This game has been on sale for almost a full decade now, how the hell is it still in early access after having 60,000+ sales (roughly going from the overall reviews)?

TL;DR: Game development takes years. The industry average currently is in the ballpark of 5-6 years, and that's set by companies like EA, Ubisoft, etc, that massively rush developers and cut corners at every opporunity.

Starcraft 2, for example, took 7~ years for the original base game. Which, yknow, was by Blizzard who at the time was already pretty monolithic in comparison to TIS.

And, It is and will continue to be 'Early Access' until the developers have finished the game.

Cause they're still working on it.

What does sales have to do with development time?

Originally posted by Kurogo:

What does sales have to do with development time?

More sales = more money = more resources = lower development time

Originally posted by Sergeant Poultry:

Originally posted by Kurogo:

What does sales have to do with development time?

More sales = more money = more resources = lower development time

Well they just got those sales and the game cant be made instantly. Just because they have money doesnt mean they work faster.

Originally posted by Sergeant Poultry:

Originally posted by Kurogo:

What does sales have to do with development time?

More sales = more money = more resources = lower development time

That's not how it works though. Hiring more people would cost not only time but money getting them up to speed on the code which could take months. Despite popular belief, throwing money at things doesn't necessarily get it done any quicker.

Originally posted by Sergeant Poultry:

Originally posted by Kurogo:

What does sales have to do with development time?

More sales = more money = more resources = lower development time

This is true..But only to a point. There's a reason monumental companies like EA have dozens of sub-studios making games at a time instead of focusing all that manpower on a single project to churn out a new product every 3 months.

Too many cooks spoils the soup. There can only be so many people working on a task before additions become superfluous if not actively detrimental to the process.

A clever old man once said. "You can't rush art."