DayZ producer Brian Hicks says he understands players' frustration with the game's protracted development, and says the unstructured nature of Steam Early Access is to blame.

The standalone version of DayZ went into Steam Early Access in December 2013. Nearly 3 million people have paid US$30 each to be a part of the game's ongoing testing and development, however news that the game is now unlikely to be released before 2016 has left many frustrated and disappointed.

“I feel that there’s no structure to Early Access, and every developer uses it in a different way and enters at a different phase in their development,” Hicks told Eurogamer. “And the consumers — you can’t blame them for not understanding because in order to make heads or tails out of the fact that everyone’s doing this different, you need to understand the software development cycle completely. And gamers play f***ing video games, man — they’re not looking to understand the SDL [Software Development Lifecycle] or how software is created, and they shouldn’t have to, honestly.”

Hicks suggested that Early Access should be structured around a number of milestones that would make it immediately clear to potential players how far along any game's development is, and what's left to be done.

“Say there are six defined, common milestones,” he said. “When you enter your game in Early Access, you tell people which one you’re at so they understand where in the development cycle — where in the game’s life cycle — you are.

“And when you update your game, you update your progression. There needs to be almost like a f**king loading bar in a video game — there needs to be a bar of progression that consumers can see as you develop how close you are to your release. So at the very least, consumers understand where the game is, how far the game is from being shipped, and what the word ‘alpha’ means for that title.”

Hicks denied that Bohemia had ever estimated a release date for the standalone version of DayZ. “I’m fairly certain we never committed to a ship date. In fact, from the get-go, we told people this was going to be a two-point-five to three-year development cycle. Three years would be standard, but we’re going to try and hit two-and-a-half years, and that would put us in 2016.

“But apparently, I need to stand on the mountain tops and send out a press release for that to germinate. This is the problem: It’s very difficult to get this information to your active user base, let alone those who haven’t bought the game. I’ve got a user base of nearly 3 million people, and it’s incredibly difficult to make sure they get the information they need in the time they need.”