Paying Extra For Early Access Cannot Be The Industry Norm

Charging for early access has started to become a regular practice in several AAA games, and the gaming community should not tolerate this.

[CrimsonWing69]

Don’t uh… don’t pay for it then? 🤷‍♂️ It’s 3 days early, let people who can’t wait pony up to pay for early access. I’d hope people have more control over themselves if they don’t want to pay extra. I personally, do not see an issue with the option. If I’m hyped for a game and they give you early access, I’ll pay. If it’s something I can wait to play on “actual release” I won’t pay extra. It’s as simple as that.

[Crows90]

Except your entirely mistaken if you think it's "early access"

Theyre just charging you extra to play it on release. So gullible.

[Obscure_Observer]

"Theyre just charging you extra to play it on release. So gullible."

Not really.

In some cases, paying for early access will grant you access to play those games at the same time media outlets and reviewers are playing their copies.

Besides, it´s a single player game. It´s not like early access to MP competitive games like Battlefield which EA would grant a full week early access to those willing to pay; which gives a unfair advantage to those gamers and breaks the game´s balance.

[CrimsonWing69]

are you playing it earlier than retail release?

If that’s the correct answer, how is it not early access?

[Crows90]

It's not early access...it's playing on release...early access is when the game isn't finished and needs a little more time...you also get it months in advance.

Let's not get confused here..

[Andrew336]

You get access to the game before it goes live for people who purchased the standard version of the game... thus you are getting early access.

[Crows90]

Nope...you get access to the game the day it goes live. Those who didn't pay extra are blocked from accessing it as a punishment for not paying full price

[VersusDMC]

Microsoft has been doing premium edition early access for awhile(Forza and Starfield recently) ...so why is it an issue now when Ubisoft does it?

It can't be the gamepass excuse as Ubisoft has day one subscriptions as well.

[Obscure_Observer]

I´ve paid for Starfield´s Premium Edition to get early access to the game, plus Shattered Space expansion.

I don´t regret my decision and I mighty pay for it again to get early access to Fable and TESVI.

[VincentVanBro]

There will always be idiots

[Andrew336]

@VincentVanBro yea like the kind of idiots who worry about how adults spend their money.

[Crows90]

@andrew

Just like the kind of idiots who get scammed and don't realize it.

[Andrew336]

@crows do you understand what the word scam means? Choosing to pay more money to play a game before other people is not being scammed.

[gold_drake]

as long as people are paying for it, it will be a thing unfortunately.

the fear of missing out is ... huge. especially online.

[CrimsonWing69]

I don’t think it’s about missing out. Think of it like a movie you’re hyped for. You can see it early if you pay extra or just wait until Friday when it officially releases.

It’s nothing more than that.

[Crows90]

Nope. You're not seeing it early. Everyone else is seeing it late.

When a product releases to the public...that's the release date. If they company then chooses to block access to the product unless you pay extra...that's not early access...that's day 1 access.

[CrimsonWing69]

@Crows90

No, there’s a public release date and an early release date. Just like with movies having early screenings and then public screenings.

They let the public know the release date and then give people an option to play early by paying more.

[ROCKY28]

UBI is SOFT !

[Extermin8or3_]

This has been a thing for awhile at this point it pretty much is the norm.

[Inverno]

Part of that 70 dollar standard. I will never get tied of saying this, and it'll only keep getting worse.

[Crows90]

And there continues to be idiots who claim it's normal and fine and just "early access"

I can not believe how thoroughly daft so many are.

[GamingSinceForever]

I don’t see an issue. Just wait for the official release and keep your money.

[Crows90]

The official release is the day it releases...whoever doesn't pay the proper price tag gets it late.

[GamingSinceForever]

That’s an odd way of looking at it.

Generally
speaking you pay premium prices to get early access to anything prior to official release.If it makes you feel better saying “ha ha” you’re late than pay the price to a achieve that status.

One thing is indisputable when it comes to gaming and that is having patience saves you a lot of money. (e.g waiting for the inevitable sale)

[DivineHand125]

Having read the article. I agree that offering premium early access to games like World of Warcraft is unacceptable. You can bet those guys that paid for early access on an MMO will go 16 hours straight each day to get ahead of the other players.

The other side of the argument is that adding premium early access to a game gives the publisher an extra steam of income while allowing the gamer to play his/her favorite game early. I don't believe the argument that early access is playing the game on release while delaying it for others because by tradition, games are released on Tuesday. Early access usually becomes available from Thursday or Friday the week prior to release.

[Crows90]

Mental gymnastics or cope...can't tell

[VincentVanBro]

How about just no early access, period? Why is that so hard to process? Is early access making games better? If not, why defend it?

[DivineHand125]

Did you read where I said offering early access for mmos is unacceptable?

I personally have no issue with early access for single player games or games where it won't give the richer players an advantage. As long as the person who chose to pay extra for it understands that there may be server issues and that they may not get the most polished experience if a day one patch is planned.

[neutralgamer1992]

Early access
Pre order bonuses
Missions hidden behind paywalls
Micro transactions

[Crows90]

Early access = day 1 access

[badz149]

The dumbest people that have done this are those subscribed to GP and paid early access to play Starfield and Forza several days early when the point of you subscribing to GP was to get those games day 1 on GP but MS and Bethesda duped them by dangling "early access" in their faces and they still pay extra. Bunch of idiots!

[Crows90]

Omg...didn't realize that one...that's so sad

[DivineHand125]

This information is misleading. Starfield was one of the most anticipated releases of the generation and early access was not advertised as a standalone purchase. It was included with the premium and constellation editions of the game.

The premium edition included access to the story dlc once it is available and access to cosmetics, digital art book and sound track. The usual stuff. Gamepass subscribers would only be required to pay the premium edition upgrade to access those benefits and not have to pay for the base game or the full price of the base game + premium edition.

While I personally dislike it when companies release digital deluxe and Premium editions of their games, gamepass subscribers should not be singled out for purchasing those add-ons as nearly every AAA release does the same thing.

[isarai]

People really beed to stop grouping the entire industry when talking about the bullshit of AAA publishers. Point the blame accurately and we can get to a solution faster.

[Chocoburger]

The industry just keeps sinking further and further. I was talking about all the terrible business practices for nearly twenty years now on message boards, and people didn't believe me, they made light of what I was saying. I told them that I was going to be proven right in the end. Well here we are, game prices are increasing, while game quality is decreasing.

Clearly unfinished games, packed with micro-trash-actions out the wazoo, season passes, battle passes, randomized loot boxes and other gambling-based features forced into their design plans in order to coax more money out of you, multiple different retailers pre-order bonuses, digital deluxe editions where all the content should have been included in the normal game edition, stupid plastic statue editions that cost double of what they should, having an early release to create FOMO within idiots willing to give more money to their junk games.

It just never ends, because stupid people never stopped supporting this garbage. They ruined it for everyone, all it took was for people to grow up, learn how to be an actual adult and put these companies out of business, teach them a lesson. But no, of course not. Here's more terrible games to enjoy while the executives laughs all the way to bank at your ignorance.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

While I don't care about others paying to play early, I hate the bombardment of spoilers on YouTube that happens because of it.

[DivineHand125]

I agree. That is very annoying and it is not just YouTube. Sometimes articles will be written with spoilers even though the game hasn't been released to the general public as yet.

[vTuro24]

Oh, it absolutely will become a popular thing. Far too many monkes with non-existant self control. It's how we went from horse armor to the shitshow that is the modern industry, and why it keeps getting worse every year. Companies will continue to find new way to extract that little bit of extra cash out of our wallets until they literally can't anymore. Don't be surprised if one dollar per bullet becomes an actual thing one day.

[Psychonaut85]

It’s not early access. It’s release day. And people who pay normal price are getting late access. Unless they pull a Suicide Squad and the game doesn’t f$&king work in “early access”. Then you just paid extra money for nothing. Hooray!!!

[Walalon]

Sadly ton of people have been paying for that "privilege" and make all the "AAA" developers thirsty to try it themselves.

Like 10% of all the players read gaming news, the other 90% don't care about it and keep buying this kind of dumb things.

[SimpleDad]

For Black Friday this game gonna be $39.99 for sure so I'm not in a hurry.

[DivineHand125]

That is how I will be looking at it and it will be my first Starwars game.

[SimpleDad]

You can buy Jedi fallen order for $6 deluxe edition at the moment on Playstation.
It's pretty good.

[Fonsecap]

I think that allowing players to play a game three, five days or week earlier shouldn't be called early Access, it's a bit misleading, because it's not early access, publishers only delays the launch of the game to charge players to play the game on the planned launch day instead of the announced launch day. "Early Access" normally is when a developer gives players the access to a game on early development and the price asked is normally lower then the launch price, while in this case is other way around. Giving unshrouded as an exemple, we can buy it for 25 to 30€ on early access, I guess that the launch price will be around 40 to 50€, so we're paying almost 50% less to play a game one or two years earlier. In this case we're paying as much as what unshrouded cost to play the game 3 days earlier. I hope that nobody uses the argument that this is a finished product and unshrouded isn't because we all know that AAA games never launch completely finished, and some of them takes years to reach that state.

[Miacosa]

Paying extra for early access has been around for some time now. Microsoft has been doing this with Games Pass, they say that all games are available day 1 with Games Pass. However, that is not actually the case as many titles are sold sooner with a more expensive option being the ultimate or limited version as was the case with Starfield. EA is also guilty as is Sony and many others. Paying extra for TRUE day 1 has become a staple already and no one is going to put that genie back in the bottle.

[YourMommySpoils]

Nothing Ubisoft ever does is industry norm. It's like their first showcasing of Watchdogs and the downgrade it had after release. Along with their rotten ubi points system to unlock in game items is a scam.

[raWfodog]

As long as some publishers know that there are people willing to pay extra to play the game earlier than the general release date, this premium will definitely continue to be offered.

[Hofstaderman]

So you wanna tell me that I have to get used to not owning my games and you insist on doing this UbiSoft? I wont even buy this new on a massive discount, I'm going to trade for this or buy it used from someone and that also depends on trusted reviews. Too many good complete on disc games to spend my money on....

[gigoran8]

Games like Starfield, and year after year of COD early access, and only NOW do you wanna complain?