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Early access should always have been a limited state, where you have 1 or 2 years to release the game. Then if the game isn't ready, it is unable to be purchased until it is released.
Which probably wouldn't work well. All it would do is make the game "release" when the time is up no matter what making it harder to know if you are buying a complete product or not. It's not like valve will go in and kick a game out if they don't think it's complete enough, or even be able to define that in a way that wouldn't just be arbitrary...
Yes, pros and cons to both approaches. Most games release unfinished anyway these days or some just sit in early access for years and years,
Then if the game isn't ready, storefronts chargeback every purchase of the game**** FTFY
And it refunds buyers.
Honestly, there's only one early access game that I ever felt was worth it. BG3 did a lot with their time in EA. I'm sure there are others but my guess is that they're not in genres I care about.
Beam.NG is a rare one that been in early access since 2013 and has continually put out updates the entire time. It’s a completely different game than where it started with hundreds of new features and dozens of new cars. One of the greats imo.
Similarly, Factorio was basically a full game for over a year before the v1.0.0 launch, but the devs didn’t feel like it was finished enough to actually launch. People had literal tens of thousands of hours on it before it even hit launch day.
Valheim. The early access release was a more complete game than most complete games.
I'd like to add Factorio to this list.
I mentioned Factorio further up for the same reason. People had literal tens of thousands of hours logged before the game even hit v1.0.0. There were people saying that they were seeing conveyor belts and assembly machines in their dreams.
And in the same van of construction games, satisfactory and Dyson sphere program
Yes and then they have released like one meaningful update in 4 years.
They've had a few actually. Three new biomes (plains wasn't really a thing when it first released), three new bosses for those biomes, all kinds of structures and craftables, some new mechanics (you can lay siege to Ashlands fortresses + magic)
It's gotten quite a bit of love over time. Just not as often as some other games. Which is fine, because it is still actively being worked on.
They only had the first act, then it released filled with bugs, which weren't even exclusive to act 2 and 3. It still feels like that game is in early access, the release should have been an early access update honestly.
It still feels like that game is in early access,
Crazy take tbh
For real. I think the biggest “issues” I encountered were just due to me fucking around and getting stuck behind a boulder, or teleporting somewhere I shouldn’t have been yet and skipping a cutscene because I stormed right past an NPC. But even those aren’t really “issues” per se, because if you want to avoid a particular NPC or plot line in D&D, you should have that choice as a player.
I still have high standards for video games, so I am often disappointed. I started a BG3 playthrough with friends recently and came across the same issues I did a year ago and new ones.