r/Games•
CannedSmeef

Should stagnating Early Access games on Steam be given a warning label?

Many early access games stagnate after release, some going years without any significant progress being made, and never releasing in full. What if Steam enforced an Early Access time limiter?

Essentially, once a developer publishes his game onto steam and files it under the "Early Access" section, a 2 year clock (or some other amount of time) starts ticking. The studio has this amount of time to finish their game and release it to at least beta. If this timer runs out and they are still in Early Access, a warning label is slapped onto the game automatically. Like you're browsing through steam's early access section, and if a game has been in early access for over 2 years, you'll see a disclaimer in bold in both the list and the page itself.

Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/BSjdRK5.jpg

Probably not an adequate label, but you understand my concept.

I believe that such a time limit and label will cause the following:

  1. Early Access games are more polished upon release. Some of you might say that 2 years (or again, some other time length) is not nearly enough time to develop an early access game to completion. Perhaps, but that depends on the point in time where you decide to release to EA. So many EA games release that are much too lacking in content and polish, and will obviously take longer than just 2 years to complete. If this is the case, then it's not up to snuff for Early Access.

  2. Early Access developers will strive to maintain a more rhythmic schedule and have some form of deadline. Schedule keeping is vital to the development of games. Have you ever encountered a studio that has no clear goals or ideas for a final product? It's quite aggravating, and can cause years of wasted time to build up. With an official label from the distributer, studios may be more compelled to keep a schedule.

  3. Buyers are better informed about their Early Access games, and may choose not to support ancient EA games. This will be further motivation for developers to try to finish their games. If your game is very hazy on progress rates, you may not be trustworthy to potential buyers. Yes, I am aware that reviews can accomplish this just fine, but a notice from a corporation as huge as Steam would have a greater impact than just an average critic.

Now, I am well aware that this alone would not at all rid us of terrible, money grubbing Early Access games robbing people of money on false promises. But it should at least provide a form of defense against games that have no plans on finishing in a timely order.

I'm all ears, what do you think?

Posted Mar 12, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

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