The perils of Early Access - your thoughts?

For those of you unaware with the platform, Early Access is a type of release on Steam where you buy an unfinished game, and play it as it is developed until eventually it releases in full. It's a way of recouping some development costs in theory, and seems to be a solid idea... in theory.

In actuality though, the platform has had some issues. Games like Day Z have been in Early Access for far longer than imagined, and as such gamers have grown frustrated. Some games don't get finished, leaving paying customers with a broken mess to play. However, titles like Prison Architect and Kerbal Space Program have shown real development progress and each update brings the game closer to completion, leaving their early adopters satisfied.

So, do you think the platform is a good idea? Do the risks of buying an unfinished game outweigh the successes of the platform? I'd love to know your thoughts.

I think it's an interesting enough idea but like Kickstarter it's not something I'm likely to invest in. I'd rather just play the finished product, however if something was super exciting I might be tempted, unlike Kickstarter, don't think I'd ever go for that.

That's more or less my view on Early Access - I'd rather just play the finished game. I'm playing through an Early Access game for the site right now, and the quality drop from the starting areas to the later areas was really jarring.

As a none PC gamer it's not something that I know much about but I've backed stuff on kickstarter including $75 for Elysian Shadows which I'm not going to play in till Dec 2015 or even early 2016.

At least with early access you would get a rough idea of the finished game & what your getting for your investment. I'm not sure how that works like I pay £10 for early access and when the full game comes out I get for £20 instead of £30.

I think if you buy the product, you get the finished product at a cheaper price. There's a risk you won't get that finished product though.

But at least get something, I might not ever see Elysian Shadows.

Yeah, I suppose that's a benefit of Early Access over Kickstarter - you actually have to have some semblance of a game before you can use the platform.

I thought one of the perks of early access was that you got the whole game at the end? I'd be pretty pissed off if I'd taken the gamble on the dev and they then expected me to cough up more.

Early Access sounds like one of those ideas that's born from a good place but can be abused now it's out there, like coursework and Communism. If I were a Steam gamer (I'd be bankrupt, mainly), I reckon I'd be backing ideas I liked. Hopefully gamers will get to learn the unreliable developers as time goes by and shy away from backing them.

andyman949 wrote:

I thought one of the perks of early access was that you got the whole game at the end? I'd be pretty pissed off if I'd taken the gamble on the dev and they then expected me to cough up more.

This. It seems like a poor reward for those who believed in the project from the beginning.

I think this is one of those things you've got to be prepared for the possibility of the end result never actually bearing fruit. For those involved with a project from the beginning that turns out to be successful, that must be quite an exciting process. It's not something I'm personally interested in, mind.

Early access really bugs me as it often makes a wait for a game that much worse or even delays/stops it coming out for other consoles.

Stu_the_great wrote:

I think this is one of those things you've got to be prepared for the possibility of the end result never actually bearing fruit. For those involved with a project from the beginning that turns out to be successful, that must be quite an exciting process. It's not something I'm personally interested in, mind.

Yeah - games like Don't Starve and Kerbal Space Program went through a really exciting development process with regular updates and in the end backers received a fully fleshed out product. But then you have games like Day Z, which, despite the initial hype, seem to have almost regressed and are stuck in Early Access with no signs of a full release.