I Bought 3 Early Access Games, and Only One Survived
During the Steam sale, I bought three Early Access games. I spent about 70,000 won in total.
The first was a roguelike, the second was a construction sim, and the third was a survival game—and in the end, only the third survived. I dropped the other two after 6 hours and 3 hours, respectively.
No matter how impressive an Early Access roadmap looks, if it isn't fun right now, it's over. "It'll get better later" doesn't work. From now on, I'm just going to buy finished games.
10 answers
Well, isn't that a bit of a hasty generalization? Hades, Factorio, and RimWorld all started in early access and are now counted among the greats. More often than not, it's a developer problem, not a roadmap problem. If you'd just tell me what those games were, I could make a judgment.
Same here. I get hyped looking at the roadmap, then around the 5-hour mark the reality check hits—I keep repeating that pattern... Now when I buy early access, the only thing I look at is, 'Would I have fun for 20 hours with it in its current state?' If not, I don't buy it.
What's the third one? You should be glad you even got that one lol
Steam's refund policy is within 2 hours and within 2 weeks, right? I put 6 hours into the first one, so I couldn't even get a refund... I feel like that's the most regrettable part.
ㅇㅈ Early access is just gambling, honestly
For 70,000 won, that's still pretty cheap, though. I bought an early access game for 120,000 won, played it for 2 hours, and have been neglecting it ever since T_T
Got a source? There are probably plenty of cases where games with flashy roadmaps actually got completed, so concluding from just 3 cases is a bit much lol
I've been burned badly by Early Access twice, so I've set some rules for myself now. First, check the developer's track record. Second, check the update logs from the past three months. Third, binge-watch at least an hour of YouTube gameplay footage. It only counts as a buy if it passes all of these. But if I go this far, there are almost no games I want to buy lol.
Buying only finished games isn't the answer either. There are plenty of full releases that are still no fun. In the end, it's not about early access vs. finished—it's about whether the game itself is fun.
Anyway, the bottom line is that “it’ll get better later” is the most dangerous mindset. I bought games believing that too, and they’re all rotting in my library. I’m not falling for it anymore.