In my late teens, I considered early access to be one of the most despicable things that a gaming company can do. I strongly avoided getting anything that wasn’t a full release. For that, I’ve always considered myself as a wise individual who can’t be swindled by random businesses. I bet there’re many of you out there who had the same idea.
But on my journey of growing up, I’ve come to realize that early access games are not so bad. Matter of fact, they just might be one of the best gaming innovations. Here’s why.
Why early access rocks
Player feedback
Developers are bound to feel at least a little biased when creating a game, and in some cases obvious things can be overlooked.
Giving players unlimited access to unfinished games can lead to testing the games to their limits. If there’s a way to break/exploit something, they’ll find a way. If there’s content lacking or feels too stretched, you’ll hear from them. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of feedback early access players provide.
If the companies are willing to listen to constructive criticism and put in the hours needed, they can end up making a product that could potentially bring them the success they always dreamed of. Or in the “worst” case scenario, they’ll have something to be proud of and have the respect of the audience that already bought it.
Funds
Another reason for an early release could be simple as just lack of funds. From what I observed over the many years of my professional gaming career is that usually the games that get released in early access are made by small indie studios.
They’re very passionate about it, they’ve spent years working on it but financially it doesn’t make sense to continue. It’s not like money grows on trees or they can survive only on breathing air.
And on top of that, nobody can guarantee you that the game will succeed or be seen by anyone at all. It’s just the reality that we live in. There’s so many games that get released daily that don’t ever get noticed and those developers don’t get what they deserve for all the work they’ve put in.
Truth be told, just thinking about it breaks my heart. Unfortunately it’s a dog-eat-dog world and as much as I would love to be able to help all of them, it’s physically impossible.
Anyways, I got carried away there but you get the gist of it. They put a game in early access to possibly get more funds to help them finish it. Or if the funds aren’t the problem but rather “Will people like it at all?” In that case early access serves as a green/red light. Whether they should stick to it or move on onto something new.
A treat for players: lower price
In most cases you’ll be able to get a game for a smaller price than it would be in 1.0 release. Besides that, you’ll have an opportunity to play games early and see how it changes in real time and you can be one of those people who helped it be better. Most of those games go through so many changes during the process that once it gets released, it feels like a new game. So you had an opportunity to see the best of both worlds.
Some caveats (or: when early access games suck)
Unfortunately, there’s a downside to early access games. Some of them get released with so many promises. They have a 2 year plan on what they’re gonna put in and they plan to update it every month, bells and whistles, everyone’s excited!
And then they completely abandon it and ghost everyone who bought the game. It’s that or ignoring feedback and pushing the game in a direction that nobody likes.
Fortunately, those are very rare cases.
If you do something like that, you can completely forget about ever releasing any other games. And before you go on and say that never happens. Think about that one MMORPG that we won’t name but it rose from ashes on Kickstarter. Only years later to be released on Steam in early access and completely gone in a matter of weeks. Do you think anyone will trust that guy to make another game ever again? Not me.
Conclusion
Early access games have their drawbacks but I strongly believe it’s the best thing that has happened to gaming in a long time. We get access to a game early and we get to help shape it into something that not only we can enjoy but everyone else can too. It also helps smaller developers in giving them courage to make larger games that otherwise they wouldn’t dare to make. It’s a win-win situation if you ask me.
