How long takes it for a game in Early Access to become normal?

[Ralf Ferdius]

How long takes it for a game in Early Access (here on Steam) to become a normal game?

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Ask the game developer. It can be between a month or never.

[Ogami]

There is no time limit. Most developers post a estimate how long they expect the game to be in Early Access but its rarely accurate.
I seen games abandoned after 1 month in Early Access and others going on 10 years in Early Access and still getting regular updates.
It IS a gamble in the end, thats why you are warned when you buy an Early Access title so you are aware it may never be finished or turn out the way you want to.
If you cant live with that risk, dont buy Early Access games, its that simple.
Wait for them to be finished.

[Ralf Ferdius]

Do you use / buy / play games in Early Access?

*There should be limit.* Made by Steam. Or by others and worldwide.
Beginner game developers can have more time, but not having several games in development near the same time.


Games in Early Access have high prices, can be change to point you don't like the game anymore and still have never be finished.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Ask the game developer. It can be between a month or never.

:nkCool:

There are many game developers and games, @cSg|mc-Hotsauce, so that will not be easy.

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no time limit. Most developers post a estimate how long they expect the game to be in Early Access but its rarely accurate.
I seen games abandoned after 1 month in Early Access and others going on 10 years in Early Access and still getting regular updates.
It IS a gamble in the end, thats why you are warned when you buy an Early Access title so you are aware it may never be finished or turn out the way you want to.
If you cant live with that risk, dont buy Early Access games, its that simple.
Wait for them to be finished.

Do you want to wait for 10 years or more, @Ogami? With little to no news, updates, content...
For all your games?
Not every one likes to wait for so long time.

[Faedrill]

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

Do you want to wait for 10 years or more, @Ogami? With little to no news, updates, content...
For all your games?
Not every one likes to wait for so long time.

There is a simple solution to that problem.

1. Read and understand the big blue Warning on every early access shop page.

2. Dont buy the games till its leave early access.

[Aluvard]

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

Do you use / buy / play games in Early Access?

*There should be limit.* Made by Steam. Or by others and worldwide.
Beginner game developers can have more time, but not having several games in development near the same time.


Games in Early Access have high prices, can be change to point you don't like the game anymore and still have never be finished.

If you are not sure about buying Early Access game - don't buy it and wait till version 1.0. Even Steam in his blue disclaimer on store page encourages such behavior.

Besides how you're going to decide what limit is acceptable? Keep in mind that many of new developers have other jobs besides game development, because they don't want to go down with proverbial ship in case their game didn't take off.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Ask the game developer. It can be between a month or never.

:nkCool:

There are many game developers and games, @cSg|mc-Hotsauce, so that will not be easy.

That's why you need to ask each of them independently. If you're interested in 5 games, you need to ask 5 game devs.

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no time limit. Most developers post a estimate how long they expect the game to be in Early Access but its rarely accurate.
I seen games abandoned after 1 month in Early Access and others going on 10 years in Early Access and still getting regular updates.
It IS a gamble in the end, thats why you are warned when you buy an Early Access title so you are aware it may never be finished or turn out the way you want to.
If you cant live with that risk, dont buy Early Access games, its that simple.
Wait for them to be finished.

Do you want to wait for 10 years or more, @Ogami? With little to no news, updates, content...
For all your games?
Not every one likes to wait for so long time.

7 days to die development took 10 years and it had regular updates, so your example failed.
Slapping 1.0 on game won't magically fullfill all of it's promises or finish its development. All you'll receive is unfinished game with finished status.

[miamew3]

Nobody is forcing you to buy early access games, it's a choice you make. And as others mentioned it's a gamble, where it is possible that the game will never be finished.

I suggest if your considering buying an early access game, do some research first.
How active are the dev's with the games community forum/news hub?
How often do they add updates to the game?
Do they have a road map showing what content and milestones they want to reach.
Do they have an estimated date for full release.


From my own experiences with buying early access games, i find that dev's who are active within the community, have regular game updates and are transparent about their road maps, are more likely to release a full version game from early access.

[Yarmoth]

According to this website

https://www.ddmagency.com/news/early-access-games-on-steam/

This article is written by Kay Bros with Peggy Twardowski. It looks like the average time that a game is in early access is right around 2.5 years or 30ish months. But it depends on the genre, studio (AAA, AA, Indie) and pricing.

EDIT: Keep in mind that these are the AVERAGES. Some games like Baldur's Gate 3 was in EA for around 3ish years but some games like Project Zomboid have been in early access since 2013 (that was 11 years ago!) so it really just depends at the end of the day.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Don't buy EA to begin with, this is crookery. Leave those titles alone and favor companies with a good managing plan that don't require customers to work for free.

[EliteEndermanzz]

Depends on the game, some never leave early access

[smokerob79]

star field was in E/A for what over 10 years?? and even had 30,000 dollar ships!!!

[Ralf Ferdius]

10 years? That's is very long. Players might leave that game.

Originally posted by Faedrill:

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

Do you want to wait for 10 years or more, @Ogami? With little to no news, updates, content...
For all your games?
Not every one likes to wait for so long time.

There is a simple solution to that problem.

1. Read and understand the big blue Warning on every early access shop page.

That's why I'm asking.

Originally posted by Faedrill:

2. Dont buy the games till its leave early access.

Then there might some changes that you don't like the game anymore. Low price, more bugs. Or again, a project stays incomplete.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by smokerob79:

star field was in E/A for what over 10 years?? and even had 30,000 dollar ships!!!

Star Citizen, not Starfield. 2 completely different games by different developers and publishers.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

10 years? That's is very long. Players might leave that game.

That's the developers problem.

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

Originally posted by Faedrill:

There is a simple solution to that problem.

1. Read and understand the big blue Warning on every early access shop page.

That's why I'm asking.

Originally posted by Faedrill:

2. Dont buy the games till its leave early access.

Then there might some changes that you don't like the game anymore. Low price, more bugs. Or again, a project stays incomplete.

That can happen to any game that's still under active development when released with content updates and balance changes etc. Pretending it's a facet that's special for early access is a little naive.

Early access isn't this special thing really. It's just the developers opinion about the state of their project. Nothing you say, think, or believe is going to override that opinion, nor is there a point in time when the developers opinion about their project being sufficient for a 1.0 release is wrong.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Ralf Ferdius:

Do you use / buy / play games in Early Access?

*There should be limit.* Made by Steam. Or by others and worldwide.
Beginner game developers can have more time, but not having several games in development near the same time.


Games in Early Access have high prices, can be change to point you don't like the game anymore and still have never be finished.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Ask the game developer. It can be between a month or never.

:nkCool:

There are many game developers and games, @cSg|mc-Hotsauce, so that will not be easy.

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no time limit. Most developers post a estimate how long they expect the game to be in Early Access but its rarely accurate.
I seen games abandoned after 1 month in Early Access and others going on 10 years in Early Access and still getting regular updates.
It IS a gamble in the end, thats why you are warned when you buy an Early Access title so you are aware it may never be finished or turn out the way you want to.
If you cant live with that risk, dont buy Early Access games, its that simple.
Wait for them to be finished.

Do you want to wait for 10 years or more, @Ogami? With little to no news, updates, content...
For all your games?
Not every one likes to wait for so long time.

No you CANNOT push arbitrary rules like this because that's not how things work at all.

Obviously, there's no way to say how long you can stay in Early Access because games vary as do size of teams and methods of work and size of income too.

Take something like 7 Days to Die. That game first popped up about 10 years ago or so. Only recently did it reach a full 1.0 release. Progress was slow and this is because of them being a small team, learning on the spot, and having pitfalls along the way too (such as losing their publisher, Telltale).

But worse than this, you can't also say arbitrary things like "you can only have one Early Access game on the go" as that also doesn't take into account anything about their setup. If they have more than one team or group separately working on games, then why shouldn't they?

Because of this it's obvious why Valve leave it up to them to say their bit and allow them to do it. They WILL jump in if there's clear evidence of wrongdoing.

But you don't get to make rules that tell them how to conduct their business. It would not be a fair contract anyway and would legally be unworkable.

[RPG Gamer Man]

Some EA games are dropped after awhile, and some are permanently in them, but still worked on. Take a look at Fugl. It has been in Early Development for like 10 years now, and is still being actively worked on.