Alpha / Early Access Games

[Brigand]

Recent years have seen an explosion of "Early Access" games appearing - games that are unfinished and still very early in development and being released to the public to buy. I understand the advantages, we, the public, get to play a game well before many others, and we have the opportunity to iron out the creases and even shape the future of the game.

I'm getting rather fed up of seeing them so often now though, mainly because I see a game that I like, but know that by the time it's finished I'll likely have moved on to other things.

Case in point: In the past year or so I've bought Xenonauts, Prison Architect, DayZ Standalone, Factorio, Rim World, and possibly a few others. I've played all of them and enjoyed them, but as time has gone on I've gotten bored and moved on to other games. Xenonauts was recently completed and fully released, but other than having a play for half and hour or so, I've not touched it since, despite them being updated regularly.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is, although I understand the concept of Early Access, is there anyone else who gets involved early on but then gets bored and moves on, thus almost missing out on the final product?

[Bullett]

Yes, me.

I've given up on early access/beta stuff in general and especially if I have to pay! I have a few 'Sir, you are being hunted' for one has gone full release and I've not played it since. I have Elite coming via Kickstarter but I've not joined the Beta as I'd rather play the full game than spoil it for myself.

My other concern is that the long term players beta testers will have a distinct advantage over newbies so anything online should be re-set to zero on full release. You turn up as a bambi and the hunters all have bazookas.

Games will also die quicker after full release as players have had their fill earlier and move on to the next big thing.

I can totally see why devs do this as it helps cash flow and probably find bugs and issues but not sure what gamers get out of it.

[Rotary Madness]

I no longer buy early access games. For the most part you dont get to shape them, youre just paying them for the privilege of bug testing. There isnt as much incentive to make the game really stable if they already have your money.

[snuffy]

I bought Doorways on Steam as Early Access about 12 months ago. The way it was sold was you'd get the rest of the game when they finished it. But oh no, they changed the name to Doorways Chapters 1 & 2 and now expect people to pay for the next chapter.

There seems to be no incentive for developers to finish the game - after all, there's no contract. So they takes your money and don't deliver.

Okay, so it's not like a can't afford to pay for the next chapter of Doorways but there's now way I'm going to on principle. And I won't ever be paying for an Early Access game again.

[StevoCally]

I did the same with Prison Architect, loved it when I started in alpha 21 but am already bored of it come the release of alpha 23.

I'm a huge fan of X-COM games, didn't like Enemy Unknown as too simple and I'm always restarting the originals, was 50/50 on buying Xenonauts but ended up watching it on a 'lets play' on Youtube as I wait for final product and a Steam offer.

[Aphex]

Don't have a problem with it myself, perhaps its the type of games you're playing. I'm still playing Assetto Corsa and Starbound pretty much daily. DayZ I will take a month or two break to check back with the latest update