Early Access Gaming

Sarla

I am 100% sick of Early Access.  Steam is filled with hundreds if not thousands of games in EA that will never do anything other than take your money and not deliver.

Not saying they are all scams, a few are, but its mostly solo or small dev teams that just cannot for whatever reason finish their games after they enter Early Access. 

I wish people would stop buying into this garbage so that it goes away and we start getting good and finished products again.

Yes I know their are some good solo Devs or small teams that done very well because of this, and I think that at first this happend more often than it does now.  Now their are too many people trying it that don't know what they are getting into and/or are just trying to make a fast buck. 

These games pop up and have some nice screen shots or video's of play and some of them even have demos that are very fun.  But then you get total silence in the steam forum from the Devs on many titles.  You can have 250 games on your wish list and I swear to god nearly all of them will never see the light of day.

I have been watching this happen for years now and I belive its less than 5% that make it to full release.  Most of the failures just cause anyone following frustration with lack  of progress, buggy messes, or the devs just giving up and never telling you so the incomplete game sits there on steam  for sale and unwary people fall victim to it.

Its bullshit and I am sick of it.  I was just wondering if any one else here felt the same way, please discuss.  I am sure some of you have some enlightening thoughts on the matter.

Scot

I have been against early access from the start, when people had not even seen the abuse of ea that was to follow. It was just obvious that ea depends on the studio to behave in an honourable fashion and we learnt decades ago that studios could not be trusted to do that. Sure there are exceptions, but ea opened up a pandoras box.

Not just for players, gaming sites that do reviews now have to gauge each ea and work out if they will give it a review and they very unlikely to do a second review on proper release. EA has also muddied the waters of the review system as its titles sit alongside those of games fully released.

We have seen the recent new rules from Steam, finally some acknowledgement of what a s**t show this has become.

These half baked games have fleeced many a player and the responsibility for that is down to the players and the studio, But in defence of players, the general public shows time and time again how bamboozled by advertising they are so I can't see how we can expect much better foresight from players.

Finally this may be of minor help, although I do put early access games on my wishlist, but I have set it not to show them, that way they pop on on full release. 

Sovrath

Sarla said:

I am 100% sick of Early Access.  Steam is filled with hundreds if not thousands of games in EA that will never do anything other than take your money and not deliver.

Not saying they are all scams, a few are, but its mostly solo or small dev teams that just cannot for whatever reason finish their games after they enter Early Access. 

I wish people would stop buying into this garbage so that it goes away and we start getting good and finished products again.

Yes I know their are some good solo Devs or small teams that done very well because of this, and I think that at first this happend more often than it does now. 

Well, there are a lot of early access games out there but I I’m not sure why it’s an issue for you? I believe you can filter out early access titles on steam if that’s where you’re looking for games.

The existence of early access games does not keep more secure developers from releasing finished work.

For me, at least for single games, I try to follow this when it comes to giving money.

And I never give more than double the price of a game.

1, Is it a known developer who has been successful releasing games?

2, What do they show when asking for money? Do they have a demo? Are they just showing pictures?

if just pictures then no. If they have a demo then wait. If they have regular updates to that demo then there's a good chance you can risk it.

Sarla

If you filter out early access games, you have removed most titles.  It has become an industry standard in both single player and mmo's.

Sovrath

Sarla said:

If you filter out early access games, you have removed most titles.  It has become an industry standard in both single player and mmo's.

I suspect that’s hyperbole.

Unless you go through games like water and are insatiable with your play time.

Just looking at my wish list I have 82 non-early access games.

To be fair I have 10 early access games there.

edit: so I tried to do a filter on one genre and for rpg, with early access, I got something like 38,171. When I put on the early access filter I get something like 34,125.

It feels a bit "buggy" because it takes time to update.

So if that really is correct then, at least for rpg, we're still in a decent place as far as released games. Provided I did that search correctly.

It's possible there are other genres where the percentage of early access games is more but I think, for now, we're still in a good place as far as the percentages.

Scot

I don't think EA is now the standard way to release games but it has mushroomed since it began. It was the latest revenue collecting method in gaming, how could it do anything else but mushroom as that's what always happens once a new way of making money from games is realised.

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Scot

PixelSlots.com said:

I agree with original poster, this early access stuff has to end. Not only is it damaging to the game industry, it actually will ultimately turn your player base away before the developer has everything in place. 

They do this simply to make money and then sometimes not finish the game. 

Welcome to the forums!

Scot

Terazon said:

Many 'released' games are early access in stability and feature set so it really does not matter what it is labeled. 
I feel like my new car was early access. 

That's a fair point, but by having early access studios now effectively have license for selling a poorly stable and feature lacking game. I hope your car works better for you down the line.

cameltosis

I don't mind early access. I treat early access exactly the same way as I treat released games, because to me, once you are selling a game that you can play immediately, it has been released.

So, I check out the game, see what the gameplay is like, watch some videos, read some reviews, and then make the same value judgement I make with every purchase: is what is being sold to me worth the money?

What the devs are promising for the future doesn't enter the equation: my judgement is based purely on what is available to me right now for the money being charged today.

I don't think I've been let down by any of my early access purchases. Granted, a few games I've ended up not enjoying that much (like Farthest Frontier) but that wasn't because they were early access, it was just because they weren't really for me. But others, like last years Palworld and Enshrouded, both gave me 100+ hours of fun for relatively small amounts of money.

olepi

To me, if they label a game "alpha" or "early access" they are stating up front that the game is incomplete, and probably buggy and unoptimized. It also serves as a handy excuse to use for the game's shortcomings: "but it's in alpha what do you expect?"

Unless they use "early access" in the old traditional meaning: pay a little extra and you can get into the game a few days or a week early.

Elidien_ga

Early access as a form of what we use to call open beta is fine IMHO. Early access as a perpetual state of game release for years and years is frustrating and I am not a fan. Early access should only be used when the game will release in a year or so (barring things like voice actor strikes and pandemics). 

jonh.wiliam

Sarla said:

I am 100% sick of Early Access.  Steam is filled with hundreds if not thousands of games in EA that will never do anything other than take your money and not deliver.

Not saying they are all scams, a few are, but its mostly solo or small dev teams that just cannot for whatever reason finish their games after they enter Early Access. 

I wish people would stop buying into this garbage so that it goes away and we start getting good and finished products again.

Yes I know their are some good solo Devs or small teams that done very well because of this, and I think that at first this happend more often than it does now.  Now their are too many people trying it that don't know what they are getting into and/or are just trying to make a fast buck. 

These games pop up and have some nice screen shots or video's of play and some of them even have demos that are very fun.  But then you get total silence in the steam forum from the Devs on many titles.  You can have 250 games on your wish list and I swear to god nearly all of them will never see the light of day.

I have been watching this happen for years now and I belive its less than 5% that make it to full release.  Most of the failures just cause anyone following frustration with lack  of progress, buggy messes, or the devs just giving up and never telling you so the incomplete game sits there on steam  for sale and unwary people fall victim to it.

Its bullshit and I am sick of it.  I was just wondering if any one else here felt the same way, please discuss.  I am sure some of you have some enlightening thoughts on the matter.

I get the frustration—too many Early Access games never get finished, and it’s tiring seeing the same cycle repeat.

jonh.wiliam

I get the frustration—too many Early Access games never get finished, and it’s tiring seeing the same cycle repeat.

Wargfoot

I recently gave up on EA for a couple of reasons:

• I like persistence in a game world, and EA ain't that.
• If I like the game, I've got two years of waiting around to maybe get to play it for real.

EA serves no purpose for me.

Angrakhan

For me it depends how EA we're talking.  As mentioned above, sometimes EA is basically a stable release, but largely they're just wanting a public beta (that they get paid for) to shake out the last bugs before they call it released.  However, other times EA is a pile of barely compiled code with a bunch of placeholder assets and missing systems.  I don't have time or patience for the latter.  They key is buyer beware and doing some research.   In spite of people claiming 'review bomb' titles on Steam, I find the reviews pretty reliable.  You just need to dig in past the first page and start getting a feel for common complaints as to if it's due to some sociopolitical reason or if it's legitimately due to issues in the game.  I find by in large people leave bad reviews for legitimate issues in the game on Steam.

Nanfoodle

EA games are a plague and a wonderful thing at the same time. Some EA games on Steam have not been updated since they added them to Steam, sometimes a year or more and nothing is done. I have also seen games that engage with the community and shape the development to the fans that bought into the game. Seeing feedback encouraged from the developer. IMO its a case by case situation.  

Slapshot1188

I always just fall back to the old view:

If there are no wipes then the game is launched
If you do wipe, the game is in testing.


Far too many word games with Early Access, Head Start, Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Alpha 1, Alpha 2, Alpha 2 Wave 3, Beta, etc...