Steam Begins Warning Players of Early Access Games That Haven’t Been Updated in Months

Tsing

The FPS Review
Staff member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
13,255
Points
113
Early Access, a program that Valve introduced in 2013 as a way of allowing games to be played as they "progress towards a full release" on its immensely popular Steam platform, has received a new feature that gives customers a better idea of whether an Early Access game has been abandoned by its developers or not, according to the listings of various Early Access games that now include a message warning the player if they haven't been updated in months.

See full article...
 
Not sure if this is a a great new feature to be lauded, or an indictment of the Early Access program in the first place.
 
Well to be fair of the Early Access program, Factorio was in Early Access for a very long time, several years. I think that was a great example of how the Early Access program was supposed to work.
 
Abandoned early access titles litter digital storefronts and need to be delisted until they're provided a substantial update. In this sense, "abandoned" could be defined as an extended period of developer inactivity.
 
I have no issue with early access, you just need to understand that you are paying for the product as is. That's why it is cheaper than the final release version.

It might be a good idea though to automatically delist ones that haven't been updated in 6 months, so there is no unsupported abandonware clogging up the marketplace.
 
Yeah, I can understand the point of Early Access. For small developers it's pretty clutch. The problem is, the rules are so lax it's easy to abuse, and it gets totally abused.
 
I won't pay for early access stuff since there's no rules regarding their completion, or state of being but I think free access is a great way to get exposure. There's definitely pros and cons to either side though and I absolutely believe there should be some kind of followup if no updates or progress is reported on.
 
I've learned to ignore the Early Access flag

If a game is fun and not a total hot buggy mess, I'll buy it. I don't care if it's early access or not.

I've dumped hundreds of hours into Factorio before it finally left early access and it's one of my all time favorites. Same thing for Satisfactory.

And there are titles that aren't Early Access that "release" in a hot buggy mess. So I don't think the flag really means much to me. I do admit if the title is flagged early access I do scrutinize it a bit more - those aren't generally impulse buys for me, and I take whatever road map they post with a grain of salt - the game has to be fun in it's current state for me to buy it, and if they continue to make it better, all the better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Become a Patron!
Back
Top