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Sometimes I forget they even allow this. Finish the fucking thing before adding extra shit. How can an unfinished thing even have extra shit?
(lemmynsfw.com)
It's like buying a tiara for your fetus, before you even buy a crib.
ALSO, MICROTRANSACTIONS = DLC.
"early access" is just an expectations management thing that lets companies release buggy shit and hide behind the "its in beta" argument.
Beta testing/piloting/early access is a real, legitimately valuable, strategy that allows devs to get real-world user feedback so they can make their finished product better, but the way its being used by big companies and game studios is a perversion of the initial intent.
You may be wrong though. It might not make it worse. Think of all of the push-back and review bombs that happen when companies release finished products that are buggy af. Cyberpunk is an example of this. They got so much shit, rightfully so, at launch.
Exactly. Like I've said in various comments in this thread, I have complex feelings about how the situation could actually be fixed. Basically, it comes down to two options:
A. Valve should start to actually regulate the Early Access program. Add rules about when and how DLC can be added (basically never, in Early Access), how long a product can stay in Early Access (someone mentioned the possibility of a 'long-term early access' category being established). Add a separate grade system for people to rank how well the game is doing, in terms of customer's satisfaction, in terms of progress toward a finished product. I would also suggest that forced monetary transparency might be a good thing to add, as a requirement for Early Access participation. If the storefront page openly displayed the amount of revenue the game has generated, since coming to Early Access, it would help to instantly make some judgments about the whole product. If the game in question is a dinky 2D platformer, but it has raised $800,000 over 8 years, I'm gonna be questioning why it hasn't just been completed, at this point.
B. Valve could also remove the entire Early Access label, and just let anyone start selling anything, in any state of completion, and simply make their own case for why people should buy it. If the game is basically an Early Access game, but the game's description doesn't make that clear, people will refund the game and shit-talk them, all over the internet. If they make a good case, in their own description and trailers and other media, then people may decide "I will fund this thing, based on those merits." The benefit would be the lack of the "its in beta" label, for people to hide behind. If devs just had to make their own pitch, in their own words, people would be more likely to judge that pitch, with an appropriately critical eye.