# Do you find Early Access games worth it on Steam? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 10, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825 "2014-04-10T22:47:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/21 "2014-04-12T18:27:09Z")
> [@Teuton](#): > > 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** 🙂 Weeeeeell… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/22 "2014-04-12T18:40:53Z")
I actually think I can justify the jacked up price for early access games. As I said, you are paying to contribute to development and get an early copy for testing. it discourages the masses from buying until the actual release. What I’m seeing with the DayZ standalone EA is that pretty much anyone and everyone bought the game at $20. Now they are all “testing”, which is to say, playing it as if they expected it to be finished. And going by the official message boards, people are of two minds: The fanboys who have deluded themselves into thinking the game will eventually evolve into a cross between Minecraft, WoW, CoD, Battlefield with a completely destructible environment, ragdoll physics down to every pebble and brick, AI zombies by the thousand that you can blow apart in particle rendered red sprays and a crafting system that will let you craft the entire supply chain of an Apache helicopter from stuff you find and will shout down any dissension with cries of “it’s only in alpha!”. Everyone else who is like “why does it take a month to release an ‘update’ containing 3 new sets of cargo pants for your character, an improved baseball bat and a new pistol when the zombies do nothing but stand around stupidly until they see you from a mile away and then sprint through the buildings and scenery as if it wasn’t there?” This group largely suspects that development will run out of steam (no pun intended) long before the game ever resembles a finished product. Especially with the creator of the game leaving before the end of the year. Even if they finish the game, who the heck is going to keep playing it for 2 years? Then again at $20, who cares? I’ve bought plenty of full price games that I’ve tossed after a few days of play. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/23 "2014-04-12T18:43:32Z")
Yeah, if you play a game for 5 hours then at $20 it’s already cheaper than a lot of stuff out there people do for entertainment. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/24 "2014-04-12T19:18:12Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I actually think I can justify the jacked up price for early access games. As I said, you are paying to contribute to development and get an early copy for testing. it discourages the masses from buying until the actual release. Oh, I don’t really think there’s any question that it’s total and complete opportunism in the more extreme cases. They wouldn’t charge those exorbitant prices if they didn’t think people would buy, and it’s probably no coincidence that many of those games are “sequels” to popular games of old. Most of those who played _Elite_ back in the day are now in their 40s and 50s with comparatively large amounts of disposable income, and there is an implication that if they don’t support the development there will never be another game like that again. In the case of _Godus_, Peter Moluyneux straight out claimed that if it failed to get backing that would be the end of the god game genre, because apparently the world revolves around whatever that douchebag does. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/25 "2014-04-12T19:21:46Z")
At the same time though, a lot of early access games are done by indie developers that probably legitimately cannot get a came to completion otherwise. No major publisher is going to work with them and they have no other source of money. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/26 "2014-04-12T19:25:58Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > At the same time though, a lot of early access games are done by indie developers that probably legitimately cannot get a came to completion otherwise. No major publisher is going to work with them and they have no other source of money. Oh, I don’t begrudge anyone asking for $15 for a game that can’t possibly be financed any other way, I was talking about the charging-triple-digits-for-Early-Access-after-a-successful-Kickstarter-campaign type of developers. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/27 "2014-04-12T20:40:04Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > Here’s another one I read about today, the _Elite: Dangerous_ developers are selling [Alpha access for $295](https://store.zaonce.net/elite-dangerous-alpha.html). 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. I can understand not wanting to pay so much for the Alpha access, but I can’t really see what’s wrong at selling it - the world is full of way too expensive stuff you or me or anybody sensible has no need to buy if they so choose. This is targeted at 30-40 year old geeks, they aren’t trying to exploit teens or gambling addicts or other vulnerable groups. Some of them have enough disposable income that buying access for 300 bucks may be well worth it to them and if the development team wants to limit the number of testers this is as good a method as any - you’ll only get fans who value your game highly. I’ve seen some videos and read some reviews of Elite: Dangerous current state and they have been very positive, so it’s not like they are selling complete vaporware either. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/28 "2014-04-12T21:00:18Z")
The problem is mostly a conflict between Early Access and Kickstarter’s tier system. One of the easiest tiers to make in a game Kickstarter is game perks like early access, it would be stupid to see a pricing system like this: $10 Access to the game right now! $25 Access to the game when it enters beta (does not include lower tiers) $50 Access to the game at release (does not include lower tiers) The trick here is that all payment on a Kickstarter is **upfront** to finance the game. But let’s say you get Kickstarted and now your game is on Steam Early Access. What are you going to do? Suddenly switch to Minecraft’s model? That’s a nice way to slap your backers in the face, when they paid $99 for the early access tier and now everyone else gets it for $15. Overall I like the Minecraft model better. And Kickstarter projects could fix this by making different tier rewards (various feelies, “name a character” crap and stuff like that), but that would require a lot more marketing effort that frankly an indie game developer doesn’t really want to spend. I don’t blame a studio that needs Kickstarter being lazy and just adding an early access tier to minimize effort that would better be spent on the end product. There is **something** to be said, I suppose, for saying that an Early Access player can have more input on the final game. After all, that’s a big part of why Blizzard invites high level players to their betas (in addition to generating buzz and giving players an incentive to go pro). But I don’t think it’s a big enough incentive for a huge markup. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/29 "2014-04-14T20:30:11Z")
I never buy early access games mostly for reasons stated above. I’m happy to contribute to a kickstarter campaign, but I’m gonna be waiting for the finished product before I start playing it. I just can’t get over feeling like I’m paying for the privilege of playing buggy unfinished games with Early Access. If someone could toss some Steam filters up here that let me browse only non-ea titles I would greatly appreciate it. I hate having something catch my interest only to realize that it might never actually come out. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/30 "2014-04-14T20:38:41Z")
On the opposite end of the spectum, I have over 400 hours in Starbound – a $15 early access game. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/31 "2014-04-15T15:11:30Z")
I avoid these out of habit; If I want a game badly enough to buy it early, I also want that game to be GOOD, which cancels out my desire for early access. I’ve messed around with a few games that I got early access to as a result of Kickstarter, and honestly, I kinda wish I’d waited until they were finished, so now I generally do. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/32 "2014-05-21T13:30:59Z")
[Early Access is enabling Chucklefish, the developer & publisher of Starbound, to be a publisher like Mastertronic was and Electronic Arts started as.](http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/12/how-starbound-plans-to-break-down-the-lines-between-player-and-game-designer/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0#null) They don’t plan to be a major player like EA became, though: > [@](#): > > Chucklefish have been busy. Over the last couple of months, Starbound’s developers have announced sweeping changes to the game that made their name, and begun the process of relocating the majority of their international team to a new headquarters in London. The phrase ‘bedroom coder’ doesn’t quite apply to developers who have already scaled the heights of the Steam charts, but the change the team is undergoing is similar to the process that took place in the UK in the 1980s, as larger studios formed around games that started life as passion projects. > > Starbound’s early access success has given Chucklefish the opportunity to become a small publisher in their own right. They’ve been working with select indies to help bring their games to an audience, and they’re currently hiring a second development team to work on a new game—a topdown pirate RPG influenced by The Legend of Zelda. > > “I don’t think we want to become a big company,” says Starbound lead designer Tiyuri. “Despite the fact that we work with other companies to get their games out, everybody in the company right now wants to participate in those projects in some fashion. I don’t want to lose that—I don’t want to lose the idea that we’re small enough for the talent we have to take part in everything we do.” ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/33 "2014-05-21T15:38:16Z")
_Towns_, a game that was released incomplete on Steam prior to the Early Access program, has been officially abandoned. It’s still not complete. The developers seem like nice enough guys who didn’t really know what they were doing. No refunds. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/34 "2014-05-21T16:52:07Z")
IMHO, the chief problem with playing Towns is the Happiness quotient. Happiness was implemented terribly: putting your Townies to work reduces Happiness, which basically starts as zero to begin with. Sure, there are decorations to increase Happiness but those need to be made or traded for, which means Townies need to work, which reduces Happiness. The game is much better with a mod which essentially turns off Happiness by making all Townies happy all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/35 "2014-05-22T23:02:29Z")
I’ve only purchased a few early access games (Starbound and Might & Magic). I bought them because I was curious to see the games through the development cycle, and I wanted to get a sneak peek plus support the game. It’s especially cool to see companies that listen to feedback from these things and allow their fans to shape the game a little - or a lot! But most of the time I am content to wait. I’d usually rather play a complete and relatively bug free game, so I’ll wait at least a few months after a game is released to purchase. I’d never pay for things like the $60 Wasteland 2 early access on Steam. I don’t have that much money to spend on games. Most of the games I buy are $10 older titles that were once $60 or indie games from smaller companies. I’ll buy Wasteland 2 after release whenever there’s a big steam sale. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/36 "2014-05-30T17:27:35Z")
I’m torn on early access games. I like most games but I have to admit that I’m not good at certain types. Strategy games are an example of this. They all look tempting to me but I’m not good at playing them, or (micro)managing all of the units. I bought Prison Architect and have enjoyed it around Alpha 12-17. However, with Build 23 that they just released, now it’s working against me because now it seems like they have too much and it’s getting to that level of (micro)management that I don’t like or am not good at! Bums me out because I had a lot of fun with some of the prisons I had created. I also bought the new M&M game, I think it was, but then it was not optimized and ran slow on my system, and turned me off of it! The flip side is that I KS’ed Grim Dawn and played in early builds several times but by the time they released Chapter 2, or full Chapter one, I was so sick of going through all of the same stuff, again, to test the new stuff that I stopped playing because it was boring at that point. So, to answer the OP, I guess it depends? I have not been turned off early access games but I’m a bit more leery of them than I might have been before I had gotten any. And my own results, as I mention above, are all over the place! But, as I said in the other thread, I’m a steam addict, so I will keep looking! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/37 "2014-06-04T16:19:03Z")
_Caribbean!_ is only about 70% complete but is cheap, quite playable, and has a neat concept: _Sid Meier’s Pirates!_ with the engine from _Mount & Blade_. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/38 "2014-06-04T16:39:43Z")
I wanted to update that Planetary Annihilation had recently been released on sale for $30, which is still a lot but better than 90 bucks. I did my homework and it seemed worth it at this point and I bought it. Boy am I glad I tried it! For those curious, its much like the Total Annihilation family of games. Its an RTS where resource gathering emphasizes the rate of resource gain more than the quantity of reources you have at a given time. Unlike the other games, there is less variety in unit types, but the scale of this game is absolutely mind boggling. Each ‘map’ is a goddamn _planet_. You can rotate the planet around to see the far side. Scale wise, its like playing Warhammer 40k tabletop game on a beach ball. There are moons and other planets in the ‘system’ you are fighting over. You can even build doomsday weapons to crash a moon into a planet! Visually, the units are very simplistic, low poly count but thats because a planet can easily have HUNDREDS of tanks and robots battling it out. The version I got comes with a singleplayer campaign as well as multiplayer. Aside from updating my video drivers, the game runs fine though the sheer number of units definitely puts a strain on older computers. ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/39 "2014-06-09T16:43:42Z")
**Lifeless Planet** , which was kickstarted 2 years and made it onto Steam Early Access, had a finished release on 6 June. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it’s an example of a game that has been built largely by a one-man dev team, and gone through the Early Access system to a full release. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825/40 "2016-09-01T17:34:29Z")
Resurrecting this thread to note that Ark: Survival Evolved (which is still in Early Access) now has a full paid expansion: [Ark: Scorched Earth](http://store.steampowered.com/app/512540/) for $20. The Early Access thing isn’t a topic that inspires great passion in me but I have to say that it seems wrong that Steam wouldn’t require a game to leave “Early Access” before putting out paid DLC. If you can put out a full-fledged expansion for your game, it’s time to stop hiding behind the Early Access banner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-early-access-games-worth-it-on-steam/685825.md?page=3)