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I propose 2024 is the year of early access games boycott.
Bring back completed games only.
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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I like early access games because at least you know the game is unfinished.
And the game is making money while still being in development, so the devs can take their time without having to worry about deadlines.
Early access games can also change fundamental gameplay aspects since it's in development, so if a feature sucks, they can just remove it.
Yup. The alternatives are pre-orders and broken games that are unplayable until the first couple of patches.
Unfortunately if you liked that feature, it is gone now.
I like the GOG approach to EA:
"Rollback in GOG GALAXY — Keep playing your game if the newest update is not doing it for you, or revisit historical version snapshots."
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000591705-Early-Access-as-it-is?product=gog
Fair, but it's an early access game, and still in development.
Also, I didn't know about that GOG thing. I wish that was more common.
Iirc there's ways in steam to do the same thing, though I believe it's a bit more involved of a process.
I used to play a ton of this game Magicite before the developer destroyed the game with its final update which came out conveniently around the release of their next game. Which they did again for that next title, and again for the one after that.
And by destroy I mean now you have a chance to soft lock in every level, picking up specific auto loot items can cause shops to permanently close up, crafting certain items cause glitchy behavior, co-op went from "minimum one person must survive each level" to "the first death causes everyone to instantly fail", and the game crashes on the final boss fight before counting it as completed.
Every recommendation I've seen for this game also comes with an explanation on how to revert to the second latest version of the game.
Meanwhile, team cherry keeps adding stuff to Silksong until they run out of money
It's going to be Silksymphony at this rate.
You can figure this out by playing the finished game years later. Why is everyone trying to keep up with the Joneses over video games??? Lol
Because they can still be great games. Rust was in early access for years but it was always playable and fun. 7 days to die is on alpha build 21 and has been in alpha for I don't know how long but it's amazing. Valheim was basically perfect from the start even if it was missing the whole end half of the game.
Palworld is a very good start. There's a bunch of QOL changes and bug fixes that would improve it, but the core gameplay loop is established and the parameters are all selectable so you can tailor the difficulty as you please. Evidently the "goal" of the game is blocked off, but aside from that it's a full game. No man's sky and starfield were honestly less finished on release.
If the devs are good, those early access players make the game better for the people who buy when it's fully released.