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Subnautica 2 early access should last "2 to 3 years" - it'll launch with "several biomes" and "some narrative"
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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I'm so sick of EA
I was thinking this too.
It's a worse experience for players who play an unfinished game, and then when the game is done, most players have already played it and are tired of it.
But for the game company it's amazing. They get free feedback for years during development without paying a dime. They get money and bug/feature feedback, all without doing anything. Must be nice.
This happened with satisfactory for me. By the time it hit 1.0 and my friends had bought it, I already had 1500 hours in it. I’m sure I’ll come back to it in a few years, like factorio, but it still sucks I can’t enjoy it with my friends.
But what about the Factorio DLC on Monday?
omg, there goes another 2000 hours of my life
Or they can charge full price for early access, cancel the game, and then leave it available for purchase like KSP2.
It is but it's also one of the few options available to devs. They can sign up with a big publisher and then be beholden to them financially and creatively. Or they can try the kickstarter route, or they can take out huge loans or investment and be beholden to them. If they're lucky they can get grants from governments but that is sporadic and uncommon. Or they can scale back projects to reduce financial risk.
Some devs can self fund once very successful, but even a successful dev like the makers of Subnautica won't have lots of money on hand. Plus even if they have cash, it is also about risk and sharing that so they don't go completely bankrupt on one project and all their employees lose their jobs.
Early Access has its down sides for definite but it does allow game devs to get revenue in while developing, and also (if done well) focus on delivering a game the players actually like. The biggest benefit is definitely that it allows devs as much independence as feasible.
Of course for the players, it can be hit or miss but that is the risk with any game. And no one forces anyone to buy an EA game - if you don't like it, don't buy and wait til 1.0. That's no different than waiting for any game to release so not sure what the problem is from that point of view?
For players in terms of a pure "investment" then of course it's a bad deal - the only return you get is the hopeful 1.0 game, and you get no share of any profits. You're actually just another customer, who has been tapped very early. But again, it's a choice and gamers can just not buy early access.
I've bought quite a few games via kickstarter and EA routes, but only games that I'm passionate about and are relatively niche (like small indie projects, or genres that don't get much mainstream action now like Adventure games). As much as I enjoyed Subnautica, I personally wouldn't buy its sequel on EA except maybe if it was very close to release.
I really like the way Satisfactory did EA. They did a great job at listening to and communicating with the players and as a "reward" for buying early access you got the game for 30€ (15€ when you waited for a discount) instead of 40€. and honestly, even if it never got to 1.0 the game was already so amazing that it would've been worth AAAAA prices to me (80€). Love the devs, love the community managers, love the community and I REALLY love the game. never dropped below 90 hours played in the last two weeks since 1.0 released.
I was wanting to play it with friends but I'm just gonna have to wait for release. Subnautica on EA release was garbage compared to 1.0.
Well these guys are the ones that invented it.
Flayra paved the way, did a big blurb about cutting out the middle man (publishers)
I paid $20 for Natural Selection 2 when it was in development, and had no regrets.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/lessons-learned-from-alpha-funding-natural-selection-2