Does early access kill games?
Does early access kill games?
I also mentioned that I played the game long after its release.
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 own nearly all of those books except three, and I adore each one. My latest early access game in my collection is Rimworld. I believe it will perform well when it launches. The visual style closely resembles prison architect.
Reminds me of the imperfect demos from before. I believe the business side of many titles shouldn't influence the player, and users should decide wisely using the details provided, like the early access notice on Steam's homepage. Some of my favorite moments playing games were during early access and alpha/beta phases.
I decided to dive in. I purchased Subnautica in early access. And... well... I’m not sure what I anticipated, but it’s rough. The game keeps crashing, even after updating the drivers for every one of my devices. Usually I manage only half an hour to an hour before it stops. I save every chance I get so I don’t lose too much progress. I spent three hours tweaking my system, editing files, and adjusting settings to prevent crashes every few minutes. The game doesn’t freeze or stop; instead, it shows a popup saying “the game has crashed, please submit the report blah blah blah.” YES, I followed the troubleshooting guide from the Subnautica forums (written by the developers). Increasing graphics settings only makes it worse. The distance view is too limited—running through a cave on land makes me question if the sky is an exit or just a texture gap. There’s a flaw in every single texture; nothing fits together correctly. You can clearly see where the sections end. It’s not that my computer isn’t capable. The game barely uses my GPU or CPU (around 30-40% each). It’s just... extremely poorly optimized. So yes, I’m experiencing a very subpar experience. Despite all the issues, I still enjoy the gameplay, even if it’s brief. (I’m about 80% through the content after nine hours.) So I think that’s not necessarily long, but it’s short for an open-world title. Most of my time is spent searching for problems or trying to get the game to load properly. But I guess I should just play it now—by the time it’s released and fixed, everyone will have moved on.