Paying The Price For Unfinished Games

I like what this guy is saying. What are your thoughts on Steam Early Access?

The reality of the situation is, whatever side of the fence you sit on when it comes to Early Access, it's hard to dispute that the system could be improved. We need to have more clear information about what state the game is in, what is working and what is not working and approximately what portion of a game am I getting here? Personally, I'd also like to see a different precedent for pricing; one which allows early access users to jump on board without forking out so much cash.

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Go ahead and charge for early access but have a game time based no-questions-asked-refund policy? If I buy/build/borrow a first revision of anything I fully expect it to blowup, fail, catch on fire, in some way.

I like Early Access, got dome decent games labeled "Beta" that were more stable and finished than some full retail games I've purchased.
I'd like to see more of a schedule laid out for some of these games though, some seem like they've been beta forever.
I do believe however Steam should have a team together that tests these games and figures out if they're actually playable or not before they allow them to be there for purchase. It's only good business.

I don't pay to help develop software, I get paid.

I appreciate the fact that games are actually LABELED as "early access" so I know this is not a finished game. I much prefer that to games being bug ridden at launch, with patches being basically mandatory.

As with even "finished" games its always going to be a mixed bag where you find good games or bad ones.

I can list a few good early access games I've bought on Steam.

Kerbal Space Program
Damned
Project Zomboid

Been very pleased with all 3.

I'm not a fan of Early Access, and think it's bad overall no matter how you look at it.

From a developer's standpoint, fans are ignorant about what's involved and have unrealistic expectations. If something's released in a developmental stage, it is incomplete and there will be bugs. Yet customers will be upset that they're not getting a flawless experience. I think partly what's wrong is that alpha and beta have been twisted in meaning to mean what use to be a shareware limited access game. If early access is truly used to get funds, customers should not be able to get refunds back until the release. Yet they'll see a buggy and half baked game and demand refunds now, which defeats the purpose of Early Access.

From a customer's standpoint, it's only a matter of time before companies will soon turn everything into Early Access. No more meaning to put deadlines on anything anymore. And the deadlines of games will keep being pushed back later and later until it becomes a joke of when games are officially released. Call of Duty 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. will all be out in Early Access, yet there won't be an official release date. Oh, but you can't complain about the bugs, because it isn't an official release, so na na na na na.

Kerbal Space Program is and was cool. some of the others being sold in alpha and beta sucks

lcpiper said:

I don't pay to help develop software, I get paid.

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The problem is that these games are often niche products that would not get funded without the support of people who want them. Kerbal Space Program is the best game I've ever played. Can you imagine someone like EA developing that?

There's risk for the supporters, of course, but art patrons have always had to deal with that issue.

Well, it works for EA and others, and with full price at that...

I think we'll soon see the end of many unfinished games.

A person obviously needs to at least google the name of the game before they spend money. You can throw money at anything. There are plenty of steam early access games that are worth every friggin penny.

Kerbal Space Program.
Robocraft.
Guns Of Icarus.

Robocraft is free and it just got greenlighted recently. So it may not be available on steam yet, but it is coming.

I put my money in it if the game is at a place where I would get my money's worth. If it gets better, bonus.

Nytegard said:

From a customer's standpoint, it's only a matter of time before companies will soon turn everything into Early Access. No more meaning to put deadlines on anything anymore. And the deadlines of games will keep being pushed back later and later until it becomes a joke of when games are officially released. Call of Duty 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. will all be out in Early Access, yet there won't be an official release date. Oh, but you can't complain about the bugs, because it isn't an official release, so na na na na na.

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I can't think of a single CoD title after MW2 that isn't still in beta.

It's the same as preordering a game. You're paying for something before you know it works, or knowing if it ever will work.

niconx said:

It's the same as preordering a game. You're paying for something before you know it works, or knowing if it ever will work.

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The difference is that for a preorder you don't normally pay for the game in full or most of the cost. You only pay like $5.with the rest of the charge being done when the game actually is released. If the game is cancelled you normally are going to be able to get you money back.

Here, you can be paying 50 - 100% of the actual game cost. For example DayZ will cost you $30, as will a few other games on Steam. There is even at least one game that will run you $40.


Also with a preorder the company/person making the game gets 0% of that so they are driven to get something done and out there to get money. Even if the end product is shit. With early access they get the money up front so there isn't any drive to actually finish the game because they already have the money.

People need to stop bitching about this like it is a normal product.

This, kickstarter, etc. are all about funding something you want to see that might not otherwise be made. There's risk involved and complaining about it like it is a product is stupid. If you didn't get the difference between an early access title and a regular title knowing that something is early access, that is on you.

That doesn't mean early access doesn't need help. Kickstarter went through this, and had to redo the rules multiple times to ensure that the customer is getting sufficient information to make an informed decision. Early access is not doing that, and needs to represent early access titles differently than normal products. I mean more than sticking an early access tag on it. They do that, but the rest of a store page layout for it is essentially the same, and it does not supply sufficient info, AND makes it look like every other product that isn't early access.

Some of the info that might be useful to provide the date it went on sale on steam, and the number of updates since that date. Maybe also a 1-10 usability poll owners can vote in that is wiped for each new version release that lets users rate playability.

I can't stand early access (Payed Demo) games.