What "Early Access" really means

[Grimmblut]

By definition of Wikipedia:

Early access to a game is typically offered when the game is in a playable state but may not be feature-complete, or may still have several software bugs to be found. Often these games are considered at alpha or beta releases, and may be months or years from anticipated completion.

So even IF a Bannerlord is going into Early Access on March 2020, it means that there will be absolutely NO assurance of quality or even feature-completeness. "Hey, I've spend 60 bucks on this game and it crashes every 5 minutes." - "Well, tough luck, buddy. It's Early Access! It's not supposed to be finished. People are so spoiled nowadays..."

Now here's the catch, again from Wikipedia:

Sergey Galyonkin, the creator of the Steam Spy tool to estimate sales of games through Steam profiles, identified that contrary to popular belief, early access titles only gain one major sales boost - when the game is first released in early access on Steam - as opposed to having a second sales boost once the game leaves early access.

So the big money will come in for Taleworlds Entertainment once they release the Early Access, NOT when they release a finished and working game. To make it even more clearly: There's no incentive to finish the game as there will be no second sales boost once it leaves Early Access. The longer the Early Access will continue the more people will buy the game despite it being buggy, missing important parts, unbalanced or outright unplayable, because "Hey it's still in Early Access".

...and there will be, until the end, be people on this and other forums that will defend that practice. I find the amount of these supposed fanboys highly suspicious and wonder how many of them have turkish IPs.

No money from me for Bannerlord until it has been released, outside of an Early Access, and thoroughly playtested by independent testers.

[ƬᗩԲԲվ]

The original was an early access title. It was a success. That's not people being fanboys. That's facts. You want to wait longer that's fine. But why are you spreading this garbage without mentioning the original was EA as well? Instead everyone is comparing it to what EA has become. But Taleworlds was one company that does it right.

[Friendly]

I see the tinfoil hat has been pulled out.

[Darth Revan]

and yet there are plenty of early access games which get finished despite that there is no "incentive to finish the game" like warband for example which was a early access game as well.

[Grimmblut]

The "early access" of M&B were (!!!!!!!!!!) FREE OF CHARGE (!!!!!!!!!!) downloads from the M&B website in 2004. They were close to unplayable, if you could get them running at all. It took four more years until the retail release! So the only one here spreading garbage is you!

[ƬᗩԲԲվ]

Originally posted by Grimmblut:

The "early access" of M&B were (!!!!!!!!!!) FREE OF CHARGE (!!!!!!!!!!) downloads from the M&B website in 2004. They were close to unplayable, if you could get them running at all. It took four more years until the retail release! So the only one here spreading garbage is you!

We've already seen plenty of footage showing the game is completely playable. If you really want to wait longer go ahead. No ones stopping you and you've not given them your money.

[Revenge]

jesus so many whiner threads today. If you don't want EA, don't buy it. Problem solved whineyboy. Every EA is different... lots of games I supported in EA were more or less full complete projects - KSP, Factorio, Rimworld, to name just a few. Stop crying over stupid ♥♥♥♥ kid.

[Aeronwen]

Devs need to eat too, their kids need shoes. They have been developing a game for many years with no income from that game. I don't see the problem with early access. I have had many years of enjoyment from M&B, I am happy to feel I owe them the price of several games.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Grimmblut:

...No money from me for Bannerlord until it has been released, outside of an Early Access, and thoroughly playtested by independent testers.

You know that you're going to end up getting the same game as the people who signed up for Early Access, right? And, if you're like most of the people who've been on this forum, you're already a Warband fan and have been waiting with eager expectation for Bannerlord, just like the rest of us.

Unless it just plain won't work and gets outed by everyone as a completely unplayable mess, I think it'd be a good bet that you're a guaranteed sale like most of us. :)

So... if there's a "Sale Price" for the E.A. you wouldn't sign up?

On sales figures - We can't always blindly accept that every game will perform the same way. Averages are averages. The original article, for those interested:

https://www.makinggames.biz/feature/how-to-be-successful-on-steam,8564.html

I think it's a pretty sensible article. And, it's easy to agree with given at least my own experience and what I've seen in the media and sales figures and the like.

But... this is Bannerlord. <thisissparta.gif>

I think it will be true that the biggest spike for sales is going to be for the E.A. version. But, if Bannerlord is much like Warband and IF it gets the crazy support Warband has gotten from fans over the years, especially with Big Mods, then post-release sales might be viable for years to come. If Multiplayer takes off and there's additional DLC pushes, those are going to have to be watched as well.

Marketing pushes are basically a one-time shot at wowing the audience. What then? People don't tend to keep throwing money at big marketing pushes when either they've figure out the market is already saturated with their product or the first big push didn't get the results they wanted... There's also got to be a reason to start a new marketing campaign that's meaningful.

An interesting history - No Man's Sky: https://steamcharts.com/app/275850

That's just player-numbers, not sales. Actual historical new-user/sales estimates are hard to find. (Unless there's a Steam Spy Patreon supporter out there.) But, we all kind of know the history there, right? (Started as a flop, sucked, then they worked hard and fixed a bunch.) NMS has really pushed some marketing efforts after its initial flop. Heck, some of the marketing they got was BECAUSE they had flopped... FREE, completely free, front-pageworthy marketing support every time they put out a patch that "fixed" something. Holy crap, imagine that! :)

With every popular new mod for Bannerlord, especially full conversions, people will be "talking." There will be youtube playthroughs of it. And, all of that is free marketing for Bannerlord.