A few weeks back, Shadow’s Kiss, a Kickstarted vampire MMORPG that probably most of our readers never even knew about, threw in the towel, announcing the end of development. It was supremely indie and had taken on a bit of an adult vibe in recent years, but that wasn’t really the problem. The devs basically pinned the blame on the way early access works.
“[W]e never had the resources for a polished, perfect experience,” Clockwork Throne explained, noting it couldn’t quite secure a publisher. “We opted to go to Steam Early Access as a way to be able to deploy the game to our Kickstarter backers, not realizing how much traffic it would get. The game wasn’t ready. We learned, too late, that putting a game on early access without it being in a commercially polished state is pretty much suicide. The bad reviews pretty much killed our revenue and any chance we had of closing a deal. In talking to other Kickstarters that have done the same, we learned just how dangerous Early Access is.”
In other words, it’s a Catch-22 a lot like Kickstarter: You need to get eyeballs and revenue to fund the game’s development, but you need really great development to have any success on early access, otherwise you never overcome the initial early launch mess stigma. And there are just way too many hyper-funded, hyper-polished titles clogging up the early access pipelines.
I want to talk about this problem in this week’s Massively Overthinking. Where do you stand on early access MMOs in 2024? Are indie devs right that early access is a trap that doesn’t serve them? Do you still buy early access? Or are you over the whole thing? Is there a better way?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog):Â I don’t think early access started as a trap. I think it started with good intentions, just as Kickstarter did. On paper, it seems like such a great way for game devs to skip past publishers and get right on the platforms where gamers spend money and can actually donate their time to help too.
It just doesn’t work that way in practice. In practice, AAA games with publishers and QA departments flooded the early access zone with nearly finished games, and that’s the real bar now. Companies abused early access for so long that now everyone expects early access is launch or very close to launch, and if the game is truly an indie in need of the early access polish process, it really has no hope of getting anywhere.
This is one of the reasons I don’t get too fussed about games that take their closed betas seriously or maybe let them linger overlong. I’m not excusing games that sit in alpha taking money for years and years, nor the ones that allow select influencers to skip over the NDAs to provide positive marketing, but it just makes sense not to go out in public before you’ve done your hair, you know? People will say “girl, messy hair, don’t care” but they are definitely judging you.
And it’s also one of the reasons I generally stay away from early access and KS MMOs. The indie ones are unfinished, and I don’t want to feed in to the system for the big-name games. When I make exceptions, they’re usually for midsize titles whose developers I already trust.
That’s the way out of this problem, by the way: a return to mid-budget developers, publishers, and ambitions, a return to making “enough” money and not acting like gambling addicts trying to squeeze every last dime for investors. It just won’t be any time soon; right now the big corpos are still consolidating and enshittifying and haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): I don’t do early access until I really feel like I absolutely have to play. Those games are few and far between. In the last few years, the only early access I bought into was Song of Conquest by Lava Potion. I also intend to buy into another early access project: Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era. Niether of those is an MMORPG.
When it comes to MMOs, if I get the early access for free, then sure, I’ll play it. I won’t go out of my way to get into it, though. I didn’t even buy into my beloved Throne and Liberty because I knew I was going to be able to play it free when it came out. I knew I could wait a little longer.
You know what MMO I’ll play in early access? The League of Legends MMO.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog):Â Early access is not the cover-all that developers think it is, especially in an age when the games industry is already trying to nickel, dime, and dollar every potential player before even a full game is released, let alone an incomplete one.
That said, I still am in the camp of expressing curiosity at and investigating early access MMOs. Perhaps I’m part of the problem, or it’s part of my duty to check in on these things so others don’t have to, or it’s because I have little self-control. Maybe it’s a mixture of all three. But even so, I’ve had some more early access titles provide enjoyable experiences than not, so that’s probably what keeps me trying things out.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog):Â “Early access” is a malleable term that can mean a lot of different things for games, from a barely functional pre-alpha build to a should’ve-been-released-years-ago full product. It doesn’t tell you where the game is really at, which is why I wish it would fall by the wayside in favor of more precise terminology.
For me, early access isn’t an immediate dealbreaker. It really depends on how playable and enjoyable a game is while in that phase. If it’s mostly done and simply in a holding pattern as it waits for more polish and content before a full launch, then it can even be a huge boon as word-of-mouth spreads. But if it’s a hail Mary pass designed to squeeze out a few dollars and keep development going, as is often the case, then it can be detrimental to the community, the team, and the game itself to shove it out the door too early.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I am definitely against early access for MMOs. It kills my enthusiasm for a game. It seems like it shouldn’t; it should be a boon and an exciting way to play sooner than you normally would! But often, it’s just too rough.
I think about how rough those first few trips into Crowfall were for me and how I wasn’t even that early in the game’s life cycle. The game had already been in development for years before I first got my hands on it, and even then it was really rough. Then, by the time the game launched, I couldn’t even convince my own significant other that it was worth it to try to play again. Those first impressions, even though the game had changed so much, just totally ruined it.
So no, I don’t think I’ll be buying early access for anything indie; it’s just too messy. The best option from what I’ve experienced is more akin to what 33 Immortals did with early beta weekends. In that case, the devs had a very polished, very limited scope of the game that could be played. It was available for a few days so we could try it just to get us excited. Then they take it away and leave us to wonder and pine for its return. I liked that.
Tyler Edwards (blog):Â This should be common sense, right? “First impressions are lasting impressions” has been a saying since before video games even existed.
I’ve been against early access from the get-go. I think it does more harm than good in most cases, and for every success story, there’s a dozen games that languish in obscurity, perhaps not even launching at all.
The harsh truth is not every game can or should get made. Having a good idea is not enough. If you can’t get the funding to get to a proper launch, maybe it’s just better to move on with your life. I have ideas for video games I’d like to make, but I don’t have the funding or expertise to make it happen, and I accept that.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!
