sites that use the shared, FC user messaging system.
It's not the best solution but better than nothing - I have to avoid using the hashtags from any URLs that have hashtags preceding letters, type in the main URL in a link and then inform the viewers to click on the link and once in the linked page, to navigate to a specific section.
Oh, I see. I always thought that the ASCII emoji, :P, just meant smiley with tongue sticking out in disgust like "Bleah" but never equated it with a joke. I've always equated the ASCII emoji ;) or "wink" with a joke and :D or "laugh" as the proper response to a joke that I've found funny. Anyway, I've been using graphical emojis for so long now that I rarely use the ASCII ones anymore, except on a very few sites that do not support graphical emojis. So, I was confused by your :P
If this game is fully released