Here Lies Early Access. RIP

Started by Jarhead0331, September 23, 2018, 04:33:40 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Jarhead0331

I'm going through somewhat of a gaming rut at the moment and I was going through my extensive list of steam games when I was struck by something...there were so many early access titles that were development failures. Some had struggled on for years, dying violent deaths despite great perseverance by their developers, others had gone out with a whimper, with updates becoming fewer and farther in between, and finally some never really even got off the ground. They were released with great promise and then the developer was never heard from again.

It's hard for me to conclude that early access has been a good trend for the industry. I think overall, it has drastically reduced the quality of releases and actually incentivizes developers to abandon their project if early sales do not meet their expectations. Although there is a significant short term benefit to the player (ie. Instant gratification}, the long term net result is often disappointment and frustration.

There are, of course, many exceptions. But I'm finding that after a long successful early access period, most usually when a game exits EA reaching a 1.0 release, I've already burned out on the experience and seen most of what the game has to offer. For example, take a highly polished EA title like Subnautica. This is a fantastic game of discovery and exploration that had a very long, but active EA cycle. I must have put dozens and dozens of hours into it throughout the EA period. When it actually exited EA, there wasn't much excitement for me because I had already explored its deepest darkest depths. I honestly don't think I've put in more than an hour or two since release. Sad.

In any event. What are your thoughts on EA?

Discuss.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Grim.Reaper

I am still a big fan of EA.....guess I have been fairly lucky since I haven't really bought into an EA game that I would consider a complete failure or abandoned.  However, I do agree with your point about whether when the game is actually released if I play it much after that.  Not sure that is necessarily because of EA for me since I do typically have a short attention span anyway even for fully released games.  I am sure some developers do abandon early and in some cases quality questionable, I just try and be selective in the ones I reasonably believe will have some success.  I don't dabble in a ton of the indie games so maybe that is why I have had a little more luck.  And in some cases it doesn't hurt that they give some decent discounts for buying in early:)

Plus, I am sure if I go through my list of games, I would likely find that many games that weren't even in EA were total flops and bug ridden......Matrix World in Flames I am looking squarely right at you:)

Jarhead0331

^good points. It is true that most of the games on my list that have failed during EA are indie titles. I do have a tendency to search for new and obscure indie games with new ideas and mechanics. Although these games almost always start off with promise, I'm finding they never receive the publicity and therefore funding needed to get them out of EA.

Steam has created a great platform for new games to get into people's hands, but their system that gets games onto the front page so people can find them does no favors for the little guys.
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Grim.Reaper

Yep, agree with that....I don't take much chances with the "little guys", not because they are little, just typically those games don't interest me as much.  And with Steam being so huge right now, I never take the time to search the catalog, mostly what I see is from the front store page and recommendations......and quite honestly, most of the other ones I check out are because people on this board mention them, which I really appreciate since it allows me to see some different things.

In the end it will always come down to personal choice and I don't see them going away anytime soon.....but I certainly understand people's concerns and frustrations.

Now if we could do away with the loot crap and games that lock content (without any way to unlock per my own choice for a game I bought), then I would be heaven:)

Nefaro

There is also the occasional EA title that gets labeled as officially released only to find that the developer decided to end that EA title and continue working on it in the form of a sequel.  Add a "2" on the end, get people to buy it once more.

Destraex

I agree, I am pretty much over early access for a lot of the games I have invested early in. The ones I choose generally don't fail. But either take too long or I simply burn out on them before release. Thus early access releases can be like flash in the pan style affairs. People generally come back for release of patches or the game and then disappear again. This was pretty much what my other thread earlier today was about. Games you love the concept of but are still coming.

War of rights as well as star citizen get a special mention in this category. Naval Action as well.
Post Scriptum and holdfast nations at war. All very good concepts and good fun to play in early access but feature incomplete and glacial during development. Some of these games are already over 5 years in the following.

Now of course we have laws in the eu coming about early access.

Call to Arms actually is a great game but one that confused me a little when they went free to play on all the supporters.

You certainly have to be careful and I can also think of a few titles as mentioned above that have taken money and then gone right for number 2. Dcs is another good example. Invest in ww2 aircraft to find the experience is top notch but the content is not enough to keep a population. Again things are glacially slow.

I have to think long and hard about early access these days.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

DennisS

I have a lot of early access games on my steam account. Not surprisingly, as my total is somewhere north of 270.

There appears to be several different paths EA games take. Here's my take:

1 - Take the money and run. Towns! is a perfect example of this. No activity, period, after the initial sales. Last forum discussion post was in 2016. Game for sale for $15, and with slowly dropping reviews. If you see a game with under 50% popularity, it wasn't always that low, but it IS a sign that the gaming community has gotten disenchanted with the developer.

2 - My dad has cancer, and my dog ate my flash drive with my one copy of all the code. YEARS may pass with no updates.

3 - NO. You may NOT have this critical feature. Perfect Golf, rebranded to Jack Nicklaus golf, promised a course developer for THREE FULL YEARS. This "course forge" or "CF", was asked about constantly, week after week since 2015. There were issues with the person that owned the rights to the graphics for the trees..and rather than pay for these assets, the devs thought it would be fun to just string people along. The remains the ONLY forum that I am banned from. (except for Derek Smart's, but that doesn't count, and is thoroughly understandable).

4 - Game needs a re-write - SQUIRREL. Automation will eventually be a brilliant game on auto design and production. I own it, and have been waiting patiently for the campaign version. Killrob, the developer, IS brilliant, and IS working hard on the game, but he is in version three of the campaign, which hasn't been released yet. There is an excellent game there, but it hasn't been released except as an alpha. Promised completion is like the sign in a bar. "FREE BEER, TOMORROW." You show up tomorrow, and they say...free beer, tomorrow, just like the sign says. I really shouldn't throw shade at Killrob..this will be one of the finest games on the market, period, if it ever gets done.

5 - Well...what happened here? A decent game with promise gets purchased, flaws are noted, game gets put away, and shelved. Months later, a polished and just ... EXCELLENT, fully fleshed game shows up. Rise of Industry, hands down. If you don't have this game, go get this game. Secondary nod to Railway Empires, thirdly nod to Mashinky.

As I am fully retired now, I am spending an increasing amount of time with my first love, board war games. If it's a solitaire game, I am aware of it. If I have even a small interest in the genre, I already own it. Today, I will go out and purchase Isreali Air Force Leader, and Nightfighter Ace, if I can find it. Life is good!!!!!

Toonces

Timely post.  I finally got my gaming rig set up so last night I sat down with ye olde mouse and a snifter of scotch and started browsing my Steam catalog.  For some reason, your exact thoughts, JH, ran through my head as I browsed my library.  Two games in particular stuck out: Of Kings and Men and DayZ.  Of Kings is a perfect example of a cash grab.  The game was really neat in EA and had great promise.  Then the devs just shut the doors, took the money, and left everyone with a partially developed game.  It is infuriating. 

DayZ...wow, I haven't even opened it in years.  The store page even says it's in Alpha.  The comments section for the game is pretty funny, a lot of posts about how they purchased the game while they were in high school and now are through college and at a job and the game is still in Alpha.

I'm sure there are many others in my library. 

At this point, I really am reluctant to go in on EA.  For me, I have so many unplayed games in my backlog, there really is no reason to jump on an EA bandwagon.  I've got plenty to keep me occupied.
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Rayfer

My worthless two-cents...I have no interest in EA.  It's like gambling...put your money in the slot-machine, pull the handle and sometimes you win but too often you lose.

-budd-

I really don't mind EA games, and i'm careful what i buy into. Seems most of my EA games are of the survival type games, some open world, some not. These types of games seem to lend themselves pretty well to the EA process, some game types for me just don't, open world survival especially fits the EA process well. I've learned to put down some EA games as to not spoil the story, The Forest comes to mind. I've put down The Forest, Subnautica, PAMELA, and no i haven't got back to the Forest or Subnautica since release, but i will..........well that's the plan anyway ::). I just not sure any of that matters anyway, bottom line i guess is if you feel you got your moneys worth out of the game no matter where its at in the development process. I think the fact that my attention span is defiantly shorter for games and that there's very little new under the sun in gaming these days and i'm reaching critical mass in game ownership equals a lot of been there, done that. Most of my EA games are small or solo development teams, these types of development teams seem to appreciate the implied trust in the EA process. They update regularly and keep contact with the community. I look at new games, EA and otherwise and when i find something i realize i already have something similar sitting in my library un-played, and not even installed.

Maybe we shouldn't think so much about it, and just enjoy each gaming session as it happens with whatever game we choose.
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Taken ~Oscar Wilde

*I'm in the Wargamer middle ground*
I don't buy all the wargames I want, I just buy more than I need.

Toonces

Heh.  I was just browsing SimHQ for the first time in about a year.  The DCS forum is always good for cheap entertainment.  But the relevance to this thread is it reminded me of how many DCS modules I've bought that are still incomplete.   
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

JasonPratt

Some Early Access games fall into yet another category: the finished Alphas. These are games which are essentially complete game experiences, and sufficiently playable for a full game, but where the developer keeps adding new things (as well as ongoing bug patching and optimization, sometimes as a result of the new things breaking the game somewhat). They'd be otherwise fully released games, except for regularly adding new content, thus deserving the Alpha designation.

7 Days to Die, Fortresscraft: Evolved, and ARK: Survival Evolved are good examples of these, as well as (arguably) Empyrion -- Galactic Survival (which might lack too much planned content yet to count). Keeping in mind that 7DtD was never meant to have a game-completion state (and their new content updates have slowed down a lot).

I gather than Kenshi, which I backed what seems like 10 years ago as an Alpha on Gamersgate, also fits this criteria -- when I bought it, it was such a broken mess I've never felt the slightest desire to go back. But in the past year I've heard a lot of praise for it.

In another way, Man-o-war: Corsair counts, since the devs are still roadmapping new material (thus Alpha status) even though it's "officially" released. But then again, it may be abandoned.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

joram

Nice summary Dennis.  I was wondering which titles people felt were failures vs successes (and everything in between)

mikeck

I like the idea of early access and many titles have done quite well with it. For example, Endless Space 2. I bought early access, the dev took note of bugs and play-issues, incorporated fixes and then released a final finished copy.

BUT, there are too many devs who create games that live in "early access perpetuity". Games like Naval Action and Predestination. They are in early access for years and years while the developers are able to deflect complaints. Players complain that they bought a game 4 years ago and it's atill a mess to which the Devs respond: "it's in early access". So yeah, I don't appreciate being sold an unfinished product that will never be finished under the guise of early access.

I liked the idea overall. Even the best beta testing can't uncover the game play problems that thousands of players can. And hell, who DOESNT like getting a game early? But I would Like to see some type of steam policy whereby a game gets no more than 1 year in early access. Once the game leaves early access and is released, then the Steam return policy kicks in as if you had JUST purchase it. That way, if they release the game from early access but it's still not finished, I can get a refund.

There is NO excuse for Naval Action and Predestination. Games that have barely advanced in years and seem to use "early access" as merely a tool to allow them to collect money while they fail to have to release a finished game
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

JasonPratt

Agreed so hard!! -- early access should be like a paid demo. The refund clock doesn't start until it goes to full release, and up until then refunds should be available for any reason.

The funds should be held in escrow, in a Money Market Account bearing some decent interest (by MMA standards). No one gets to use the funds otherwise until the game releases. It's too easy for developers to abuse the prepay system.

But of course Steam has no motivation to do that unless and until customers stop buying EA out of a general lack of confidence. Even a class action suit would be useless, since Steam protects itself up front by warning customers there may never be a useful final product.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!