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The Early Access Conundrum.


danielpholt

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I've had something of an epiphany on the subject of Early Access/Unfinished games. Before, I was dead set on keeping my money until the developers had completed their game. I had no interest in playing an unfinished game, why would I? The idea seemed foreign to me. As if I was throwing my money down the toilet.

However with the success that Player Unknown's Battlegrounds is having, I began to wonder if maybe I'd been a bit quick to judge; if maybe I'd picked a 'side' too early? After listening to a podcast on the subject of 'When is it time to buy into unfinished games' my view changed completely. And today, I think I'm okay with the thought of buying a yet-unfinished game. Even if ultimately I'll have had my fill on that game when it does eventually get released, I'll have spent 10 or 12 or 400 hours playing a game I obviously enjoyed. To me that makes the investment worth it. Regardless of wether or not it acheives the tag of 'finished' or not. Battlegrounds highlights this for me. If the game stops being updated tomorrow, I'll still play and absolutely love it; problems and all.

Tl:dr: Maybe it's not all that important that a game goes 'gold' after you invest your money in it, provided you enjoy the game for what it is when you invest in it? Maybe the experience of playing the game when it's 'hot' is why we play these games?

When are you happy to commit money to an unfinished game? Discuss.

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  On 5/30/2017 at 8:06 AM, danielpholt said:

Even if ultimately I'll have had my fill on that game when it does eventually get released, I'll have spent 10 or 12 or 400 hours playing a game I obviously enjoyed.

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While that is true but what tends to keep me from jumping into early access games these days is that burn out and/or being seasoned before the full experience is available. In ways I feel like I cheated myself out of a better first-impression of great games such as The Long Dark and Subnautica. The Long Dark's story mode is dropping in August and while I'm not sure if the player's character is a survivalist, they will be as I bomb across whatever map and survive like a veteran. With Subnautica, I have explored plenty in-progress areas and in a real sense, the surprise of a fully flesh out encounter with this or that thing is now diminished. My experience with those two games is why I opt out of getting say Slime Rancher or Project Nimbus.

Though, Player Unknown's Battlegrounds has the advantage of being a multiplayer experience though so I'm more inclined to playing it even if it is not complete. But damn, I can't help but see the specter of Day Z. PUBG though is a far better game.

Speaking of Day Z and games like it that fail to make progress... that's the risk of early access. Whoever goes in got to realize and understand that risk that development may stall or go to shit. I've had a lot of experience with Cube World. Us early adopters are still waiting since Wollay seems to be doing something...

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It's important to me that they aren't Early Access. Because with all these games that actually release that I want to play, I'd rather just stick with something that's actually finished rather than something that may be finished. And there's also the case of what Mal brought up concerning burn out.

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