Macragge scholar said:
I don't know why people hate early access more than pre-purchase. At least you can "access" to the game after the purchasing. Is that the drop of quality or the diminish of a promising game that piss people off?
I utterly dislike both, but early-access games may or may not "come out", whilst you can always cancel pre-orders if a game is delayed or cancelled, but you're gambling either way and you're better off buying a game that you can play now and one that you can be sure of its quality.
And it seems like pre-orders are more usually taken advantage of by publisher whilst you're more likely to see indie-devs taking advantage of the early-access system.
Both are horrible in every way though and are part of the reason we NEED game refunds on Steam, when EA is one step ahead of you in any aspect, you're doing something very, very wrong.