Jimquisition: Early Access

[Evonisia]

But wait... who do I thank God for now?!

And I didn't even realise this was a thing, that's pretty fucked up. I can easily imagine an excuse being "well we'll give you the game for free (or more likely a discounted price)) when it is properly released!"

 

[Candescence]

As previously mentioned by others, early access is fine as long as the product is clearly labelled as such and the developer provides a lot of detail on what's incomplete, current bugs, etc. If you're clearly informed that you're taking a risk, you have nobody to blame but yourself if that risk doesn't end well for you.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

One important thing I think a lot of people are missing with these Eearly access games that are paid for.

How long do you guys tend to play a single game? Discounting MMOs that I've been able to play for years (and even that was with me in high school, with tons of time on my hands), most of the games I play can at most hold my interest for some 2 months. At most. A few games are exception to that, but most are either multiplayer (usually with DLC) or completely built around replayability, like the Civilization series. Even there though, there's only so much I can play of the game before I just get bored and booting it up again is something that may happen once in 6-12 months.

With that in mind, why in the world would I pay for an unfinished game that's going to be finished several months from now at the earliest? I'd be setting myself up for one of two things - one, that the game is shit in it's state, unplayable and I've wasted money on it. It could possibly even tar the experience for me enough not to bother to install it again (or at least not enjoy it as much when I do) when it does get finished.

And two, that the game is playable and enjoyable enough in it's current state, in which case I'm paying the same price, possibly even a higher one, to play an unfinished product now and not have any interest in it once it's complete. That's a trade-off of quality for time of delivery that the gaming community has a high tendency to rage on about... so why the fuck do it willingly?

So imo, it's a lose-lose situation for the consumer, even if the game is actually playable in Early Access. I appreciate that it makes it easier on the developer and that's cool, but again, in it's shiniest moments, assuming it's not a game you're gonna play for years (and for an indie game, that's highly unlikely [not impossible though]), you're paying for an unfinished product to get it early.

I think you raise some valid points.

However, in my own case, the games I've bought on Early Access are DayZ, Kerbal Space Program, Prison Architect and Project Zomboid, all of which are systemic games that are very sandboxy. Seeing as I still go back and play Alpha Centauri and Crusader Kings 2 was my Goty in 2012 and 2013 and probably will be again in 2014, I think it's a fairly safe bet that, provided the games are good, I will keep coming back to them. I'd not buy a story game on Early Access but for me, systemic games are infinite engines for making my own, better stories that anything a story game can cough up. That's why I'm comfortable with those games in particular, as they scratch some of my various systemic itches.

So, I think, at the end of the day, if the game is clearly labelled as such and priced properly and you inform yourself of what you're getting into, Early Access is... alrightish. It's by no means awesome though. I am, despite the confidence in my purchases, vary of the concept.

 

[Mark B]

Whats rubbed me the wrong way with the whole early access thing is the likes of Planetary Annihilation which charged people more to try their product early, this is after they successfully kickstarted their product and got all of their stretch goals and more.

So not only are you getting a buggy unfinished product your paying a premium for it and annoying all of your backers whom they promised exclusive access to it.

A simple solution would be to have a simple 5 star rating system for people who have bought the game. Sure steam already has a recommendation where you can write limited reviews but if you dont know anyone who has bought it its not worth the punt. It also would discourage people from firing stuff out half baked since they would attract a lot of low scores early on.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Wait, Eldritch is still Early access? 0_o The game feels seriously complete to me...Coudl use a bit more room variety, but aside from that it was a total and complete blast!

Starbound is still missing a lot of stuff, so I'll wait for that before I jump back in.

...Also, I feel I should mention Sanctum 1 here. It was REALLY a trimmed down experience when it launched, with only 3 maps, and limited customization. But they eventually realeased a bunch more stuff for free and then added DLC for reasonably cheap as well and it turned out pretty decent.

Finally, I'm going to be one of those early access guys when God Factory finally does its official launch. I got to try the beta during the (unfairly failed) kickstarter campaign, and it was GLORIOUS. Def something I would pay for as is, and especially with the promise of more stuff to come.

 

[Thanatos2k]

One important thing I think a lot of people are missing with these Eearly access games that are paid for.

How long do you guys tend to play a single game? Discounting MMOs that I've been able to play for years (and even that was with me in high school, with tons of time on my hands), most of the games I play can at most hold my interest for some 2 months. At most. A few games are exception to that, but most are either multiplayer (usually with DLC) or completely built around replayability, like the Civilization series. Even there though, there's only so much I can play of the game before I just get bored and booting it up again is something that may happen once in 6-12 months.

With that in mind, why in the world would I pay for an unfinished game that's going to be finished several months from now at the earliest? I'd be setting myself up for one of two things - one, that the game is shit in it's state, unplayable and I've wasted money on it. It could possibly even tar the experience for me enough not to bother to install it again (or at least not enjoy it as much when I do) when it does get finished.

And two, that the game is playable and enjoyable enough in it's current state, in which case I'm paying the same price, possibly even a higher one, to play an unfinished product now and not have any interest in it once it's complete. That's a trade-off of quality for time of delivery that the gaming community has a high tendency to rage on about... so why the fuck do it willingly?

So imo, it's a lose-lose situation for the consumer, even if the game is actually playable in Early Access. I appreciate that it makes it easier on the developer and that's cool, but again, in it's shiniest moments, assuming it's not a game you're gonna play for years (and for an indie game, that's highly unlikely [not impossible though]), you're paying for an unfinished product to get it early.

Precisely. I have a large backlog of COMPLETE RELEASED games I have yet to play. Why would I *ever* pay to play through an incomplete buggy game when I'm probably not going to come back to it?

 

[90sgamer]

I do not see the problem, Jim.
The choice ultimately falls on the consumer to decide if it's appropriate or not. It's the consumer's risk to make. The only obligation the producing business has is to inform the consumer that the product is being sold as-is, and that it is currently incomplete. It is not unlike a kickstarter. You are in essence arguing against used cars-- which do not have the complete value a new cars has: the guarantee that all parts of the car are in working order, and will remain in working under under warranty. Or, you are arging against currency backed by the good faith of a government: we receive slips of paper that are at face value useless and not as valuable as the numbers printed on them suggest; however, their value is guaranteed by a government which could potentially say "oops, nevermind your paper has no value," at any time. The alternative is bartering, only buying new cars, and only buying complete games, at your discretion.

Now, if the publisher is representing a product as complete, and it is not in fact a complete product, then that's fraud. Obviously, that is wrong, and there are laws in place to protect consumers against that sort of thing. What you are describing is different, and there is a legit consumer demand for it.

 

[jpoon]

Great video and I do agree that the new trend is a bad one more than good. I am participating in a couple great and a few bad ones currently on steam alone and have started curbing this habit heavily after my more recent experiences (7DtD).

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

One game was enough to turn me off to this early access bizniss. Folktale. Was on Greenlight, looked good, comes out in ~Alpha mode, Early Access, I buy it. It has nothing but a tutorial which is not even complete or fully implemented. That's cool, they're working on it right? Right?
-Well, that was June '13. AFAIK nothing's changed, I replayed the oh-so-exciting demo back in November or so just to check. The developer periodically releases statements which I don't even bother to read anymore. The feedback forums appear to be going nowhere, why would they if the core game can't even make it out the gate.

So no, I used to be on the fence about indy games and their funding issues ergo Early Access, but now I'm done. Indy games end up being lackluster (imo) more often than not, but at least I get a full game and a sense of well-being for having aided the indy cause. I'm not paying for half-finished games, that's just encouraging bad business practices.

On the topic of AAA companies, this should obviously never even be an issue. AAA are by definition massive budget games. They don't need any more money to put out their 1080p 70fps games with microtransactions and release-day-dlc and cobbled-on multiplayer to get your friends to buy a copy. It may have even been Jimquisition that mentioned in the past Square-Enix's genius idea of selling 'parts' of games to gamers separately. This is a big step in that direction if it were to become accepted. First the 'DLC' (read: core game missing from 'Early Access') is free, then it comes at a premium.

This is souring my opinion of Greenlight as well. A game can look good, get Greenlit, and then voila it's out for Early Access purchase. What guarantee do I have that these games will ever be completed? It's cynical, but if I were to develop a product, a sandwich for example, and sell someone just two slices of bread for full price, what incentive do I have to ever give them the rest? I got their money, I can either put in a lot of effort for no additional money in hopes someone will hear about it and come for another sandwich, or cash out my chips now. Something about birds in the bush, was it?

 

[FireDr@gon]

Its interesting, i was having a discussion with some friends about early access as a concept and we came to two conclusions. One that buyer beware has never been more appropriate with early access games. Two; early access can give developers insights into what their market wants as they develop their game as well as getting vital early funding to make their grander dreams a reality. I often wonder what developers might have done if they had had their success money while they were still developing...

Another interesting consequence of the early access concept; the consumers have effectively become the playtesters and to an extent the designers also.

I think early access can give developers the potential to produce a much better game for the end user, but the danger to the consumer is that you are buying a game soley on the trust that the game will live up to it's promise.

For that reason I think that reviewers should definately muscle into the early access sector - If someone has alot of games experience and some knowledge of the production process it should be easier for them to identify the diamonds in the rough, or potential wastes of money, and reviewers are in the perfect position to let these be known.

If you genuinely think that a game is perfect for you and if you want a say in it's development then get the game on early access, if not - there's no real harm in this business strategy for the customer that bides their time and buys the completed game.

Jim this is for you specifically;

Watch the development of 'Underrail' and 'DayZ' on steam - through the community hubs of these particular titles you can really see how early access can help developers to deliver a better game to their consumer base...

 

[daxterx2005]

Cant wait for the DLC for this episode.

 

[viranimus]

Sorry, This episode was a complete waste. The central point is a plea for the consumers to be vigilant and not only will that NOT happen, they are in fact the cause of the problem because they DO keep throwing money at unfinished products. You would have better luck asking cats to be vigilant about how much fur they shed on your clothes and furniture.

Captcha: Trust me.

Oh no, thats what started the whole problem in the first place.

 

[Minjen]

Way to hammer in the truth. Good show.

True, Jimquisition show if free for us all to watch. But Mr. Sterling, your success and paycheck also depends on our patience to sit through all the advertisement siren lights cluttered around your work. Let us not forget that all those conventions and shout outs that depend on fan support. There is nothing wrong with a joke episode or two, but when you make a habit of it, we get the feeling that you are deliberately wasting our precious time.

 

[Wolf Hagen]

I really start to despise early access games, wehen it comes down to a small developer charging easily 50% of the full prize (exspecially if the game is still all Alpha and such). It just feels wrong, to pay a heckload upfront, and then wait 2 years to see what may get booted as the final.

Most of the Early access games I own (minecraft, Rust and Kerbal) where rather recommendationtion from friends. Although I start to get really distrustfull, if one of these titles since you know: Money in the pocket obviously doesn't make DEVs obliged to actually work with it, when the run out of Ideas?

Some of those early acces games just feel like kind of knockoffs from other, better games (I exclude Starbound in this, since it is by the same head developer), with only a few gems on the sidelines.

I think I'm starting to grow more and more "hype resistant" these days and well, nothing left to say.

Thank god for you Jim!

 

[lord.jeff]

I'm fine with early access as long as it is advertised truthfully.

 

[SandroTheMaster]

What I can't forgive, however, is stuff like Planetary Annihilation, on Steam. An indie game, one with no prior track record on its devs and nothing but its own super-ambitious design tenets to hold it together, marketed as an Early Access game - for ninety freaking bucks.

No prior record? Well, only if you ignore all the games in their prior record like Monday Night Fight, Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. Also, they went after talent like modders for Supreme Commander that are well known in its RTS community to assure their backers they were going for quality over quantity in the development team.

I really need to get this straight here... Planetary Annihilation wasn't put on early access as a COMMERCIAL RELEASE. If you don't like the price, you already didn't care for it. They did a kind of weird maneuver that I don't totally agree with. The early access was more like a catch-up for anyone who missed the kickstarter for it but would still want to contribute. They put the price high PRECISELY so the early access wouldn't sell much, like being bought by anyone stumbling into the game on the Steam Store. The price was a filter against impulse-buyers and regular customers. They wanted, at that stage, feedback more than anything and dedicated people willing to help ironing the game. It was a way of gaming the system itself. Not everyone instantly knows of everything that goes on Kickstarter. And their objective was to create a game that modern publishers haven't got the slightest intent on buying. The backing they got, while impressive, was still peanuts compared to what their game demanded.

Sure I don't agree with the early access decision, but only because I knew PRECISELY that it'd be bad PR because people who don't even know about what the game is about or care about knowing what it was about was still going to take up to arms against the game. Even if they have absolute no intention of buying it even if it was 5 bucks.

But the backing proved there's still a lot of people craving for an actual RTS to be launched.

People need to understand that, just like Kickstarter, earlier access is not a commercial product. It is a promise for a commercial product where they ask for your assistance to improve it. You can trust then or not. It is not a gamble, it is an investment. And if they find people willing to pay this investment, there's no harm done... AS LONG as these people know that any investment has risks.

I really don't want to use this term, but if consumers are too dumb to differentiate between a commercial product and an investment, it is their own damn fault. If Steam doesn't care to properly label the difference in their store, then the responsibility is on Steam. But the developers are usually upfront about what the early access actually is in the story to any consumer who'll actually bother to know what they're actually buying. If they don't they're the one's who're irresponsible with their money. People lose money all the time in bad investments. It is something that happens.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Oh man this is one of my big bugbears. When Arma III launched its "paid open alpha" I was so stunned that I put a large post on the Steam forum calling it the beginning of the end. Open betas were bad enough, but now devs were expecting US to pay THEM to be their unpaid bug testers.

For a long time I've been fed to the back teeth with idiots defending blatant flaws in a prerelease game with "it's still in beta, what do you expect?" Not bugs, huge flaws in the game. I expect the fucking game to work is what I expect. Now with Early Access we're being offered games that we have absolutely no right to expect to work at all. It's nauseating.

Fortunately there's a very simple solution: don't buy into the fucking things. No matter how interesting it looks, don't be taken in by the devs bullshit of "you get to help decide how the game develops" (they're lying) and just tell yourself "it'll be better later when the finished version is completed". If it ever gets completed at all, of course.

 

[C14N]

I really don't like the idea of early access games. I get that small developers want to check for bugs on people's computers since they don't get to have huge debug teams but charging customers to do a job for them seems very unfair. Why not just do a free beta that disables at a certain date? Even big evil greedy companies like Mircosoft and Activision let me do that (with Windows 7 and World at War respectively). What's even worse is that these often seem very expensive. Prison Architect was ?30 when I first saw it (not sure what it's at now) and while I'm sure it's a fine game, ?30 is a lot for any indie game, never mind an unfinished one.

I get that they often want money too but they can always go to Kickstarter for something like that. At least in that context it's laid bare for what it is: a donation. You like someone so you just give them money and trust them to use it well. They're in your debt because you've just done a nice thing for them, maybe in return you'll give a cheaper copy of the game instead of a more expensive one.

At the same time though, people are completely happy to pay for it and often shoot down anyone who raises the issue like a blasphemer. I can't see it going anywhere as long as people are still happy to pay it.

 

[Karadalis]

The problem with frontloading all the cash is that there is no incentive left for the developer to finish his product in a way that satisfies his customers.

The majority of people who want your game have allready bought it, those that wait for a finished product are in the minority.

You allready got most of the money you will get for your game so why finish it? There is absolutely no reason to do it... you allready got paid and the customer has no way of demanding their money back.

This is unique to the PC software market... since because of "piracy" PC software is excluded from return in most countries. So its more or less officialy sanctioned to screw over your customers in the PC games market.

All they need to do is put a "buy at own risk" in the fine print and voila... they never need to finish.. after all you bought the game on your own risk... it was clearly unfinished and the Dev never promised to finish it anyways... not that things like "promises" mean anything in the industry.. after all they are not legaly binding. And even if they where.. whats the chance of getting sued?

This whole early access is doing more harm then good. If you dont have the money to finish a project perhaps you shouldnt have started it in the first place.

Ergo early access might have been a good idea on paper, but its use on the other hand seems to be to rob people of their hard earned cash with vague promises and half baked game tech demos.. you know.. only show enough leg to draw all the suckers in and then dash for mexico with all the money

 

[rasputin0009]

Minecraft's the one to blame for this, but that's because it got it's popularity from YouTube stars. Anyways, I'm not sure why anybody would trust early access unless there was evidence of the core game working in damn near perfect condition (Minecraft had a lot of evidence to support itself). But then again, I pre-ordered Battlefield 4 and its Premium.

I'm actually not that upset about BF4 since the game itself is so goddamn fun to play, it's easy to forget that it didn't actually work as intended. It's much better now, but it needs a lot of improvement still. As a long time fan of Battlefield and DICE, I expect some sort of apology (adding of previously cut China Rising levolution, maybe?). But then again, they have Mirror's Edge, Star Wars Battlefront and the next Battlefield coming out, sooooo... fuck me, I guess?