Early Access Program, The Right Step Or Not?
User Steam maybe not familiar with the name game Early Access. Early Access is a program launched by Steam in March 2013, where this program opens up opportunities for developers, especially indie developers, to develop their games that are still under development.unfinished‘, as well as providing access for players to try the games directly.
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Model publishing This Early Access course ‘win-win‘ for developers. Developers earn revenue and increase the number of players, of which these players are one of the feedback main during the game in development towards ‘full release‘.
As a developer, testing games sometimes takes time and resources. Early Access makes it easy for developers to find problems that players encounter on a large scale during development.
—independence
Unfinished, expensive price, lots of bugs, even ignored.
Dilansi from gamesindustry.biz, 2014 data shows that at least 25% of early access games are on their way to full release. The data seems to predict the current Early Access trend.
So many Early Access games appear in various genres. However, most of these games show no signs of releasing soon even though they have been in Early Access for years like games DayZ and Rust for example.
Some of them are simply ignored by developers or even included in the full release category, but with unfinished game conditions, potential games such as Godus, Folktale and Guardians of Orion for example. Some Early Access games even have very little content or still have many bugs but are already priced at such a high price.
Popularized by the game Minecraft.
This Early Access model was first popularized by Mojang as a developer Minecraft, because while still in the Alpha stage, players can already buy and access the Minecraft game. Although still in the alpha stage, the main elements of Minecraft are already available; mining materials and build something from those materials.
Because of the popularity of Minecraft too, the PC Gaming world is starting to go the same way, which is to make the game into stages early access build before full release.
Although Minecraft is indeed a success in the Early Access stage, but several other games that follow the same way, do not seem to have succeeded in getting the same results as Minecraft. This could be because these games are built in a mechanism that must be completed first so that the game can be played in a fun way.
Steam already warned.
Steam itself actually really supports this Early Access program because game development should involve players and the community so that the results are in accordance with the wishes of the developer and community or even higher.
Steam also explained through the discussion forum, that Early Access games are not pre order, so there is no guarantee from Steam that these Early Access games can reach full release or not.
Many players are actually fed up with early access games and similar business models, they state that the price that should be installed is the price for beta-testing. However, from the developer’s perspective, this is certainly unfair, because when the full release comes later, players who have purchased during early access do not need to spend more money.
There may still be hope in the future for Early Access.
Of course not all of them are like that, some games that were in the Early Access stage also managed to present games that were rich in game content and received many positive reviews from old and new players.
Popular indie games like Don’t Starve, Kerbal Space Program, The Long Dark, Prison Architect, Divinity: Original Sin 2 and several other games managed to ‘pass’ from the Early Access period and bring games that are so high quality for players to enjoy.
This of course depends on the developer and us as players, taking the example of the game Subanutica and Rust, are two games that are currently still in the Early Access stage after many years, but due to good communication between developers and players, these two games are getting new content almost every month to achieve full release.
What do you think about Early Access games?
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