Steam Opens Early Access Program

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Steam opened its Early Access Games program today that gives you....you guessed it...early access to games that are being developed with the community's involvement. Hit the link for all the info.

We like to think of games and game development as services that grow and evolve with the involvement of customers and the community. There have been a number of prominent titles that have embraced this model of development recently and found a lot of value in the process. We like to support and encourage developers who want to ship early, involve customers, and build lasting relationships that help everyone make better games.
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There have been a lot of games lately that are being released as a pay for early alpha access, about time. Though DOTA2, which will be a free 2 play game, charging for early access peeves me a bit still (luckily a friend did the survey which I refused and got an invite and then could invite me). ARMA3 on the other hand is freaken awesome, the bugs alone make it worth every penny (aircraft carrier beaching FTW) and that we get upgraded to the full game, I picked up the special edition.
 
They would be stupid not to jump in on this. I'm helping with a few alpha build games these days, and some of them are shaping up very well.

As Gabe has stated in recent articles, Steam is moving toward more than just content distribution. They are helping facilitate creativity and a much more diverse game market. This will integrate perfectly into letting the community Greenlight games that don't have a publisher. We are moving closer and closer to a publisher free market. Now, publishers will probably never go away entirely, but the public is going to have much more control over what gets made and what does not. It will be much easier to track trends in consumer tastes as well.
 
RangerXML said:
There have been a lot of games lately that are being released as a pay for early alpha access, about time. Though DOTA2, which will be a free 2 play game, charging for early access peeves me a bit still (luckily a friend did the survey which I refused and got an invite and then could invite me). ARMA3 on the other hand is freaken awesome, the bugs alone make it worth every penny (aircraft carrier beaching FTW) and that we get upgraded to the full game, I picked up the special edition.
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DOTA 2 was weird. First they offered to let me in the beta if i bought $40 worth of gear so i refused it. About 2 weeks later i get an email saying i can play for free.
 
If only they would add in the rest of the greenlight games, like the ones that have been released for years but are rotting in the greenlight basement.
 
You will have people join, play an Alpha, rage quit at some bug, and bitch endlessly about how buggy the game is through beta, and release.

Just an opportunity to have a game get a black eye.

And to an extent I'm guilty of something similar. I got attached to the gameplay during the demo phase of Raven Shield and disliked the change on the released game and every change they made after that.
 
Not too shabby... and a bit less creepy feeling than funding a Kickstarter project.
 
jpm100 said:
You will have people join, play an Alpha, rage quit at some bug, and bitch endlessly about how buggy the game is through beta, and release.

Just an opportunity to have a game get a black eye.

And to an extent I'm guilty of something similar. I got attached to the gameplay during the demo phase of Raven Shield and disliked the change on the released game and every change they made after that.
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can't be any worse than Forsaken World.

Game has been out of beta for awhile now and crashes randomly, most often during transfers to an instance, or when getting in or out of your guild's base. patches fix the crashing for some, only to make people who weren't crashing before, do so like others. It's gotten to the point where people are digging up workarounds and blatantly posting fixes on the forum. some people crash just from standing in the main town for awhile. I once crashed from accepting a party invite. another person in my guild crashed from typing text into the search box for the Auction House window. And the application for reporting bugs doesn't always come up afterwards when you crash, so you can't even report it and submit it directly to the dev team most of the time.

And PWI's answer to that? "here's more shiny crap for your character to wear/ride/fly on!"
 
They mean "we noticed lots of developers are selling beta access, lets make a section to encourage it"

Gah, add something actually useful (and no more Steamfacebook crap :p).
 
jpm100 said:
You will have people join, play an Alpha, rage quit at some bug, and bitch endlessly about how buggy the game is through beta, and release.

Just an opportunity to have a game get a black eye.

And to an extent I'm guilty of something similar. I got attached to the gameplay during the demo phase of Raven Shield and disliked the change on the released game and every change they made after that.
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However it can't be any worse to games that are released on day one, I'm look at your Sword of the Stars 2 (although to be fair, even fixed that game has serious game play flaws that make it not fun). I think the biggest issue is if you do have people complaining about aspects of the game and being shut out and the developer telling you to "shut up that's the way things are and will be"
 
Nice. I was playing some Arma 3 through this and it's definitely got some glitches(being an alpha) but was pretty fun.
 
So what happens if the developers stuffs up and the game never actually gets released?

Or they change/implement something that irks the player base? (e.g. Bioshock infinite removing multiplayer or Diablo 3 not having PvP)

It seems like a mine field to me and I don't think that the majority of steam users will realize an alpha or beta game will have problems and may just simply not work for whatever reason.
 
Sublym3 said:
So what happens if the developers stuffs up and the game never actually gets released?

Or they change/implement something that irks the player base? (e.g. Bioshock infinite removing multiplayer or Diablo 3 not having PvP)

It seems like a mine field to me and I don't think that the majority of steam users will realize an alpha or beta game will have problems and may just simply not work for whatever reason.
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As you mentioned, Diablo 3 did not have any PvP for a long time after launch so sometimes these problems could occur even in final products. Another common uncertainty that occurs after a product is launched is patching. Some dev just completely stop patching bugs in a game after a couple of half-hearted attempts. So there's always a risk that a game is left incomplete or broken even after launch.

I guess it's down to how much you trust the company making the game.
 
sfsuphysics said:
However it can't be any worse to games that are released on day one, I'm look at your Sword of the Stars 2 (although to be fair, even fixed that game has serious game play flaws that make it not fun). I think the biggest issue is if you do have people complaining about aspects of the game and being shut out and the developer telling you to "shut up that's the way things are and will be"
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But the problem is that Alpha is not the least bit representative of a game bug-wise. So whether bugs stay in at Alpha or get fixed is up to the developer/publisher and essentially unknown to anyone outside the company.

Now if bugs become a concern and this program becomes a marketing opportunity, then game focus will be a bugs and not on new content. The solution to this would be boilerplate games.
 
I hate this bullshit, though I have contributed by pre-ordering SC2 just to get into the beta. They are monetizing QA instead of spending for it. It's amazing for them.
 
paying the developer to be a tester, instead of the developer employing people and helping to create jobs for the industry. or conduct a public test program for free, like alot of devs have used in the past. all these kids with eyes easily distracted "ohhh shiny!!"

kickstarter i can understand, because that is a business proposal seeking investors, not a business proposal in development seeking early customers to fund the project that should have been properly costed in the first place, as is this "early access" garbage.
 
i dont see how people can have a problem with this.

its purely optional to take part, no one is forcing you to spend money and most likely if you do, you get the FULL GAME at a discounted price any way.

so not only do you not have to wait for a game to come out you can support the devs and help test if you choose or just have fun in the early build.

now if you were not getting the full game then i could see where people might have an issue.

but with Arma 3 alpha you get the FULL game also not just the alpha so all you did was preorder at a discounted price and then you also get to potentially help the game you just paid for be a better game at release.

no one is forcing people to buy it. why do people have a problem with this?
 
Wildace said:
i dont see how people can have a problem with this.

its purely optional to take part, no one is forcing you to spend money and most likely if you do, you get the FULL GAME at a discounted price any way.

so not only do you not have to wait for a game to come out you can support the devs and help test if you choose or just have fun in the early build.

now if you were not getting the full game then i could see where people might have an issue.

but with Arma 3 alpha you get the FULL game also not just the alpha so all you did was preorder at a discounted price and then you also get to potentially help the game you just paid for be a better game at release.

no one is forcing people to buy it. why do people have a problem with this?
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^This x100. I see this as a far better model than kickstarter. At least you know you are buying something because you get immediate access to the game in whatever state it's in.

Ultimately, this is cool because it's another option for gamers and developers to use or not as they see fit. How can that possibly be bad?

That being said, hey Obsidian, put Project Eternity up here, and I'll buy in :).
 
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