so what about insurgency? the HL2 turned standalone, it failed a kickstarter, but it managed to fund itself via early access, and has enjoyed a reasonable comercial and critical successResonanceSD said:We can only hope so. Early Access is just a complete cancer on Steam, and needs to be done away with. You gain absolutely nothing from playing an unfinished copy of a game, other than paying for the privilege of being a Beta Tester.
Vivi22 said:People who are interested in a game get to help fund it's development, and play it before final release, and the people developing the game get much needed funds to devote to full time development.
Kickstarter's gaming section exists for this reason alone. Valve is losing the market position as operating a storefront for high quality games when nearly every EA title is mediocre (at best).
and what about Kerbal Space Program? thanks to the early access program the game managed to gather a lot of attention and increase its scope, even catching NASA's attention
early access is far from the cancer of steam, you might not enjoy it, but there people out there who want to play a game early and are willing to bear a few bugs for that, i mean how many times have you heard the words "oh man i cant wait to play it!"
early access games also allow players to shape game mechanics before release and many early access titles offer lower price points or perks as rewards for early adopters
also considering early access games such as DAYZ, Rust and Starbound have sold millions i dont think Valve is losing any position, id even argue the opposite is happening, as all these new publishing options can only attract more devs