http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-must-take-greater-ownership-of-steams-early-access-program/?utm_content=buffer60dfb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb
Early Access is a blessing, but it has many blemishes. Godus didn't come close to fulfilling its promises. Development on Spacebase DF-9 halted after it didn't make enough money through Early Access. Nosgoth, from Rocket League creators Psyonix, closed abruptly in May. Others, like pioneering survival game DayZ, continue to linger under the label after almost three years.
It's not surprising that Steam's Early Access program has produced some disappointment. Finished games fall short of our expectations all the time—why would we expect unfinished ones to be less flawed or controversial? But Early Access disappointments have broader consequences: when Early Access games fail, struggle, or their creator does something irresponsible, it harms the integrity of that label for everyone. As a Project Zomboid developer wrote in 2014, "[Early Access] failures tarnish the reputation of the entire model, so a failure (particularly a high-profile failure) is potentially damaging to the very developers who need this model the most."
Two years later, those words of caution remain relevant. An unscientific poll of PC Gamer Twitter followers suggests, at best, a lack of consensus about the value of Early Access. Early Access' reputation continues to be shaped by its worst participants, and in fact, we're grappling with new and inventive abuses.
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^Funny that the Project Zomboid creator would complain about other devs.
He started selling alpha-access to his game long before Steam E.A program was announced. :P
This is a symptom connected to Steam's explosion of released games on the platform. 80% of games on Steam have been released in the past two years; 50% in the past year. Even accounting for old games being released on the platform, that's ludicrous.
NSFW profanity from Jim Sterling, but he Jimquisitioned the topic last week:
I remember when Steam Greenlight first turned up - seemed to transition over to Early Access incredibly quickly.
It's a very exploitable and high-risk platform, much like Kickstarter, and it's one that developers can get very wrong. Many just launch with a tech-demo and hope that EA sales will fund the rest of the development, while others get more money than expected, expand the project and then it runs away with them.
I think the fundamental problem with the worst of the EA projects is that defining the point when it's 'finished' with Early Access isn't defined as much as it should be. At what point is a game finished? Ark: Survival Evolved has been releasing expansions, porting to new platforms, yet that isn't out of EA either.
From a coverage point of view as well, EA is problematic. I wouldn't go as far as to put review scores on EA products, but where I differentiate EA from KS is that EA is packaged as a product you can buy, where-as KS more clearly defines the proposition as an investment in an idea. For me that means that EA games are as open to criticism as full retail games are, and should be taken to task if they're not really meeting expectations.
I bought Starbound ages ago for my daughter when it was in early access. When it was finally delivered it had an update that rendered it unplayable on our Mac using OSX Mountain Lion. Up until that update it worked perfectly, then you'd press play, you'd see the word "running" in the library entry then it just died there. No screens, nothing. I asked the developer several times over the course of a month (to give them a reasonable opportunity to reply) if they could help, but they did not even bother to reply. And this was an issue for more people than me. After a month, I asked Steam if they could help, or give me a refund as the update had made the game unplayable. They denied this request, sticking closely to the letter of their refund policy, although it did say that they would consider issues on their own merit, which Steam did not do. Now the store page shows a higher version of OSX as minimum for the game to work, although the game was purchased originally because it did work on Mountain Lion.
So steam support sucks - nothing we don't already know. Now if I want a game that is only available on Steam, I'll now try to first purchase retail/third party rather than give Steam the money. $hitty service loses customer loyalty.