What does Early Access mean to you?

[Mother]

I've been looking at a ton of games that are currently Early Access and most have mixed reviews. So form there I start reading reviews and the most of them are "Not enough content" and "Buggy". It's clear that Early Access may be above most of their heads or they're just really dense. EA clearly doesn't mean the game is gonna be finished and polished, it's a real shame that people skim over some of these games just because they have mixed or negative reviews when in reality it's a bunch of idiots complaining the game isn't finished.

Side note: Some of the reviews were well thought out and had legitimate reasons for being negative.

[Tux]

Those who think gaming is bad now and bad because of early acces AND feel that gaming was better before Early Access for any reason are people on this point I disagree with in the exact opposite on this view

[Puggles123654]

Tux eredeti hozzászólása:

Those who think gaming is bad now and bad because of early acces AND feel that gaming was better before Early Access for any reason are people on this point I disagree with in the exact opposite on this view

I don't think anyone is saying "gaming is bad now and bad because of early access".

[76561198311293223]

hhhh

[Cuponoodle]

early access means do not buy to me. Nothing in this world makes me want to pay for a beta or in most cases alpha...

[Iflon]

From reading just the title and not further down:

To me it means Paying for acces to test a game to report bugs and mistakes, that a paid person should of done instead.

Why invest to much in game testers when you can make players do it and even earn on it?

One would think being part of testing an unfinish product would get you a good deal? well that dosent seem to be the case and any game is most likely to hit 15-50% sale eventualy if not more all games on steam seems overpriced at first

[Xer0]

I actually like early access. I think it gives developers the ability to try new ideas without having to slog out for a couple of years before seeing whether there is a market for thier idea. For impatient gamers looking for something new it also means less waiting time to try out these ideas if they can tolerate the bugs and lack of polish. The problem with it though is quite hard to explain well. When a game is percieved to be not moving forward or even goes backwards because the devs decide to start from scratch or remove major features after already having something playable it is quite frustrating for the players that were happy with the direction it was going. I think this is a communication issue. Some devs are just better at it than others it seems. Some overpromise and then underdeliver while others get the balance right. I think it works best for small scope modular sandbox games such as Kerbal Space Program which benefitted from small refined increments over time and not so well for pie in the sky super complex projects such as DayZ which I won't go into for fear of the ravenous zealots that will tear me apart if I express any negative thoughts about it. And then there is the infamous StarForge... still though I think it's a good thing overall. Maybe there should be something lke an honest list of currently implemented features that must be published at the start of early access and a wishlist of planned features so that buyers have an idea where the project is heading. If the progress is slow then whatever, but game breaking bugs should always be fixed before adding features. 100 buggy features is no where near as good as 20 that work well. Yes I'm looking at you DayZ. Let the flaming begin...

[rkkn]

means immediately leave store page

[☢ARMac☢]

Early access = skip for me.

Finish the game and have my money, not have my money and *maybe* finish the game at some point.

[Roach]

Early access means laughing at people learning to make video games for the first time in their lives. Here's my newest favoritest example....

http://store.steampowered.com/app/439950/

Like wtf is that seriously? hahahahaha

[bootlegger]

What does EA mean to me?

95% crap which will never be developed beyond its listing point, 1% potential gold (Kerbal Space Program) and 4% games that may be released in a decent condition.

When Early Access was first introduced the idea was to pay a low entry price to be part of the game's development and receive the finished product when it was released. That meant a $5-$10 entry price that gradually increased as the game got closer to release/preorder. It was a cool concept for supporting new developers and Indie teams and I much endorsed it. Kerbal Space Program was one of the early entrants which used the initial pricing model with a price of $5 when it was first listed on Early Access. Then the big studios and some well-backed KickStarter developers started getting involved and setting their Early Access prices at or above the eventual release price point. Planetary Annihilation was one of the most egregious examples of this where they posted their game up for Early Access at $90 and argued that it was only fair because their KickStarter backers had paid the same amount and it wouldn't be fair to offer it up for less (it eventually was listed for $60 at release). Since then all Early Access games have been listed at full release price. That wouldn't be so bad if a significant percentage of them were making it to full release. But the entire system has become a cesspool of student projects and greedy unscrupulous cashgrabs and even the ones that have interesting concepts rarely receive more than a handful of updates before being abandoned.

Nowadays I might mark an interesting Early Access game to my wishlist for purchase if it ever gets a full release but I won't spend a cent on any of them until they reach full release.

[jackaho]

"99% trash - ignore until release"

[Monkee]

Jackaho is correct.^^

[TheStoryteller01]

Abdulhakim eredeti hozzászólása:

early access means do not buy to me. Nothing in this world makes me want to pay for a beta or in most cases alpha...

☢ARMac☢ eredeti hozzászólása:

Early access = skip for me.

Finish the game and have my money, not have my money and *maybe* finish the game at some point.

bootlegger eredeti hozzászólása:

95% crap which will never be developed beyond its listing point, 1% potential gold (Kerbal Space Program) and 4% games that may be released in a decent condition.

wintermute eredeti hozzászólása:

What early access games means to me is wait until finished before buying.

jackaho eredeti hozzászólása:

"99% trash - ignore until release"

+1

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

"What does Early Access mean to you?"

"Don't buy this yet unless you're absolutely certain you want to throw money at the devs."

Note that this does not involve asking what kind of game it is.

It doesn't matter what kind of game it is. It doesn't matter how fun it looks. It doesn't matter how much I think I will love the game.

Unless I have a clear idea of how the devs work, I shouldn't buy an Early Access game.

Now, if it's a finished game, that's another story.

[Tux]

Pugglekaiser eredeti hozzászólása:

Tux eredeti hozzászólása:

Those who think gaming is bad now and bad because of early acces AND feel that gaming was better before Early Access for any reason are people on this point I disagree with in the exact opposite on this view

I don't think anyone is saying "gaming is bad now and bad because of early access".

but if anyone is saying that gaming now is worse because of Early Access and that gaming was better before Early Access I would I have disagree for the exact opposite reasons as that person.