The majority of them are just a money grab, designed to generate revenue before the official release, when the game will be in a barely better state.
How Corporate Greed is Killing Your Favourite Video Games
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The majority of them are just a money grab, designed to generate revenue before the official release, when the game will be in a barely better state.
I wont bother.... "heres an opportunity to play it early in a bad state, get ahead on tihngs and lose it all when we reset everyones accounts when we go live".
Or my favourite for 7 days to die, bought it in early access and it sat in early access for around 7 years, whats been released does not match up to their trailer and initial game they were building.
The issue we're starting to see more clearly with AI is that it's far from infallible. As already mentioned, it tends to take opinions from the general public and give credence to some of the myths that have built up in certain areas. That's probably why the governments want "control", such that they gave stuff even more disinformation down our throats.
Either way, imagine being a project manager, and thinking, hey, I'll get AI to code this and it sources it from Reddit. Is it secure, efficient, supportable and does it actually do what you want?
That's bad enough in a games environment. Now picture that same regurgitated code running a business, or say the control systems on a nuclear reactor.
The issue we'll have will be the increasing reliance and dependency on it, until we projects are obliged to use AI as they become cheaper and people argue (quite possibly correctly) that an AI makes fewer mistakes than a human when coding. At which point, you lose control of standards completely and it's left to the AI to not just apply what it thinks is correct, but potentially to update those standards as it sees fit.
Then at some point, the AI says "hey, this coding language is hopelessly inefficient" and creates a replacement, that can't even be reviewed by a person, as it's written in assembler or similar.
Naw, everything will be great!
Ref Early Access.
The bonus part is that it can provide early funding for new titles, making development more financially viable. On top of that, the Developer gets more immediate feedback on their their releases. It's basically "agile" development, applied to games.
The risk of course are issues such as scope creep, poorly defined goals, bad management, and the risk that what's been promised is simply not viable to be built. That risk sits squarely with the buyers, and we as those purchasers should be fully conscious of it.
Just being realistic about expectations is rather useful, i.e.
- Does the developer have a track record of delivering on their promises
- Does the goal look achievable? If they're using an existing game engine such as Unity, at least you know that part of the development should be fine
- What are the timelines
Star Citizen just screams of over-ambition, scope creep and extremely difficult to achieve targets and is a perfect example of why we as buyers should be cautious.
The bonus part is that it can provide early funding for new titles, making development more financially viable. On top of that, the Developer gets more immediate feedback on their their releases. It's basically "agile" development, applied to games.
The risk of course are issues such as scope creep, poorly defined goals, bad management, and the risk that what's been promised is simply not viable to be built. That risk sits squarely with the buyers, and we as those purchasers should be fully conscious of it.
Just being realistic about expectations is rather useful, i.e.
- Does the developer have a track record of delivering on their promises
- Does the goal look achievable? If they're using an existing game engine such as Unity, at least you know that part of the development should be fine
- What are the timelines
Star Citizen just screams of over-ambition, scope creep and extremely difficult to achieve targets and is a perfect example of why we as buyers should be cautious.
Soldato
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Surely that's an issue with how you train your model. Using Chat GPT which takes it's data from the public might be problematic. But surely if you are going to use AI for accountancy, legal services or programming you'll train the model on data specific and limited to your purpose? The CEO of AutoTrader was on the radio this morning saying they are looking to use an AI to help people complete their car adverts accurately. He was asked the question you pose and he pointed out that he was only using specific industry and manufacturer specific databases and their own internal database of previous adverts that have had their data verified. So in essence don't let the dross get included in the training data in the first place.
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This, people seem pretty tunnel-visioned on AI, approaching it from the perspective of their experience with tools like ChatGPT.
I fully take onboard the other comments about cash grabs, incomplete etc and often agree. It's very frustrating indeed.
But I was also thinking about some of the things which you have mentioned. For small developers it might be the only way they can get funding and bring titles to us, which I find can often be far better than AAA stuff. This War of Mine is one such example.
I think your comment about developer history is key. If they are doing a cash grab or constantly fail on their promises, then hopefully they will be called out for it and not be able to repeat.
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Soldato
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Have we mentioned games being aimed at “the modern audience” who don’t appear to buy the games they insist be tailored to their tastes?
I bought Day Z on early release, probably a decade ago now. It's still not released, still incomplete and still has major issues. The developer appears to have pocketed the cash and more or less given up on the game. It's put me off early access since.
Sorry, my post may have come across as only negative. That's not the case.
The benefits clearly do exist, above all the point that it can enable the financial wares for a new company to develop something without having money in their pocket that they've been given by an investor.
We can all think of bad examples very easily.
My view on a good example is Eagle Dynamics and DCS. Some of their aircraft modules stay in Early Access for years and can look like they'll never get finished. A classic example is their Mosquito, which is very flyable, but still missing it's AI navigator capability.
However, that's a pretty short term view. I've been playing DCS for 9 years now, and yes, they appear to be unbelievably slow at delivering certain things. Making up for that, they do seem to eventually get there and what they deliver really does hit the mark. For example, their F18 was released in 2017. It's only now been given it's Data Cartridge and even that is only at an early state. From first glance, sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. In practice, in parallel they've delivered several new terrains, a number of other aircraft, a move to multi-core for the game engine, multiple updates to the graphics engine, and the data cartridge has been built in a modular fashion, such that the technology will be available for a number of other aircraft (e.g. the A10 and F16).
Without early access, ED probably couldn't have delivered what they have. In addition, we as players have assisted by acting as play testers, enabling them to further refine some incredibly complex models. I find it incredibly amusing that CIG thinks it's OK to create some large by still make believe ships, that probably having nothing like the system complexity of a DCS aircraft and charge such that ridiculous sum.
Is there a solution out there to make Early Access more trustworthy other than reviewing the developers accordingly?
Every time I think of an idea, I can also think of why it wouldn't work! lol Whilst it's not the same thing, I used to love the days where you'd get some demos with a magazine and get to try the game first, but then the full game would also be complete as well.
Perhaps a staged payment type thing could work with pre-determined milestones? If the initial price was capped at something low such as £5, then as each major milestone is reached by the developer you would pay another £5 for access the additional content until the game is complete. Obviously the cost of all the milestones would have to all add up to the same as a regular completed game, but at least it would feel more structured. By keeping each milestone low, it could minimise the potential for a cash grab?
Every time I think of an idea, I can also think of why it wouldn't work! lol Whilst it's not the same thing, I used to love the days where you'd get some demos with a magazine and get to try the game first, but then the full game would also be complete as well.
Perhaps a staged payment type thing could work with pre-determined milestones? If the initial price was capped at something low such as £5, then as each major milestone is reached by the developer you would pay another £5 for access the additional content until the game is complete. Obviously the cost of all the milestones would have to all add up to the same as a regular completed game, but at least it would feel more structured. By keeping each milestone low, it could minimise the potential for a cash grab?
I have no idea whether it's feasible, but I think stronger consumer protection for early access products would be a good idea. However, there's no doubt that developers and publishers would find a loophole.
Yeah probably. Didn't they do this with the Division 2, where the ultimate bundle was supposed to get the Brooklyn dlc, but on the day of launch they changed the name of the ultimate bundle and therefore claimed the dlc wasn't included? I don't know the specifics, but that sounds seriously like a seriously dodgy practice.
Look on the bright side, yes there is some overzealous hype on some early access games, but it’s nothing like as damaging as pushing Brexit, blaming the outcome on someone else and then lying through their teeth in their manifesto.
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Soldato
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Scams sold to mugs, especially the AAA stuff, in general it's been terrible for gaming, but gamers have zero impulse control.
My biggest gripe is not with me but with my son and it's games like Fortnite who want money for things like skins and other non game changing items. If it was for an upgraded weapon or something then fair enough, but coming at me for £15 for a skin seems like such a waste of money to me, but all his pals are doing it. They've really got them hooked on this sort of thing and we've spent over £100 on Fortnite alone.
Soldato
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I'd try to nip this in the bud If I were you, but It's difficult when all his mates are doing it. These companies really are evil. Maybe try telling him he has to earn his skins in future, through chores, good school reports etc - if he's actually having to work and earn his money he might think twice about wasting it on crap.
Yeah, after I paid for the first one I said it would have to be from his money and I still gave him a hard time on each occasion, banging on about how much of a con it is. lol Thankfully, he's become quite tight with money. Sorry, his money...