Opinion - Steam Should Better Control Early Access

[Aubrielle]

For some titles, early access has been a blessing. Others have made early access look like a disaster...or even a scam. PC Gamer pens their thoughts in an editorial.

It's not surprising that Steam's Early Access program has produced some disappointment. Finished games fall short of our expectations all the time—why would we expect unfinished ones to be less flawed or controversial? But Early Access disappointments have broader consequences: when Early Access games fail, struggle, or their creator does something irresponsible, it harms the integrity of that label for everyone. As a Project Zomboid developer wrote in 2014, "[Early Access] failures tarnish the reputation of the entire model, so a failure (particularly a high-profile failure) is potentially damaging to the very developers who need this model the most."

Two years later, those words of caution remain relevant. An unscientific poll of PC Gamer Twitter followers suggests, at best, a lack of consensus about the value of Early Access. Early Access' reputation continues to be shaped by its worst participants, and in fact, we're grappling with new and inventive abuses.

More information.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

The article reports mistakes.

Rimworld did not come from SEA. Rimworld was crowdfunded three years ago and was first released through the dev studio website (probably more money to the dev)
It was released on SEA lately (like July this year)

This release happened after the six month leave the dev took following his burn out and actually marked a decline in the gameplay quality.

Somehow, maybe in order to appeal to the larger audience provided by the Steam platform, features were diluted up to the point certain streamers who did their show on the standard difficulty came to opt for the arbitrary story teller.

If anything, SEA was a negative event.

Now, the surge in enthusiasm associated to a large inflow of money is expected to fall down.
As months pass by, less and less money come in and the thrill is gone.

Organizing a new release provides a new promotional event each time, meaning a potential burst in sales that might help to refresh and help sticking to a project.

Lassitude is a deep issue for crowdfunded projects.

 

[joxer]

The case of Ark having completed DLC while a game is still in early access is not a mistake.
I believe no customer went for early access with knowledge developers will concentrate (use that money) on DLC while leaving the base game unfinished.
IMO this smells like a fraud although it doesn't have to be depending on DLC content, but is something Valve should disallow - till base game is done, no DLC allowed, finished or not.

Another case not covered in the article was brough up in comments. Wreckfest appeared on Steam Early Access in January 2014 and was supposed to be finished in the same year.
We're almost in 2017. and that product is still in Early Access.
Delays and postponing are nothing strange and are usually necessary. But dragging development for 3 years while promising something else?
Valve should disallow such huge time stretching. Not finished with a delay or two, okay, especially if due to feedback the game goes through some cardinal overhaul. But delayed for 10th time? Ain't that what we used to call vaporware? Get off my property!

There is a number of positive examples that prove Valve's Early Access was a great idea that helped people getting what they actually want instead of dumbster garbage big publishers push. But because in some cases it's lacking execution, over time, people might decide to stay away from it in future. It's core rules need to change. Immediately.

 

[mbpopolano24]

Two words: After Reset. The 'early access', at full price, was nothing more than a tech demo. Some people even got it at full price because a few reviews from the usual idiotic fanboys (or paid helpers) were mostly positive. Positive reviews for a 'guy' who walked in a room. That was all the EA had. Nothing to do, no interaction, just an awkward stroll in a room. How can that happen? We need better rules and more stringent controls for sure.

 

[TheMadGamer]

Seems with most people the concept of 'early access' is a big plus. While there are some positives, I think its mostly muddied things up. I personally stay away from early access games. Show me your game when you say it's done. But to each their own.

 

[ElderGnome]

I really don't tinker with early access games - I let others beta test for me - so I have no real opinion on what Steam does to EA games or doesn't do. I think as it is they should just leave the process alone - some people flock to really, really bare-bones games I wouldn't give a second look at and there are other games in EA that are basically "finished" and just sit there for years. Let people who like influencing the development process do so, I say. Nobody is ever forced to purchase a title.

 

[Xian]

The concept is good, and I believe that several titles have benefited from the early exposure, such as Grim Dawn, but there does need to be some oversight. I tend not to play EA, as I generally just play an RPG one time and perfer to wait for the finished product.

I am not sure what can be done about the abusers though. It would be hard to get a refund if a title isn't delivered in a timely manner as more than likely the funds have already been spent. We would just end up with bankrupt devs and then no chance to get the finished product - better late than never.

 

[Bedwyr]

The model is perfectly reasonable but it needs to be run in a different context.

Nearly all software development has shifted from a "shipping and done" standpoint to a "software life-cycle". Part of it is the convergence of software engineers and companies on agile style development systems and away from waterfall development, but also it recognizes the nature of large logical systems.

Bug-free code is possible. I've seen it. But it's only done in very specific mission-critical domains such as certain kinds of simulation, certain control systems, and places where mathematical formal analysis is possible. It also means that the scope of the code is going to be far more narrow because you are implementing a defect free software system on a specific engineering platform such as what I see in aerospace embedded systems.

Games? Hahahahaha. No.

Games are fundamentally an artistic enterprise running on the most unpredictable computing platform available: peoples' home systems. The desire to broadcast loudly your distaste for anything but "don't bother me until you ship it at 100%" effectively translates to opposition to the health of the indie development market. Fortunately there are lots of people who enjoy playing things at the 70 or 80% level and even enjoy the participatory development involved in giving feedback and reporting bugs. For them it's part of the fun.

Honestly if I were Steam, I'd redefine what Early Access as a business model even means. As long as the product is actively developed and supported as part of a functional development life-cycle, there's forward progress. 1.0 becomes arbitrary and almost meaningless as we've seen in nearly all the major successes. It's not a "finally, we're shipping" mindset. It's "oh hey, that last milestone was 1.0, how about that?". This enables a class of games and styles of gameplay that otherwise would not see the light of day and arguably would not hit specific heights.

 

[Morbus]

Honestly, I think people like to complain about games they don't play. My steam experience is more harmed by h-games than it is by crappy EA games, to be honest.

I think EA is a fantastic thing for developers and gamers in my opinion, and it's given us better games because of how much easier it is to test them for developers. The Age of Decadence, Underrail, Battle Brothers, Divinity Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Don't Starve, The Long Dark, Darkest Dungeon… All great games that would be objectively worse if they hadn't released in Early Access.

There is another side effect to it as well: it's that it's bringing up the bar to what a complete game is supposed to have. Often times you'll see people complain about complete games with "it should have been early access". No Man's Sky for example, wouldn't have been nowhere near as much of a flop if it had been early access.

 

[forgottenlor]

I've personally bought four early access titles. I actually played none of them in Early Access. They were Might and Magic X, which I loved, and which profited immensely from early access, and which probably would have profited even more from a longer early access, Legends of Eisenwald, which I missed in Kickstarter, so I bought early access and I'm also very happy with how it turned out. Grim Dawn, another great early access game, and Bloodlust: Shadowhunter, which turned out ok. I'm pretty cautious when I buy titles like this though and spend time researching them. I do the same now with Kickstarter games. I guess Unsung Story and After Reset have taught me that much.

 

[SSIGuy]

Well, I don't know about kids these days and their new fangled ideas. Early Access. Pfff! When I was a lad you had to wait for something to be done and done right (or mediocre ...or poorly... or godawful bad). Nowadays, as I near grumpy old-timer territory, I'm more of a Late Access guy. I usually don't get around to games until a year or two after they've launched.

I heard The Witcher 3 is supposed to be pretty good... hoping to get to that in 2017!!

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Show me your game when you say it's done.

Hardly works this way anymore.

Video products have adopted a developpment process close to Tv shows or mangas.

The idea is to start strongly to hook an audience. Once an audience is hooked, the content is extended and extended until the audience grows weary of it.
This forces a consequence on the ending: there is no needs for a strong ending since the audience wishes for the series to end.

It is fundamentally different from a concert or a wrestling show in which the quality of the ending must justify the ending: people would like to keep watching, there cant be more though. In compensation for that unwished ending, the ending must be strong. The ending must justify itself as the audience is not yet weary of it.

This demand does not exist for TV shows or mangas as the audience lose interest before the end comes.
It usually means that TV show or manga quality peaks before the end, the end acknowledges people do not wish for more. As this stage, anything goes.
One mangaka, whose series was extended and extended, even put it as it is: instead of providing a conventional ending, he drew his team scratching their head, not knowing what to tell more as a story so it was the end.

The same goes for this type of video products: expecting that the final version is going to the best is like expecting the last season in a manga or TV to be the best.
Usually, the quality peaks earlier.

 

[joxer]

Video products have adopted a developpment process close to Tv shows or mangas.

So that's what connects HalfLife3, This is not my life (NZ TV show) and Hunter x Hunter (manga).
No.

 

[Stingray]

Two words: After Reset. The 'early access', at full price, was nothing more than a tech demo. Some people even got it at full price because a few reviews from the usual idiotic fanboys (or paid helpers) were mostly positive. Positive reviews for a 'guy' who walked in a room. That was all the EA had. Nothing to do, no interaction, just an awkward stroll in a room. How can that happen? We need better rules and more stringent controls for sure.

Yeah, using Early Access as a form of Kickstarter should be banned. Completion of an Early Access game should never be contingent on how many EA copies sell. Problem is, how does Steam enforce it?

 

[TheMadGamer]

Hardly works this way anymore.

Actually, it "works" for just about every game. In fact, every game I've ever played was officially "done" when I bought it. Sure, there's patches and whatnot, but so far there's been a point where a developer says, here it is, version 1.0.

I personally don't care for the early access model but I also don't really care that it exists for those who want to participate.

 

[fatknacker50]

I've personally bought four early access titles. I actually played none of them in Early Access. They were Might and Magic X, which I loved, and which profited immensely from early access, and which probably would have profited even more from a longer early access.

The only people "who" profited from that bait and switch development team, were Limbic. If they had a longer early access i'm sure they'd be up on fraud charges. Fact.

Check how long they supported their game...

 

[Stingray]

The only people "who" profited from that bait and switch development team, were Limbic. If they had a longer early access i'm sure they'd be up on fraud charges. Fact.

Most of us profited by playing one of the most enjoyable RPG's released in the last several years.

Searching your post history for the word "Limbic" is pretty entertaining. You just can't resist throwing in insults everytime they or their game comes up, I guess. As I recall from initial discussion a couple years ago, the whole reason for your crusade is that they didn't properly support 32-bit OSes. Seems like at some point during the last 2-3 years you would have had time to install a modern OS and stop bitching about this.

Edit: Yep,
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061257714&postcount=40

Edit2: Wow, 14% of all your posts to RPGWatch are to troll or talk shit about M&M X or its developer (37 out of 266)

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Some people even got it at full price because a few reviews from the usual idiotic fanboys (or paid helpers) were mostly positive. Positive reviews for a 'guy' who walked in a room.

These people are unlikely to be paid.
They have an interest in the product as a means tp satisfy their tastes. They calculate the chances as being increased by an increased budget. They work to attract as many people as possible to increase the budget and thus their chances to get their tastes satisfied.

Right now, as some crowdfunded projects met their closure, it happens that some of the most adamant supporters of a product turned out very offensive to the devs once they pulled the plug.

Actually, it "works" for just about every game. In fact, every game I've ever played was officially "done" when I bought it. Sure, there's patches and whatnot, but so far there's been a point where a developer says, here it is, version 1.0.

In the past, version 1.0 was expected to be the best version of the developpment cycle.
With SEA projects, this expectation is on the same level as expecting a tv show/manga last season to be the best.

The best happened earlier, that means that players interested in SEA products must hop in from the start, especially as, contrary to TV shows/mangas, the previous releases are no longer available once 1.0 is released.

 

[fatknacker50]

Most of us profited by playing one of the most enjoyable RPG's released in the last several years.

Searching your post history for the word "Limbic" is pretty entertaining. You just can't resist throwing in insults everytime they or their game comes up, I guess. As I recall from initial discussion a couple years ago, the whole reason for your crusade is that they didn't properly support 32-bit OSes. Seems like at some point during the last 2-3 years you would have had time to install a modern OS and stop bitching about this.

Edit: Yep,
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061257714&postcount=40

Edit2: Wow, 14% of all your posts to RPGWatch are to troll or talk shit about M&M X or its developer (37 out of 266)

Correct... any opportunity. You haven't done your research properly, tut, tut.

 

[TomRon]

Comparing gamez to a TV series is ridiculous. The "season" analogy would mean a game would at some point be better in early access than after release, or better at 1.0 than say 1.2. While I'm sure this isn't unheard of, I certainly have never played a game that got *worse* with updates. That whole line of reasoning is extremely flawed and frankly quite stupid.

Come on Chien, you're usually a decent troll, stupidity doesn't suit you.