Does early access kill games?

[corrado33]

I have this belief that early access is horrible for games. Take, for example, kerbal space program. It was in early access forever, and almost EVERYONE played it that way. (Me included) Now that it's out, no one even talks about it (except for Scott Manley of course.) 

 

Does early access kill games?

 

I'm really interested in playing Subnautica right now, but I don't want to get into it before it's actually released because it looks horribly optimized and it's missing half its story. 

 

It just seems like early access makes the hype come too early for certain games, and it all fades away before the game is actually released. 

 

 

Or is early access just a way for companies to release unfinished games then just half heartedly abandon them when people lose interest?

[Guest]

Plague Evolution was early access. It still very popular. Not all game has to be that way

[NTDaws]

grand theft auto should of been early access.

[WereCat]

It doesent kill games directly.

In my opinion it heavily affect consumers in negative way which makes them less willing to pickup actualy good games as they spend most money on promise because market is oversaturated with unfinished garbage and then they are broke and dont trust the publishers/developers.... which makes sense. This also discourages some developers/publishers with experimenting more with their games as then they are trying to sell the hot shit instead of the fun gameplay.

[bgibbz]

its not early acces that kills games, its leaving games in early access for 2 years that kills games. If game devs were to get a game 80% done and post an early access build for 2 months just to get users impressions, and then simply remove the game from the store, it would generate hype and allow for good testing. they can then finish the game up over the next few months before publishing the game. 

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

It doesent kill games directly.

In my opinion it heavily affect consumers in negative way which makes them less willing to pickup actualy good games as they spend most money on promise because market is oversaturated with unfinished garbage and then they are broke and dont trust the publishers/developers.... which makes sense. This also discourages some developers/publishers with experimenting more with their games as then they are trying to sell the hot shit instead of the fun gameplay.

I somewhat agree with this.

 

For me, it's just odd. I REALLY want to play these games that are in early access right now, but if I do I'll be getting a substandard experience because it's not finished. And I don't want a substandard experience. So I won't play it now, but I'll forget about it before it actually gets released. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this.

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

I somewhat agree with this.

 

For me, it's just odd. I REALLY want to play these games that are in early access right now, but if I do I'll be getting a substandard experience because it's not finished. And I don't want a substandard experience. So I won't play it now, but I'll forget about it before it actually gets released. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this.

Yes, I follow few gaming studios which I trust and I bough early access games from them in the past and they always got finished and were nice games but with new stuff I am really carefull and I rather wait before playing. Besides I usualy buy early access (which I believe will be good and finished) just because it is cheaper than full release and not because I want to play it right away (however I did this just several times as this rarely happens).

[Mihle]

It doesnt kill game in itself, its how long it is in it. and what type of game it is,

 

Early access have created games that would't be possible without.

Prison architect is a game that the developer themself, say that a lot of players come back to the game in periods, and still havent "died".

 

That what they say, and I think its true, because thats what I do.

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, Mihle said:

It doesnt kill game in itself, its how long it is in it. and what type of game it is,

 

Early access have created games that would't be possible without.

Prison architect is a game that the developer themself, say that a lot of players come back to the game in periods, and still havent "died".

 

That what they say, and I think its true, because thats what I do.

Yeah prison architect was another one I actually played in early access. Since it's been released (I think it's been released) I've probably played an hour or two of it...

[leelaa14]

No, developers kill there games by being greedy lazy bastards.
 

[Mihle]

50 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Yeah prison architect was another one I actually played in early access. Since it's been released (I think it's been released) I've probably played an hour or two of it...

I ment that I have played the game hours after the release too

[razor767]

It depends. 

 

Prison Architect is generally considered one of the best examples of early access done right. It probably would have never existed (or been finished) if it wasn't for early access but the devs also rewarded early adopters with regular updates. Even now it still gets updates which is probably what keeps people coming back to it.

 

We've also seen bad examples of early access, games that don't live up to the promises and are abandoned half way through development. Godus comes to mind here.

 

I believe Valve not taking enough responsibility is also part of the problem. GOG recently launched a similar program (Games in Development). Everything is curated by GOG themselves, they have a more generous refund policy than Steam and you can even rollback updates. 

 

Personally I always wait for games to be finished before purchasing although you do bring up a good point that you can easily forget when a game leaves early access.

 

Some examples of early access games that I'm glad I waited for them to be completed:

 

Action Henk

Assetto Corsa

DiRT Rally

Don't Starve 

Don't Starve Together

Door Kickers

Infinifactory

Invisible Inc.

SpeedRunners

 

[leelaa14]

49 minutes ago, razor767 said:

It depends. 

 

Prison Architect is generally considered one of the best examples of early access done right. It probably would have never existed (or been finished) if it wasn't for early access but the devs also rewarded early adopters with regular updates. Even now it still gets updates which is probably what keeps people coming back to it.

 

We've also seen bad examples of early access, games that don't live up to the promises and are abandoned half way through development. Godus comes to mind here.

 

I believe Valve not taking enough responsibility is also part of the problem. GOG recently launched a similar program (Games in Development). Everything is curated by GOG themselves, they have a more generous refund policy than Steam and you can even rollback updates. 

 

Personally I always wait for games to be finished before purchasing although you do bring up a good point that you can easily forget when a game leaves early access.

 

Some examples of early access games that I'm glad I waited for them to be completed:

 

Action Henk

Assetto Corsa

DiRT Rally

Don't Starve 

Don't Starve Together

Door Kickers

Infinifactory

Invisible Inc.

SpeedRunners

 

I have all but 3 of those in my library and love them all.
My newest early access title in my library is Rimworld. I feel this will be successful once it releases. The art style is pretty much prison architect.  

[razor767]

5 hours ago, leelaa14 said:

I have all but 3 of those in my library and love them all.
My newest early access title in my library is Rimworld. I feel this will be successful once it releases. The art style is pretty much prison architect.  

I've heard of Rimworld although I don't really know what it's about.

[Scruffy90]

Makes me miss the half assed demos of yesteryear. I don't think that the business aspect of many games should matter to the consumer and that the consumer make their "educated" choice based on the information given to them, such as the early access warning given on the products home page on steam. Some of the best time's i've had playing games have been from early access and alpha/beta builds.

[corrado33]

So I took the plunge.

 

I bought Subnautica in early access. And... well... I'm not sure what I expected but it's shit.

 

The game crashes constantly, even after updated the living crap out of every one of my drivers.  I can usually get about a half hour to an hour out of it. I save every opportunity I get so I don't lose too much progress. I spent 3 hours updating my computer and editing files and changing settings so the game doesn't crash every 4 minutes. the game doesn't freeze, it doesn't stop, just a popup saying "the game has crashed, please submit the report blah blah blah." YES, I HAVE followed the guide on the subnautica forums (written by the DEVS) to deal with crashing. 

 

Turning the graphics up makes it crash more. The view distance is so short that if I'm running through a cave (on land) I'm not sure if the sky I'm seeing is an exit to the cave or just a gap in the textures. There is a gap in every... single... texture. Nothing fits together properly. You can blatantly see where the boundaries to the sections are. It's not like my computer isn't up to the task. The game barely touches my GPU or CPU. (30-40% on both) It's just... horribly optimized. 

 

So yes, I'm getting a thoroughly substandard experience. Looking through all the bullcrap, I actually have fun with the game play, however short it is. (I'm 80% of the way through the content 9 hours into the game.) So I guess that's not "short" per se, but it's short for an open world game. Most of that time is spent trying to find crap or trying to get the freaking game to load things it's supposed to load. 

 

But I guess I should just play it now because by the time it gets released (and bug fixed) everyone will have forgotten about it.