this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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Early access titles should have an “expire” time. Either get to market, or don’t early access if you can’t in time.
I feel like all that will happen is games will just release to 1.0 as “finished” when they clearly arent. It also may encourage rushing a game out thats a buggy mess.
Ive known some games to be very rough in early access that become absolutely gems a couple years later in development.
Yeah satisfactory spent 5 years in early access. Good dev takes time
What was the longest time between updates, tho? Was there more than a year without any game updates or even status updates from the dev?
While what you say is accurate right now. With the rule in place, automating small “check-ins” and “updates” could become a thing.
So be it, but at some point they need to shit or get off the pot, and way too many games are just staying early access.
What's the problem with staying in early access? It's not like the games are squatting on welfare. Do they get anything from Steam beyond a placard that says "my game ain't finished"?
The only thing is people deflecting criticism because of the "early access" tag. But if you want to introduce arbitrary term limits so you can win internet arguments about video game developer malfeasance, then you've lost me.
Yeah, I think this would be a useful feature for games out of early access, too. It's not as important (because not all games need updates) but it would be a nice plus to show how long it's been since the last minor and major updates.
Maybe also add a standardized spot for possible features with various levels of confidence and ETAs (along with history so it's easy to see when a feature has been "promised soon" for years). Devs could address common complaints in reviews this way, rather than replying to a few and hoping those are the ones people see, plus the nightmare of updating those replies if things like timeline change.
I definitely agree. Part of me wants to say the few gems that come out of it make it worth it
But at least that's honest. They're saying, "This is the real product" instead of "The real product is coming later if you give us money now."