Selena
 Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 320
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Post by Selena on Apr 26, 2017 6:44:13 GMT
So, early access games are becoming more common. You pay to access an incomplete game that's technically playable but doesn't have all its intended features yet. Things like: ARK, Space Engineers, Rust, The Long Dark, etc. As such, these games are usually less expensive than a full release, and, if all goes well, your reward for investing early is the full version of the game.
Good for indie developers with no access to real funds, of course. Some have been successful.
But I've also noticed that a lot of them spend years in developmental hell. Or never reach "full release" and just keep endlessly rotating in new updates -- but ones that never make the game feel complete. The same with Kickstarter games. And then sometimes the creators essentially throw in the towel.
I like that indie developers can crowd-source funds. It gives creators new pathways to success. And with all crowd-sourcing things, it's your choice to accept the risk that maybe the game won't be finished.
But with early access becoming more common, I also worry that we'll end up with a lot of half-finished games that could be cancelled or sent to the Abandonware vaults at a moment's notice. Or that some of these groups will keep a game "in development" to maintain a steady access to crowd funding. I know ARK got in some hot water a while back for releasing paid DLC for a game that technically isn't even finished. And Star Citizen's funding has been a controversy, too.
What do you think about this growing trend?
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Leo
Member
I don't believe in the moon, I think it's just the back of the sun.
Posts: 282 
Original Join Date: September 30, 2008
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Post by Leo on Apr 26, 2017 12:31:03 GMT
Big risk, subpar if any reward. Like you said Lena, most of the time the full game never even gets finished or they start charging for DLC's while still in Early Access just to make money. It's a lot safer just to hold onto your money for a few months plus a day for reviews to come out, then decide whether it's worth buying the whole thing.
Did the same thing happen with For Honor? There was a lot of hype when they went Early Access Beta, and it seems like the game's just died after that.
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Post by SteveT on Apr 26, 2017 16:36:00 GMT
I generally shy away. I've been burned often enough that I don't trust them. One of three things happen:
1. The early access version sucks and now I'm biased against it by the time the real release happens and I don't want to play it.
2. The early access version is good, but I'm done with the game by the time of the full release, so I don't ever play the "proper" version.
3. The game is 20XX and I'll keep coming back.
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Selena
Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 320
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Post by Selena on Apr 26, 2017 21:05:39 GMT
Big risk, subpar if any reward. Like you said Lena, most of the time the full game never even gets finished or they start charging for DLC's while still in Early Access just to make money. It's a lot safer just to hold onto your money for a few months plus a day for reviews to come out, then decide whether it's worth buying the whole thing. Did the same thing happen with For Honor? There was a lot of hype when they went Early Access Beta, and it seems like the game's just died after that. I don't remember For Honor being early access. There's a difference between early access and a beta. Nowadays, betas are essentially finished games -- and the full version would get released regardless of whether there was an open beta or not. Betas are mostly used to stress-test the servers of multiplayer games and lets developers know if anything needs to quickly be re-balanced before launch. Betas are usually out a week or two before the full launch. So these games are already "done." And betas are free. They're kinda like demos at this point. For Honor mostly "failed" because 1) the controls were too complex for the average gamer, 2) the difficulty, and 3) the horrendously awful matchmaking system. It didn't fail because it wasn't fully fleshed out. It became really evident to me in the first day I played it that it wouldn't ever take off as a blockbuster, but would appeal to a small niche of gamers. Early access games aren't even close to being finished. They're anywhere between early alpha and early beta states. So, you can technically play them, but giant chunks of the game are not even complete -- game modes, dialogue, story, gameplay features, etc. And there is a risk the game will never actually be finished. So, you're paying for a game that isn't done yet, and essentially investing in the eventual full release. When you buy into an early access game, the developer uses that money to pay for further development. Hiring staff, funding their own labor, voice acting, so on. The hope is that they'll earn enough money via early access fees to fully fund their game and do a complete launch. At some point. When this works, the full version of the game gets released in a couple years. And when this goes wrong, the entire game gets canceled or becomes permanently incomplete. Star Citizen, for example, raised many millions of dollars. They splurged on the services of voice actors like Mark Hamill, but the game itself isn't anywhere near completion after all these years of development. ARK is fun enough and a good concept, but it still feels like it was slapped together with duct tape in some respects. So there's a risk that "early access" games will just become black holes that suck up money but never give you a finished product. |
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