Do you find Early Access games worth it on Steam?

The Game Room
1

Steam offers ‘early access’ games, that are almost like a Kickstarter for game developers by offering an incomplete game for sale in the hopes that enough users will pay to help the developer complete the game. In return, they are often offered some ‘perk’ as a reward for their loyalty. Do you think it is worth it to spend money on these projects?

Here’s what kind of bugs me about them- I’m used to the days where you could play the Beta version of a game for free. I used to think this was a good move by game developers- they get a legion of beta testers who they don’t have to pay, and in exchange people get a chance to play a game for free and get addicted enough to gladly pay for it when its released. It seemed like a win-win arragement.

But now, I see games being hawked on Steam that are still in the Alpha stage of development. Presumably to pay for the cost of developing the rest of the game, you end up paying the equivalent of a completed AAA title for a game that is incomplete, buggy, and likely years away from completion. This feels like a far cry from the ‘free Beta’ days (yeah, I know free Betas are still around).

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some gems- Kerbal Space Program, for example, is an excellent ‘incomplete’ game. Its unique, addictive, and well worth the price (it also goes on sale from time to time). But for every gem, there seems to be quite a few turds in the pile. Now what I love about Steam is that during the Winter sale, I can spend $4.99 on some game I never heard of, based on a 30 second demo video, and be content that even if it sucks/gets boring after 2 days, I’m only out 5 bucks. But some of these Early Access games are asking for a pretty hefty sum!

The one that takes the cake is (a game whose title eludes me, sorry) an RTS similar to Command and Conquer, but on a ‘planetary’ scale. Now the idea of playing an RTS over an entire planet definitely got my attention; it sounded like Planetside in RTS form. An ambitious project, to be sure. But I was not so impressed with the initial price tag- $99.99 just for the privlege of playing the Alpha version :eek: . Reading reviews, it was clear the game was very early in development, with very little content, tons of bugs/issues, basically all the normal growing pains of game development- but with the added bonus of asking players to gamble a hundred bucks on something that may or may not be great. Several months later I saw the price for the Alpha had dropped down to sixty bucks. Still not impressed.

Seems the only really safe Early Access games are ‘freemium’ games that allow players to invest as much as they are comfortable. The die hards and true believers will still throw a lot of money at it (my best friend admitted to spending five hundred dollars on the free-to-play Battletech Online game :eek: ) while people that are midly curious can dip their toe in the water and hopefully enjoy it enough to spend money on it.

But then again, maybe I’m just spoiled on AAA titles that had the funding to be developed without needing a lot of user financial support, offered free betas, and had sales early enough on to be affordable. Steam is a great opportunity to find incredibly fun games for dirt-cheap ( I bought FTL for 7 bucks and still play it thanks to the $3 expansion pack!) and also get into titles that may have been popular 3-5 years ago that you never had a chance to try, but now they are only 5 dollars so why not? At least you know your PC is probably fast enough to run them! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I bought one early access title, which was a roguelike game that I’d been playing for years anyway. You really need to go into it thinking that you’ll get your value even if the game doesn’t see another update ever. You’re right that the vast majority of the titles don’t seem to meet that criteria. It’s a real shame too, since when a game is first made public is kind of its primetime. With these games, that time is kind of ruined by “it’s an alpha so it’s okay” bugs.

That Planetary Annihilation game was particularly offensive with its $90 alpha buy-in. I know that they said it was to keep parity with the kickstarter alpha buy-in price, but that thinking didn’t stop them from discounting the game during the Steam sale.

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I think it backfired on the Planetary Annihilation game. Because the biggest uproar was “Who pays 90 bucks for an Alpha game?!” And I hate to say it, but the more ambitious the project, the more skeptical I am of them being able to deliver. Its a great idea, but making that idea work is a whole different kettle of fish, and expecting players to just throw money at it is no guarantee.

What roguelike? I too enjoy some roguelikes because the ‘randomized’ aspect of it really boosts the replay value. Having content you need to unlock from achievements in a rather random game is like a fun, slow paced slot machine in a way that keeps the desire to keep playing the game.

One thing that is really critical for these ‘Early Access’ games is to release content as rapidly as possible. I’m one of those people that would rather a ton of content be released over a year (and deal with balance later in Beta) than the game be 25% done and just stagnant for a year then have some new content after 75% of the initially curious people left.

I accidentally bought one game Early Access- Castle Story. This is before I knew what Early Access was, and was prone to impulse purchases on Steam (easy when its a click of a button!). The demo video looked impressive- sort of like an RTS version of Minecraft. The actual game is very basic, with a very counterintuitive interface (for an RTS game) and hasn’t had any major content in over three months.

Its too bad they couldn’t spread the cost out more for players- Alpha games are a big gamble on the direction/quality they will be in release version. I’d rather pay $5 for an iffy Alpha, then maybe $10 for a major update, then the rest on full version rather than paying 25-60 dollars on an Alpha game I might not even download for free on my smartphone. And I’m skeptical they make it worthwhile for the early adopters when the full version comes out- are there any games out there where getting in on it on Alpha phase gives you anything really interesting/good/worthwhile as a reward for your loyalty?

4

It was Tales of Maj’eyal, which you can get for free from here http://te4.org/

You can buy it on Steam or donate to get some extra perks, but all the gameplay stuff is free. Seemed odd for a free game to be added to Steam, but whatever.

5

As you said, this about supporting the devs, their idea, which naturally you probably believe in in some way, and it’s sometimes about having a voice in terms of how development progresses (though in a very limited way).

You are NOT buying a game at this stage. You are SUPPORTING/DONATING towards an eventual game.

If you want to buy the game, you wait until it’s released. THEN you buy it, probably for less money than the early access price.

This is why I don’t understand how this can make people upset. I have zero interest in helping develop and supporting something like Starbound. But I’ll probably like the end product, and that’s when I’ll pay for it. When it’s done.

No one is forcing me to pay for alpha access. It’s entirely of my own volition.

On the other hand something like Star Citizen or Kerbal space program and a number of others are precisely the kind of games I want to exist and that I’m willing to get involved with in terms of development and the community. I know publishers aren’t going to cater to my specific tastes and if even if they were to support a project like this, they’ll dumb it the hell down in order to appeal to a casual, more numerous audience.

And so I’m willing to help it become an independent reality free from the chains of the publisher, and supported by the feedback of fans.

And yes, absolutely there are some pretty lousy alphas out there. But as long as they are being straight about the current state of the game, and what they are plannign to have up and running within a reasonable amount of time, I think it’s fine.

The only real issue with steam right now, it’s that it’s hard to find the gems in there. I know they are moving towards a self-publishing model, which is great. That means indies will continue to thrive on PC, no matter how much money Sony and Microsoft throw at a handful of indie studios.

But we need better tools to control what rises to the top. Smart suggestions like what Netflix uses - based on what you’ve played before, specially what you’ve played for long periods of time, what you’re friends are playing, what is suddenly rising in popularity/trending, what is a new release (anctula new release not some old game coming out on steam for the first time). We need all that, and we need it pronto.

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I agree. As much as people rag on Netflix, my wife and I both agree whatever algorythm it uses is GREAT at predicting movies each of us would like. I can’t see why Steam couldn’t do the same, and a lot of people could make a TON of money directing picky gamers like you and I toward the games we’d actually spend money on.

It also kind of bugs me that Early Access gets mixed up with new releases. To me they are two different categories. I am okay with supporting Early Access as long as thats what I’m looking for- but don’t bury it in the new releases and other Steam sales.

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I don’t even do free betas, so the prospect of paying $90 for early access is not at all appealing to me.

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This has, of course, always been the case for computer games, regardless of whether they are early access or not.

I’ve bought into a few Early Access games - Gnomoria, Starbound, Kerbal Space Program - and I’ve supported a few on Kickstarter. Even though I haven’t actually been burned yet, it’s something I’ve stopped doing now. I just don’t play games over that length of time as much - I’ve got so many games bought at Steam sales and suchlike that I can’t play all of those, never mind going back and getting excited over each new content update. So, I’ll be waiting for them to finish, even though I can play them now.

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Have any of these games gone ‘full version’? They seem to be in Alpha/Beta phase forever!

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The original one, Minecraft, has a release version now, although they haven’t stopped updating it.

As for the Steam ones, they actually only started the Early Access program in March last year, so it’s perhaps a little unfair to expect even the early ones to have come out by now.

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I thought the Early Access games were cheaper (around $15-$20), then the price goes up once it hits Beta or release version. The advantage is you get to come in at a lower price, in exchange for putting up with an unfinished game.

I think the OP might be confusing purchasing a early release alpha with giving a contribution to a Kickstarter development project. Typically the developer might give such perks as early release access, content or lunch with the CEO or whatever, depending on how much you contribute.
I bought the DayZ standalone early access for like $20 and Project Zomboid for $15. At that price, they are cheap enough that I don’t really care. I’ve also been keeping an eye on Planetary Annihilation and Godus, although I haven’t heard great things.

As to whether, it’s a good business model, I’m not sure. Here’s the problem. I would assume that the bulk of a game’s purchases would be made by the hard-core fans who have been clamoring for the game’s release. They buy the early release alpha not caring how crappy it is, and then they complain about how crappy it is.

Then the project will go through a period of bug fixes and content updates. The fan community buys into the grand vision of the future while each fix seems to be fewer and further between.

So the big questions are:

  • Will the game ever get to full release before the dev team either runs out of money or loses interest (note that the creator of DayZ plans to leave the company this year)?
  • Will people continue to purchase the game over time?
  • Will people who originally purchased the game still have any interest in it by the time it’s fully released?
  • Will some other company release a similar, better game before the final release? (Note that Sony is releasing a DayZ clone called H1Z1 in a month or so. It’s bigger, with better graphics.).

To be honest, it does sound like a bit of a scam in that a company can release a poor quality product and cry “alpha” forever. It seems to make more sense with a game like Minecraft, where you can have a relatively decent minimum viable product that is playable and then you just keep adding content to give it more depth.

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I’ve seen it done both ways: Paying a premium to be “first” and paying a discount to be a guinea pig. Really depends on the game/developer although the blowback from the “premium” attempts was probably enough to dissuade most from trying that.

I own Kerbal (mainly on the weight of comments here) but haven’t played it yet. I won a copy of Rust which was fun for a while although very obviously unfinished both in terms of content and scope. I don’t know that I’d buy another Alpha mainly because I’m not really invested in being first/testing but I might if enough people said it was fun and finished enough to qualify as a “real” game. On the plus side though, if/when they ever add more scope to Rust then I already own.

I’m not in love with how Steam places them front and center with the completed games, features them during seasonal sales, etc but I guess if people ar ebuying them then so it goes.

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That’s not the case at all, companies will charge whatever they think they can get away with for their broken and unfinished game. Here’s one that’s been in the news recently, Galactic Civilizations III Early Access priced at $100. I didn’t have much confidence in that developer to begin with after the Elemental debacle, but their insane pricing pretty much guarantees they’re never going to get their hands on my money again.

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It is almost always the case that early access games are cheaper than full games, Galactic Civilizations and planetary annihilation are the only two i can think off that tried that gimmick.

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I don’t typically, I own Kerbal Space Program because it was well reviewed even as an unfinished game and I bought it after it had become fairly polished. It was on sale also, so was an easy decision that I don’t regret at all based on the quality of the game thus far. I bought Minecraft but from Mojang back when it was still in beta, and it was well spelled out you were paying $13 or whatever for beta and all future updates to the game.

Most of the time I do skip Steam games that are Early Access. I did buy Towns on Steam–think Minecraft except you run a village that explorers come to instead of being a solo explorer. However that game was actually a bit controversial, I actually had read about it in an article, so I was aware that it was an unfinished game.

However, it actually wasn’t released on Steam as an Early Access game. Instead, it was released on Steam as part of their “Greenlight” program. Greenlight games are basically indie games that can get “nominated” and then “voted” into Steam if enough users vote to support it. These games are generally supposed to be finished games, and back when Steam first introduced Greenlight it was never advertised as anything but finished, indie games.

Well, Towns got in through Greenlight but it was still like version 0.36 or something. On the Towns website, it was quite obvious this was an indie, unfinished game. There were solicitations for donations, the official forums made it obvious it was a game in its beta state etc. But the Steam listing had absolutely no indication that this was an unfinished game. As time went on and many people got mad that they had paid $15 for an unfinished game a small notice was added to the game’s description and etc…but it’s still hard to tell just from the game’s Greenlight page that it’s not a fully finished product. As for the game itself, it was fun for the few days I played it, but is clearly not finished and needs more work. Unfortunately unlike Mojang which continually worked on Minecraft until it was finished, the three man team behind Towns eventually just gave up due to “burn out”, and I’m assuming took the money and ran (it was pretty quick selling as one of the first Steam Greenlight games so they probably pocketed decent change.) It’s been taken over by another developer, but when I occasionally check on the project it’s obvious not much is being done.

While I knew all that going in, I still expected the game to get finished at some point (I bought it post-controversy but pre-developers quitting), the experience has lead me to distrust EA games because I figure they are all just as likely to end up that way.

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If we go beyond the scope of Steam and start looking at PC gaming in general, getting early access to a game is often an expensive perk of some sort of founder’s package or a part of big-money Kickstarter tiers. SoE’s Landmark had a 100 USD price tag for Alpha access for a game that will be free to play once it launches for example.

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Early Access games sorted by price

A few high rollers (in addition to the ones named, Wasteland 2 for $60) and a lot that are probably at/near their release price: Assetto Corsa for $40, Divinty: Original Sin for $40, DayZ for $30, Prison Architect for $30, etc. Early Access games are pretty much exclusively indie titles so I doubt many are going to retail for $50+ at release.

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Took me a few moments to realise you’d shortened Early Access games, and that this wasn’t a shot at the company, EA games, which I’ve known many people to dislike and distrust, but not normally for selling unfinished games :slight_smile:

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Here’s another one I read about today, the Elite: Dangerous developers are selling Alpha access for $295. I don’t think crowd-funding in itself is necessarily bad, but there is a point where it becomes exploitative and this crosses that line for me by a mile and a half.

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I’d never pay something like that. I can understand or justify a bit better that $90 Landmark founder’s package. That’s a game being made by a AAA studio with a long history, that game is going to ship. You’re really just paying for a bunch of minor perks at that point, no different than buying the special edition releases of WoW expansions and getting in game pets and such.