So my roommate told me a little while ago that apparently the internet has been having a fit over Steam Early Access Games. I thought it might be a good thing to talk about and here we are. This may be a shorter post but I feel this needs to be talked about, so let's get down to it.
For those of you who don't know, or don't have steam, Steam Early Access Games allows developers to essentially sell people their games before they are actually done. It's sorta a paid beta access or paid alpha access in some cases. This is not terribly uncommon a practice, plenty of games in the past have given you beta access as a part of pre-order packages. Steam Early Access Games just makes it easier for developers to do so and is an official system to do it.
The point that has got so many peoples' panties in a twist is a simple hypothetical possibility: what if you're just paying for a crappy game that will never be "finished"? People are suspicious that this could just let developers release a half baked game and say it's in "beta" or "alpha" and then never really work on it to make money. They'll say they are but they're really not and just collecting on the goodwill and trust of innocent gamers. Now this is a legitimate concern. This is an entirely possible outcome of this system and would be a despicable thing to do. Some developers may do this to make a quick buck and this could potentially be a huge problem.
But then again lets look at all the positives to SEAG (Steam Early Access Games, I'm tired of typing all that out). Actually first off let's look at the fact that, once again, pre-orders already do this. People DO BUY games that are not yet completed in the form of pre-orders. The difference is a pre-order doesn't always give you an instant gratification of being able to play the game in it's current build and being able to help the developers in making the game better. Instead, a pre-order just gives you the promise of a game to come who's quality is unknown until you eventually get it.
Second of all there is a perfect example of early access games that has already been used to great success. I'm talking about Minecraft. Minecraft started selling back when it was still in alpha. People bought it to support its continuous development as well as to give feedback to help it improve as it continued to be made. Now Minecraft is one of the most well known and well loved games out there, and is STILL having updates being released for it. This is what early access is going for. The model of early access does work, and gives fledgling indie developers the ability to market this more readily, which is fantastic.
Third, if you buy the game in it's early access stage, you are basically saying "yes I like this idea, I want this game to be a thing, and I want to make sure it comes out good." It's like kick-starting a game except with instant gratification of access to the current build and the ability to give feedback to help perfect the game. It's a good way to have more communication between developers and gamers as well as to make sure games that gamers want to be released get released in a better state.
Finally, if you support a game through early access you're helping a developer to continue to make the game. Most of the developers who use early access are indie developers. They may not have a huge budget, but they had enough to create this alpha/beta build. From there the proceeds from purchases of the early access version gives them a budget to continue making the game. In addition, as I said before, they have a much larger testing group for feedback on bug fixes and game updates. In short, early access is one of the best things that can happen for an indie developer on a low budget.
In conclusion, SEAG is not some horrible monster that is going to eat all our money and give us nothing in return. It's a good system for indie developers to continue getting interesting, unique, and fun games to us as gamers. In addition, we become a much larger part of the development process, helping to make sure the games that we buy become quality products that all can enjoy. So don't be fooled by the cynical paranoia of the internet, SEAG is a system that we should continue to support.
Thanks for reading! As always post in the comments to discuss the topic further and give feedback! If you want me to talk about a specific topic or review a game, let me know in the comments! Signal boosting is always appreciated so share with your friends!
Gamer out.
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