discussion Do you think the era of early access games will ever end, or will it get worse?

[spet23]

Only two things are certain: Everything was better before and things will always get worse.

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[Tigerdiamonds]

It won't stop but I don't think it can get much worse. They can't extend the early acess too much bcs the people who bought it early would stop playing.
Something else that is getting worse in recent games is devs releasing unfinished products and "finishing" the game through patches. All the fault goes to the greedy companies behind these games

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There are SO MANY "early access" games on steam that are actually abandoned that steam had to start putting a "This game has not been updated in [x] months" label on them.

 

[Captain Panda]

I still don't understand reordering games anymore. It used to be because you would get a physical copy so that would make sence to secure one release day. But now with digital copies it dosent make sence. Are they gonna run out of them digitally?

Ok rant over

 

[Seo In-guk]

Como juego pirateado no me puedo quejar :3

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[SirBanana]

It is only going to get worse I feel. Games have started employing the "pay more to play the game 3 days early" so AAA are trying to seize as much as they can and it is only a matter of time before they all start just throwing unfinished early access games out there too. I remember when Beta Tests were to test and make sure the game was working, now it has turned into a publicity thing where you get to play the game early and most of what you see will stay exactly the same no matter on opinions.

 

[HollyCow]

There are different types of early access.
Some devs use it to actually gather info, improve game, get communication from players. Good.
Some just use it because they don`t have possibility to make a full game from 0, without funds. Not bad, depends on dev.
Some just milk money releasing version 0.000000075 and keep game in permanent early access. This devs should get early access on all the public services, medicine, fire rescue, police etc.

 

[HollyCow]

Games have started employing the "pay more to play the game 3 days early"

Thanks to that it it usually meant the protection is sh*t. So the the torrent edition will be 5 days early.

 

[entry1]

There are different types of early access.
Some devs use it to actually gather info, improve game, get communication from players. Good.
Some just use it because they don`t have possibility to make a full game from 0, without funds. Not bad, depends on dev.
Some just milk money releasing version 0.000000075 and keep game in permanent early access. This devs should get early access on all the public services, medicine, fire rescue, police etc.

this is the double edge of early access, you get great games that would have never seen the light but on the other hand some project will fail for any number of reason, from burnout to scams

 

[hobry411]

I don't think it will ever end and will probably increase if anything. If you don't already know, Valve started dropping disclaimers on EA games that haven't been updated for a duration of time. So that's a win I geuss. It's so broad now what even defines EA and I've seen games in alpha EA for 12 years, but they get regular updates all the time. I've seen released games not in EA and then some EA games that are more polished and considered in a better release state than some "completed" games.

 

[UStinky]

unfortunately not.. too many big ideas get made, but not enough nuanced material follows it to connect the dots

 

[Gornpa]

I think the issue with early access games is that there are some gems but many aren't. When you're in search of a game to play, you're hit with loads of early access/beta/alpha/etc. and even more abandoned projects. Plenty are just not that great or poorly executed but once in a while you're hit with a nice game.

 

[User_159114]

It was worse around 2015. In my opinion, It got better. But early access is here to stay.

 

[XIa]

Do you think the era of early access games will ever end, or will it only get worse?I just don't believe it's ever going to end. The very fact that there are too few games that you can safely start playing on release without encountering critical bugs and soft logs

Hopefully not

 

[Thelonely]

No I don't think it'll ever stop as long as there's pre-order bonuses

 

[darkstealler]

Probably worse.
There was 1 game I played that early access for 1yo already

 

[fragger3]

It will get worse. Thats why i don't pre-order anymore (last mistake cost me 40 dollars for a game that ended as the worst of its saga)

 

[chocolate52]

Mostly better

 

[Deleted member 207685]

Will get worse, there's too much money in it.

 

[Soulstar]

It won't stop but I don't think it can get much worse. They can't extend the early acess too much bcs the people who bought it early would stop playing.
Something else that is getting worse in recent games is devs releasing unfinished products and "finishing" the game through patches. All the fault goes to the greedy companies behind these games

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its not all greedy companies I have got a few early access games where its small teams of developers and they put there games out early access on purpose so that the players can help them find bugs and glitches that they miss a good example of this is games like schedule one if im not mistaken thats one person working on it

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2025

this is a coin flip some games were good with early access some were not I remember playing ARK day one of early access and even back then it was a good playable game just needed some fleshing out. And some games are released early to support small development teams both with finances as well as with finding bugs and glitches one such game would be something like schedule 1 if im not mistaken its 1 guy working on it full time he is going to miss stuff that will be reported to him and this lets him work on it full time... the main issue with Early access is when games plato both in development and in sales I have seen games where developers have gotten lazy after getting lots of funds and I have seen games where the sales went down before the full release so the developer(s) had to get other sources of income and didnt have time to keep working on the game as much

 

[BrodyPresto]

Early access is great in theory. It lets developers secure funding and gauge interest without betting it all upfront. But it sucks more for the consumer side. You risk paying for a game that might get abandoned down the line. The small silver lining is that you can help shape the game along the way with feedback.

Aren’t virtually all AVNs early access anyway, with their monthly subscriptions and updates?