The Problem with Early Access Games

What really grind my gears in early access is to things. 1. Everybody hypes on the early access release and when (if) the game is finally fully out pretty much nobody plays it anymore except die-hard fans who already know the whole game upside down. This is especially sad when it comes multiplayer games. The 2. thing is that no matter how bad or wonky the game is it's still okay because it has early access badge on it. Certain devs seems to take advantage of this and release stuff that are never meant to be finished games or if they are finished nobody would give money from such mess. With ea there can be empty promises that the final product will be diamond and nobody does think it wrong when that's not happening.

I don't buy early access anymore

As a dev im very sad, early access is a way to save poor dev like me, but lazy dev abuse it.

the only reason ea still exists is a broken steam filters, that can't hide this trash

Early Access is especially detrimental to games that put their entire story front and center, or drip feed it to you. My Time at Sandrock is just one example for me personally, played the shit out of it in EA, but now the full release is out and... I dont care. I've had my fun with the game, I got burnt out. I've done all I wanted to do. This is why I stayed far, far away from BG3 in Early Access, bc the same thing would happen.

Other than the complete lack of oversight by Steam, the worst thing about Early Access is that people have become so accustomed to games being unfinished that developers aren't even bothering with using Early Access to release their unfinished games anymore. They just dump them right out on the store with no warning at all that the games are incomplete. And what does Steam do about it? Nothing, of course.

bruh i'm so sad i played most of the games during my teen years that just hit the perfect spot, now with work i find myself struggling to find anything that will last longer than 2 weeks (while playng 3-4h a day)

EA should be more like a beta test of a mostly finished environment. Some games I own or want are in EA for more than 5 years now and at this point you have to wonder if they are ever finished or if there is even the intent to do so. Even if they will be finished, at this point they are probably outdated. I used to like the idea of EA, but I shy away from it these days.

How about wait until your game is ready to release before releasing it and not make your consumers suffer, developers?

Was Cyberpunk 2077 "early access" or just completely broken, not ready and unoptimized on launch?

At least 4 of the early access titles I have bought on Steam have actually released a full version, the worst of the bunch is DayZ which offered so much promise, never advanced to what it was supposed to and just went to full release anyway and the PC version didn't even have the same start as the consoles where you would do a tutorial kind of thing. The other 3 are the Forest, Ark Survival evolved and Mount and Blade 2. All the other early access some more than 9 years old at this point are still unreleased and nowhere near the finish line.

Milsim games have this issue to the extreme. I can't think of a modern milsim that isn't early access right now.

RoN and Tarkov are incredibly fun games with a good amount of content. Why the hell are they still considered Early Access?

Here's your validation ya filthy animal! Also, everything you've said is 100% spot on. I'm here because I'm playing sons of the forest and I'm so damn pissed off at "early access" being an excuse for everything that is wrong with it. What about tall the hype they created and videos they released. Screw developers that do this and also Steam that let's lazy developers exploit the EA system so easily. Btw, I've also had Baldurs Gate 3 sitting in my library for over a year just gathering dust until now too, till it was finally released in full.

My problem as a dev is if I don't have the rest of my games be early access in the future il go through what I am currently going through with my first game (Making a perfect game with no money for almost a decade as I wait to perfectly finish it before releasing it) so I end up a wageslave to another real job that pays hourly which delays the games development even longer and makes people mad about development time.

with early access the hope is to work full time being paid for my work somewhat regularly by releasing games in early access chapters; but still commit to finishing the product. I feel like EA only has a bad rap because people dont finish the EA games but it might be really necessary to work full time as a indie dev

The isle Is a game that is in early access since 2015

If I see one more indie "cozy game" that shows up about 10 percent finished in Early Access and "lets the community participate in development", leading to the masses pressuring the devs into making an uninspired Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing/Minecraft clone that adds absolutely nothing new to the genre, I'm going to scream.

Indie devs are getting as bad as the AAA industry with this copy-pasted garbage.

The engine I use for my game gives players the advantage of continuing the game from their last save without having to worry about starting over(as long as they don't uninstall the game). But I'm still scared of putting the game on early access. It's story-intensive and episodic in nature, so the whole thing about early access still makes me wonder if I should put it there or not.😐

Well as hard as this may come off to some game developpers: Maybe there are too many games being made, way more than we actually need. And maybe the people who can't financially sit through a few years of development, shouldn't be making games at all. I see no reason to buy into an unfinished product ever, because I know I'm not gonna have a good time with a void of content bug fiesta. This is especially true for those C tier games that are just a copy of another game, that has been done 100 times over the past few years already, just because two dudes thought they needed to insert their own ideas, usually without external feedback of how well liked that idea would be.

Awesome video man! I have been researching some points on the early access topic.
Im making a video about V Rising, the game has been on early access for one year and only recieved one update so far, no updates around the pvp problems on the game so far.
Many people use the early access excuse to justify the game`s problems, but if you dont give feedback or criticise the game`s problem, and "just go play something else" then the dev`s dont know what the comunnity wants, and eventually the game dies.

Hello hello again! Great video as always and yes, those are some valid alternatives to early access. This video definitely had me thinking if I'll ever be able to get through my own backlog! At least, in a way that I feel I've experienced all the game has to offer and can "move on", whether that means fully beating it or not. How have you been? Hope the weather has been good wherever you are and of course work hard, play hard!

one of my very favorite games of all time is DRG which began as early access. DRG released as a very solid but barebones game and used the early access period to make more content and progression based on player feedback and it achieved this wonderfully. But so many use early access as a cheap method of beta testing instead starting with a solid foundation with a clear goal in mind.

I refuse to buy anything tagged Early Access, regardless of how good it is. Time to stop spoiling these devs, 80% have been "cancelled" anyway.

Established game developers shouldn't release early access

Early access is like watching an ongoing 5-seasons TV show starting with only 3 episodes available. Like you either will totally forget it between seasons/updates, or you will be hooked well enough to spread the word and hype the game.

keep the grind up will pay off

Awesome video as always.

Nice video!