Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/and-so-i ... ss/0126751

So we've gone from indies releasing unfinished work, to get funding to continue, to major companies releasing early access games.
A good thing? A chance for the community to influence a game as it is being made, and to play it early? Or just a realisation that they don't even need to bother to finish a game before they release it, get the cash and then move on.

I'm hope you're happy, idiots.

The last Jimquisition was on early access in general :

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... rly-Access

I think its a dangerous precedent but people have been 'getting away with it' for a while so some of the bigger companies are going to try it out - there are steam games right now that basically are full price and are not even at the 'alpha' stage and everything about the whole game could change.

No. Anyone who does deserves to be punched in the face.

Well, unless they only charge about 5 pounds for the early access + game, but I don't see that happening.

And by game I mean full game, not some F2P style bullshit.

Absolutely not.

I agree with British Nervoso... Whoever he is.

Having people pay for 'early access' arguably makes sense in a couple of scenarios:

• If the developers need/want in income stream to actually fund the development of the game. So sort of like Kickstarter in a way, except you're definitely getting something for your money as opposed to just a promise of something later on.
• If the type of game you're making could benefit from having an informed community during it's development to help influence the game design and implementation as it progresses. Obviously it's increasingly common for AAA games to have beta phases but those are more infrastructure tests that come at the end of development where actual gameplay isn't likely to be changing. I'm talking more about games where the developers are taking feedback from users about the design of actual in game systems to help them make either minor tweaks or larger design decisions. This doesn't make any sense for linear games like, I dunno, Uncharted or whatever but is potentially useful for more emergent or open world type games like DayZ etc.

This specific case doesn't seem to be covered be either of those scenarios and it depends what exactly they mean by, "we will use Early Access to fine tune the Ghost Recon Online experience." Are they genuinely just looking at user data to help balance the game properly? That makes it more like the traditional beta to me and is fair enough as it's exactly the kind of thing which is difficult to do without just throwing shitloads of real people at it. If there's actual 'stuff' they haven't implemented or polished up properly yet then no, they can GTFF.

Ultimately as long as a game ends up 100% finished off before it's released for proper sale it doesn't matter, but like everyone else I don't trust the bigger companies to do that if they know they can get the money early then just wander off. Even if no one involved in the project starts out thinking that way you can be sure that at some point senior management will just start quietly leeching resource away because fuck it, they've shipped that project haven't they?

What happened with DayZ?

In that case, surely the dev should pay for that feedback, rather than the other way around?

I don't see this as a black and white issue, particularly with ongoing online games that have the possibility of being endlessly expanded and tweaked. Where do you draw the line? EvE has been charging for subs for years, yet in that time it's released numerous full expansions. By the standards of where it is today, it was incomplete when it first launched. How is that any different?

I didn't pay full price.

Eve is free when you first sign up

Christ, people are paying the RRP for this now?

I think the difference is that at the very start Eve was a complete game - the fact they have added so much to it is great but even if they didnt there was a product which existed which was 'finished'

From the steam page for Rust right now

http://store.steampowered.com/app/252490/



This is currently selling for £14.99

For Day Z

http://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/





Currently selling for £19.99

Assetto Corsa :

http://store.steampowered.com/app/24421 ... teredDLC_3



Currently selling for £29.99

Planetary Annihilation

http://store.steampowered.com/app/23325 ... teredDLC_8



Currently selling for £39.99

I like how they are making it clear if its crap this is not a pre-order and you'll not get your money back - £40 for a game that they've not even finished yet !

I just answered the question in the thread title.

How do you know DayZ isn't going to launch for £15?

I'm assuming a general scenario here where the developers have already delivered a functional game but want it to be a living thing which gets updated and added to over a longer term. In that scenario there's not necessarily a time when it's officially 'finished', so having people pay for the current version and then be able to feed into the continuing design and development is fair to both sides I think.

Oh yeah, I'm fine with that - I'm not convinced that counts as "early access", though.

There's no hard and fast rule on Steam for what is an 'early access' game though and it's entirely up to the individual developer when the game gets that tag taken off it. Obviously this idea is totally open to abuse, the same way stuff like Kickstarter is, and I'm not saying anyone won't or hasn't; just that it doesn't need to be a bad thing.

Also, even in cases where the 'early access' version is a bit rougher round the edges, I'm not sure I see anything wrong with people paying to get something that's playable to a degree plus the 'privilege' of an ongoing chance to shape the game to whatever their idea of fun is. Yes, obviously that benefits the developer as the player's feedback is valuable (in all senses of that word) but the players get something out of it as well that they don't get from the traditional sales model. Everyone wins, if it's done right.

I'm going to start selling an early access car:



Only £23,000!

Because they've already said it's going to go up to £30 for the Beta, then £40 for the full price game. It's what they did with Arma 3.

Also your steering wheel analogy is a bit far-fetched. It'd be more like selling a car with three gears, no air conditioning and only a driver's side mirror. Also you lost the argument immediately upon comparing it to cars.

My what now?


That's an original Range Rover you're describing!

I'm sending in the Time Variance Authority to clean this mess up.

I've always wondered about the folk buying this... http://store.steampowered.com/app/244930/

For the most part I don't see the difference between this and preordering (which, it should be noted I think is rather daft) bar the fact that you get to ruin the game for yourself with this.

The only gave I bought in this way was minecraft. Due to being cheap, and apparenly the best PC game eva y2k+10

Which informs my not doing it now, by the time the game was even vaguely near complete I'd played enough. I'd rather buy it when properly working next time.

Question: if you pay any sum for "early access" do you get the actual game for free when it's released or do you get the sum you paid knocked off the price or do you get some other discount not equivalent to the sum you paid or do you have to pay full price like everyone else?

I've dipped into DayZ and fired off some bug reports, but I don't plan on playing it in earnest until it's in Beta at least. I just enjoyed the mod so much for free that I didn't have any qualms in chucking them the equivalent of six pints of beer.

Saturnalian: usually you pay once and then you get free updates including the final release.

Sounds alright then if you're stress testing a MMO or some shit. I wouldn't though, cause I'm not a spaz.

Or a game you might buy at full price when finished.

It's more honest than when they pretend it's finished, like Skyrim.

Who the fuck is British Nervoso?

Who the fuck is Nigel?

Nigel Farage?

He probably saw the onion flag & thought he'd fit in.

Nigel Henge?

Oh fuck, EVERYTHING MIGHT BE ABOUT TO CHANGE.



Available to pre-order as a beta now.

Abusing physics engines in humourous ways will never get old, I imagine.

GOG are going to consider doing early access apparently.