Early Access being called a “release”. No your game is not released if its 20% done stop saying “New awesome game just released” when its basically a tech demo.
Not a tech demo, just a demo. A tech demo is something that shows new technology of an engine. Like that Matrix thing from a couple years ago, that was a tech demo
Early access release is fine, it’s a well known and understood term. What needs to stop is charging almost full price for them. If an early access game is 20% complete it should not still cost 80% of the full price (looking at you KSP2)
eh, it depends on who and their reasoning by it. like, an indie dev calling their EA project game a “release” is fair because the entire idea is its gonna be built up over time to a finished state.
The reason many studios do this is because they are based in regions where you get government subsidies for being in pre-release states for game development. Digital Extreme’s Warframe was one such property to do this, and I believe they still classify themselves officially as “in beta”.
Some games arent even possible with these programmes. Like ELEX and ELEX 2 was possible through a government culture grand. We dont get many games from Germany anymore and quality is slipping. You can see that with Daedalic and their Gollum fiasci…
Yep. However, games were of a much higher quality (for their time) before Early Access became a standard. Early Access created a new requirement for those avenues for investment, while they already existed. So to say that EA is something that’s necessary to fetch more funding is accurate today, it’s not the cause of EA being conceptualized and implemented in the market, it was a reaction to the first games that used EA.
I recall Shadows of Doubt annoyed a few people at one point because they announced their “big FREE update”
I think if you’re still in early access and clearly admitting that it is at present an unfinished product, you shouldn’t be making a big fanfare about an update being free.
Are you talking about the semantics? How would a developer say that a game is “released in Early Access” without using the word “release”?
Fwiw I love Early Access and I don’t have any expectations it will be a finished product. I just like trying it out early, being part of the development and see the game evolve. I also like returning to a game once it’s finished to get a completely new experience.
That was surprisingly refreshing about the Arknights: Endfield thing that happened recently. It was a solid base game with most major mechanics present, virtually no polish and obvious lack of content and direction outisde of “level up and beat bosses”. Many companies would release this and call it good, patching things later, but it was given to players as a technical test instead to test their base systems. I really appreciated that they didn’t call it “pre-release” or even “alpha”
Early Access being called a “release”. No your game is not released if its 20% done stop saying “New awesome game just released” when its basically a tech demo.
Not a tech demo, just a demo. A tech demo is something that shows new technology of an engine. Like that Matrix thing from a couple years ago, that was a tech demo
I just ranted about this above, but then they expect you to pay for this shit.
Early access release is fine, it’s a well known and understood term. What needs to stop is charging almost full price for them. If an early access game is 20% complete it should not still cost 80% of the full price (looking at you KSP2)
Lethal company seem to be the latest game in this category
eh, it depends on who and their reasoning by it. like, an indie dev calling their EA project game a “release” is fair because the entire idea is its gonna be built up over time to a finished state.
I’ve made a vow to never EVER buy an early access game ever again.
“Basically a tech demo” is hilarious!
The reason many studios do this is because they are based in regions where you get government subsidies for being in pre-release states for game development. Digital Extreme’s Warframe was one such property to do this, and I believe they still classify themselves officially as “in beta”.
Thankfully they actually made a good game lol
Fortnite was also in beta for a long time
Did not know this. Just another waste of taxpayers money 🙄
Some games arent even possible with these programmes. Like ELEX and ELEX 2 was possible through a government culture grand. We dont get many games from Germany anymore and quality is slipping. You can see that with Daedalic and their Gollum fiasci…
It’s really not. The whole reason for the grants is to incentivize companies and educated people to stay in country, which adds to the economy.
Also Xbox charged companies when they wanted to release an update. Keeping the game beta would allow free updates.
Yep. However, games were of a much higher quality (for their time) before Early Access became a standard. Early Access created a new requirement for those avenues for investment, while they already existed. So to say that EA is something that’s necessary to fetch more funding is accurate today, it’s not the cause of EA being conceptualized and implemented in the market, it was a reaction to the first games that used EA.
I recall Shadows of Doubt annoyed a few people at one point because they announced their “big FREE update”
I think if you’re still in early access and clearly admitting that it is at present an unfinished product, you shouldn’t be making a big fanfare about an update being free.
Are you talking about the semantics? How would a developer say that a game is “released in Early Access” without using the word “release”?
Fwiw I love Early Access and I don’t have any expectations it will be a finished product. I just like trying it out early, being part of the development and see the game evolve. I also like returning to a game once it’s finished to get a completely new experience.
Patchs for bg3 every two weeks
That was surprisingly refreshing about the Arknights: Endfield thing that happened recently. It was a solid base game with most major mechanics present, virtually no polish and obvious lack of content and direction outisde of “level up and beat bosses”. Many companies would release this and call it good, patching things later, but it was given to players as a technical test instead to test their base systems. I really appreciated that they didn’t call it “pre-release” or even “alpha”
I’m cool with this, it just needs to be proportionately cheaper than the full release
If you sell early access for $15 and the full game costs $15 you’re a scammer
If you sell early access for $15 and let those people into the full game which retails for $30 it’s pretty cool ngl