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I propose 2024 is the year of early access games boycott.
Bring back completed games only.
I haven't been.
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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It's an odd concept for sure. People pay extra money to be beta testers for a game company. That's an actual paid career, yet people are willing to pay to do it.
To be fair, early access feedback is very different from beta tester feedback.
Beta testers focus on tangible actionable feedback, like: "game crash in x situation" or "y character's arc could use restructuring". Whereas early access feedback is more like "these parts just aren't fun" or "man, i, j, k, l, & q would be so cool!", which isn't nearly as actionable, but arguably more useful to the end product. Though good luck bug hunting with "game bork pls fix".
At the same time, beta testing isn't fun, it's work. Trying every combination of buttons to find edge cases can be mind numbing, and playing the same thing 400 times in one day can drain any appreciation of the game as a whole. Early access players can actually play the game, and leave if it's not fun. The majority won't even leave feedback anyway.
Also, beta testers often need to sign NDAs and could loose their career by breaking them, while early access is straight up letting the cat out of the bag. Depending on how replayable or spoilerable the game is, that might be undesirable.
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As long as the early access game in its current form is worth the sticker price than there is no issue.
Yep everyone just needs to slow their roll. I don't even go for DLC, not part of the original game not buying it.
the last game I bought on launch day was no man's sky. I'm done playing money to be a beta tester for half a game, you'll get my money when it's an entire game that works or not at all.
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Correction: Completed game under $20. 🧐
It's like when you buy something half finished with a big IOU stapled to it, you don't know what you're actually buying or something 😱
Oh, sweet summer child...
Nah. I propose instead you watch YouTube gameplay videos before buying games. Plenty of “completed games” are trash and early access titles absolute gems. Also regardless, you’re buying incredibly complicated software that people sunk countless hours of labor into developing for pennies on the dollar so like whatever. If a game is bad I won’t play it. If it’s janky I will move on with my life.
For me, it depends. If the developer has a good reputation and is doing early access to present a better game at its full launch, I definitely don't have an issue with it. Unfortunately, devs and games like that are uncommon.