It’s something that revolutionized the PC gaming industry, and it’s something that could really jolt the tiller on the course of current gen consoles. Early access is a system in which unfinished (alpha/beta versions) video games are released to the public before their official launch date, this is conventionally to achieve three things: to produce extra revenue during development, to give the dev(s) feedback on their work, and to satisfy the eagerly awaiting consumers. The largest platform that currently supports this concept is the Steam marketplace, in which devs can mark their games as “early access” and release the game before it has officially been finished. This system isn’t just limited to indie games however, with Larian Studios’ most recent release Divinity: Original Sin spending some time in early access, so as to give fans something to play with before launch.
This system is for the most part supported by the general consumer base of PC games. It eliminates to wait time for your favourite games, and it gives the devs more money to play with during the design period. Of course, this system has its drawbacks. Although most games do end up releasing with superior features thanks to their early access period, there are a few examples of small town developers who presented sorely unfinished products (with the promise of completing them of course), asked for money to improve them, and then halted to development. This is why you are so often told to tread carefully when buying this games, because your money isn’t necessarily buying a guarantee, just a beta product.
Steam’s early access section
The market for early access has grown to such a magnitude however, that now the console devs want in on the action. Both Sony and Microsoft have reportedly been repeatedly asked for some kind of system that’ll support an early game testing period. Xbox director Chris Charla had this to say to Develop: “It’s something that developers have been asking for, and we are listening really closely to developers, but I don’t have anything to announce on it right now. It’s a really interesting issue with digital marketplaces, and it’s something our store and marketplace team think about all the time. There’s a lot of heavy deep thinkers, experts, PhDs working on these problems at Xbox every day – not just for our store, but for the Windows store and Windows phone. Our goal is to have a rational marketplace, where good games are visible and sell well”. Evidently, Xbox is frightened of content consistency as well as quality control, which is permissible, but at the same time it tells of a publisher who is simply stuck in the past. Neither company seems all too keen on the idea, but the voice of their ever-growing developer base cannot be ignored forever.
