Early access games on steam

I see nothing wrong with it, pretty much just lets you play until the full release comes out, just an extra choice. It's a better pre-order.

I think big titles must have early access.

The game industry is such flux right now, with DLC becoming what is, companies trying to figure out how to play it, F2P revenue models, everything becoming digitally delivered, the growth of mobile platforms etc, I don't really know what to think any more....

I dont like it because if they allowing you to pay for a game before pre-release it more feels like a paid beta to me rather than an actual game and i feel like this is quite unfair. But I can see that this is now the current trend and something we are all going to have to deal with

its a great way for sell unfinished products, think if u gonna buy a car and they only sell u 4 wheels and after a year they give u the rest

I like it. It can be thought of like a late term Kickstarter. You can preorder the game,play immediately, and unlike regular preorders, that money can actually contribute to the development of the game you just bought.

People just need to educate themselves and know what they're getting into when they buy these unfinished games.

It's fine, but I just personally see no reason for it whatsoever. I don't have a problem with it happening, I just think it's pointless. Why would you pay for an unfinished product in advance without even knowing much about it or having tried it before? The same applies to "pre-purchase" offers. For me, it needs to be a really special game that I hands down know I will enjoy for me to even consider pre-ordering it, physical or Steam. The last game I remember pre-ordering is Borderlands 2, and that's purely because of the super limited edition and how much I played the first one to death. For a new IP, or something that's just been greenlit, it's like pre-ordering but you've already paid up-front. I just don't know why people do it.

if this is what it takes for the developers to get the funding they need to MAKE GOOD GAMES than im all for it but if its just a trick to keep pushing out crap than ill save my money and wait and see.

If it's free early access, it's totally a great idea.
If it's paid early access, then give the player the full version of the game when it comes out for paying early.

Early access lets the community and the developers of games to communicate and help fix issues, improve gaming mechanics, fixing bugs, and just making the game feel better in the end anyway. Alpha's and Beta's are a good thing, and Steam gives them a good place to get their name out there and more people to help make the game better.

But if they make it paid early access and then you have to pay for the game again when it comes out, that's just a cheap move that shouldn't happen. Unless early access is something cheap like $5.

This is basically Valve figuring out that Desura's alphafunding feature is a good idea. Took them long enough. It's possible it was influenced by the recent fallout over Towns and WarZ.

I think it's a terrible idea, but that's just my opinion. They're charging full price for a game that's not yet finish so the game you play now may not be the game you get at release. Also, if the game ends up being an abomination or takes years to get finished you're the one that loses because they already made that sale.

It's like 1, 2, 3 Kick it and how they sold the game at full price but it was only a demo (and not a very good one) and it has taken the forever and a day to work on it. Now they have scrapped the old idea of the game and decided to try something new and it made it into the "Early Access" section even though it was sold before as a full game. I think the new version is more boring than the original because the game has no objective, you literally fly strait around until you reach the end of the song.

i think its great for small titles actually.
its kind of like a kick starter but the steam community is backing it
example: Prison Architect

Perfectly fine with it.

Its great ..