Concept of Early Access
This phenomenon is something huge and a lot of games are released in a state called early access. I will try to give some background on how the world of gaming has changed and how the hell it turned into people paying retail prices for unfinished games!
Pre-Internet gaming
At first video games were played completely offline. The reason? There was no Internet connection available in private households. It was as simple as that. I am serious, the Internet has not always been around like it is today. It is actually quite new.
I was not around for the very first computer games, such as "Pong". It was released in 1972 and was an "arcade game". The "small machine" where you could play it looked like this (picture below).
Then there was several generation of consoles that was to become a popular part of a lot of households. The Nintendo came out in several generations, then there was the PlayStation of course. Sega had some consoles in the early days as well. But today, Nintendo and PlayStation are the familiar names that are still selling consoles.
When there were no Internet available for the gaming consoles, obviously you could not patch the games.
When you purchased a game, you got it on a disc and it was complete! It had to be, since the company could not create patches to fix bugs. This has led to some legendary bugs that lived on since they could not be fixed.
Then the Internet came, the PC's became more of a gaming system and the consoles slowly began to be connected to the Internet. This created a new unique way for the game developers since if any big bugs became known they had an opportunity to fix them and allow the players to download a patch.
Now this is where the business started to change drastically! Games did not have to be perfected before release anymore. To me, that is just so fucking anoying. I had gotten used to know that the games I played were complete, tested for a long time by the developers to eliminate bugs and glitches.
At first the Internet connections were slow and the game developers could not really assume that all players had Internet available. So it took a while for the business to change to what it is today. Today basically everyone playing video games do have an Internet connection, even if it is not a stable one they are able to patch the games.
Post-Internet gaming
A recent example of a game that has been having lots of troubles is the Batman for PC. It was even removed from Steam at one point. The thing I am trying to point out is that by releasing it without having it perfected, the developers tried to release several patches to fix the problems.
The players who bought it on release did not get the full experience.
I mean, they played through the game with a lot of issues. That means that they experience the story but while doing that they had to struggle with bugs and glitches that ruined the game experience. To me that is a huge deal. When you are playing a game, you want to be able to know that the game is solid and you can just focus on enjoying the story of the game without having to worry about the game freezing all of a sudden and force you to restart from your last save point.
Playing the game before release
As soon as games became available for download instead of just on physical copies things like alpha and beta testing became a popular thing. The developers invited a certain amount of players to try the game on an early stage to find bugs and give feedback on the game.
This was something great. I believe it gave hardcore fans a chance to help the game developers creating a game that the players would prefer.
Now we have even come to the point where the game developers say that they want the players to be able to take part in the development process of the games. They call it "early access". I call it "Lets charge people retail prices without create a product" There is a biiig difference between this so called "early access" and the previous "beta testing".
Now you have to pay for the game to be able to try it. You will be doing the testing for the developers and you are paying for it.
How dumb are we? Really?
I love indie games. I have purchased a lot of early access games. I am probably one of the most stupid people out there. Or as the developers like to call me, Sugar daddy! I give them their reward before they accomplish anything.
The developers really managed well when they implemented this as a regular thing. Some games offer reduced prices when purchased in early access. But that is not something that everyone does. If they manage to get a lot of hype and intrest, particularely from Twitch streamers, they can charge you retail price for something they are not even close to finishing.
So lets do a list. We will call the first on "Pros of Early Access".
Pros of Early Access
- You get to play the game ASAP! No need to spam all the gaming websites looking for information on how the development is going. You are a part of the developing process!
- You might compare it to a kickstarter project. Your money spent on the game is going to the developers to make them improve the game further. You are motivating them to work harder on the game, because they are actually getting intrest from the community.
- If you do have a looot of spare time and are a real geek in the specific game that you are playing as early access, you can have an impact on the development itself by giving feedback. If you play it a lot, you will most likely find bugs and specific things that you report to the development team.
Guess what the second list is called? "Cons of Early Access".
Cons of Early Access
- A lot of games are never leaving the state of early access. The developers might have felt that they had gotten their reward already and then the motivation stopped. DayZ is a big example of a game that is stuck in early access. It is still said to be developing though, other games has just stopped updating at all.
- If you are not a huge fanboy that loves to be a part of the development, you might want to avoid playing storybased games before full release. You will get to learn the story of the game and the plot twists while playing a buggy and non-complete game.
- The trend of more games being released as early access might have a bad influence on the future of the industry. Will we see a future of games always being released unfinished? It is a long way there I know. But hell. We are on that path.
At first we saw a few games having to patch. Now every game releases patches to fix minor bugs etc.
My take on the matter
I can understand that indie game developers want to send out a hook to see whether or not the players like the game. Unless they have a kickstarter backing I see no reason why they are obligated to release a finished game at all really.
With a kickstarter project backing them on the other hand, they have recieved funding to release the game.
If they release an early access version of the game that they charge money for is another thing. Sure, the people buying games in early access are preparing to risk that the game won't be as perfect as it potentionally could be. But either way, a finished game would be something to expect.
If they were to release the game as an alpha version for free instead of selling it as early access it would allow them to get feedback from players during the development process. They would also avoid risking taking peoples money without releasing a product in return.
By doing that they would probably lose some players that otherwise would have bought the game though. There are always players that imagine the game will be something and then it turns out it is a completely different game. If they would get to play a free alpha version they would simply not buy the game when they discover it is not what they are looking for.
Another risk developers are taking when releasing it for free testing during the development process is scaring away potential buyers due to slow process. If a player has been granted access to a game they would expect the game to constantly being updated with new content.
That is what developers do right?
They constantly work on the game. And even if they would be working their asses off, really working day and night on fixing bugs and glitches. It is not certain that the alpha/beta testers will understand that.
If it passes too long time between updates or that the updates are insignificant they will lose those players and probably get thrashed via social media. Today, every single tweet can potentially get spread and change the entire communitys opinion of a game.
One way to go, and some indie developers do, is to release it as early access at a cheaper price. That way the players will get to gamble a bit. They will suffer through a lot of bugs and the game might change a lot until it is released as a finished product. But at the same time, they are paying less money than they would have done if they would have waited for it to be a full release.
I have taken a few chances like that. I must say that not a single game is released so far. Take DayZ for example. They have been selling that early access since December 2013. Now easter is passed in 2016. What the hell?
They do have a huge disclaimer on their Steam page saying that there are no guarentees for the game to be developed into a finished product. But all early access games have some kind of disclaimer. And this particular game had a lot of hype even as a free mod for ARMA 2.
This was supposed to be a safe bet... And in comparison to a lot of the chances I have made this was actually quite expensive.
A lot of my thoughts in this matter became about indie developers. And like I said, I expect them to release early access games to feel certain that they are not wasting time.
When the big companys are starting to release early access games however, is when I start to get worried about the industry. Now I even read that Roller Coaster Tycoon World or something like that is released as an early access.
I will expect nothing less than a full release later on. Since it is such a classic game series. And 46 Euros is not something I would pay for a game that was not certain to be finished.
What do they expect from the players that purchases the early access? Input? Before this whole early access started there were always alpha- and beta-testers doing that job. Now they don't need to pay people to try the game and find the bugs?
People will pay money for the game and then do that job for them?
I don't really know how it works so I won't say for certain but it sure sounds like it would be a sweet deal for the companies. Earning money instead of paying people to play the unfinished game.
