I propose 2024 is the year of early access games boycott.
Bring back completed games only.
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Palworlds mad fun though…so …sorry!
I haven’t played it most just read the news about it. But to me It maybe early access but it doesn’t sound like a subpar game.
It’s fun and scratches the Pokemon itch better than the switch games. I wish the pals evolved and there was a story but I’ve already gotten my money’s worth in it’s current state
Really? To me it feels like
60% Ark/Rust + 15% Pokémon Legends Arceus dodging and throwing + 20% Amazon Warehouse Simulator + 5% Zelda/GenshinImpact climbing
That doesn’t contradict anything I said. Unless you’re saying any of that is bad
I mean that it doesn’t really scratch that Pokémon itch.
But you’re totally right. It’s massive fun.
I’ve never played those other games you mentioned but Palworld definitely scratches it for me. I wish there were poke centers/Marts and other iconic pokemon tropes but I’m having more fun with it than any pokemon game I’ve played in many years. I didn’t play Arceus because it doesn’t have gyms but the other switch Pokemon games are barely polished turds compared to Palworld.
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Eh, early access isn’t the problem. Palworld has been wrecking Pokemon despite being Early Access
Can 2024 instead be the year of bad game boycott? When an early access game is better than most AAA completed games, then there’s a serious problem
If we could all just agree to not preorder, I’ll negotiate from there.
i never preorder, and i don’t think i could justify jt even if i did. buying a game for 70 bucks when you don’t even know if it’s any good just sounds stupid to me.
Preordering made sense when games came in nice boxes, and you wanted to be sure to play it on the day of release instead of waiting for restocking. With digital downloads now which are not limited in quantity it is just stupid.
This, 100%. The only value of preordering is guaranteeing stock of a physical item that threatens to be out of stock if you were to buy it walk-in. In the modern digital age where downloading tens of gigabytes that take up no space, ship near-instantly on demand, and have theoretically infinite supply, preordering is pointless if the actual game itself is all you care about.
Is this post not about Palworld?
Now it is
kinda like what’s going on with Last Epoch and Diablo IV
May it’s my age, but I feel like d3 was significantly more popular that d4 is.
Since it’s required to be online I’m 100% skipping it.
I’m also Skipping it because they took overwatch 1 away from me. So no more blizzard games until overwatch 1 comes back.
Diabolo 3 is also always online tho.
Not on console, at least.
Early Access is a problem when big publishers try to do it. It makes sense that indies do it so they have cash flow at all. Big outlets have funding on hand, but are trying to leverage it, anyway.
Using us as test dummies is still better than releasing an unfinished piece of shit for full price.
I’ve been happy with many, if not most, of the early access games I bought. But I tend to stick with cheaper indie games anyway. I don’t think I’ve paid more than $30 dollars for a game in over a decade.
The only game I ever considered pre-ordering was Hogwarts legacy. I’ve always loved the world of Harry Potter, and it looked like everything I’ve ever asked for. I was going to pre-order it, but I wasn’t able to, for financial reasons. Then the game came out, and after watching a video I was like… Oh, this is boring. I learned my lesson.
You’d probably like the first part of the game when you’re in Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. The problem is everything after that.
If the company has a history of releasing solid, complete products or properly using Early Access for its intended purpose (BG3), or is punching above its weight and just doesn’t have the money to reach the finish line (Palworld) I don’t see it as intrinsically bad, as long as you as a consumer understand that there’s a risk that the end result is dissapointing. On the other hand, there’s Paradox, that releases supposedly complete games and advertises them as such despite clearly having the means to slow down and put them through QA before selling them in a mechanically broken state. They’ll still become great games though, after 8 years of further development and 14 DLC.
Okay but Pocket Pair) has THREE unfinished early access games (Palworld, Never Grave, Craftopia)
Palworld and craftopia seem to be the same framework so it I’m guessing they are gonna use some of the dump truck full money they got from palworld to contine their development process.
If this were a finished Palworld, it’s already more game than most AAA releases, and more stable at that. If anything, calling Palworld a beta at this point seems like they are trying to raise the bar for release quality in general.
Where does “buying it 10 years later so that it can run on whatever the modern equivalent of a teacup is” fit in?
Playing witcher 3 on steamdeck for the first time.
Relevant XKCD
This is exactly what I’m doing. Games still look great, they run great, and chances are there are a bunch of quality of life mod improvements.
Days gone released on gog not long ago, the first thing I got was the mod for silencers, what a bullshit idea to only use it for five shots and then it’s gone.
And I forgot: I never buy a GaaS! They will shut down The Crew soon, a game I play on a regular basis and one of the most relaxing titles ever made. I don’t care how great a game might be, you won’t get any money out of me ever again dear companies.
That’s how (many) suppressors work in real life though. Each shot erodes the baffles, and after no more than a dozen it’s just a flash hider.
I’m making a note here. Huge success.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.
But you wouldn’t know, would you?
I’ve only just got a computer that can play games from 2005 onwards (no kidding my netbook could handle sims 2 at the most). I’ve also started playing Witcher 3 (got the complete collection for £8) and just bought a controller the other day. I don’t care about fancy cutting edge graphics; good storyline and gaming experience is what matters.
I did witcher 3 like 3 years ago. What a great time I had. My previous PC was barely mid tier in 2012. When I built a new one in 2019 it was a piece of cake to run in an ultra wide monitor with cranked settings.
I ran it on a mid range business machine from 2014 with mostly mild upgrades and a 1060 6GB. I’ve since upgraded everything but the GPU, need to have another stab but I keep playing CS2 instead. When I’m not playing that it’s TOTK on the Switch.
Ah yes, sunk a lot of hours into totk too.
I upgraded my PC in Oktober with a RX 7600, enough for older games, silent and efficient. I really looked forward to enjoy Witcher 3 at highest settings. A few days later rumors about Witcher 3 Next Gen. How dare they! Now I can’t push every single slider to max and enjoy 120fps!
In all seriousness: The update is great of course and I applaud CD Project Red for releasing it free. Besides the better graphics (Which even the 7600 can handle at Full HD without high RT settings) they also included tons of fixes and quality of live improvements the community made over the time. I can really recommend it.
I even bought it at full price years before I played it because I enjoyed Witcher 2 so much and was certain they will make a good game.
What’s hilarious about this is I was previously using a community mod that did all this already. The official update fucked my performance so hard I rolled it back. I couldn’t really tell a difference. They later fixed it but it does run worse still than the mod version.
My rule is that I only buy an Early Access game if I’d still be happy with it even if the devs never made another update (because sometimes they don’t).
This is my thoughts exactly early access tells me there’s gonna be bugs probably and the game will likely be incomplete. If that doesn’t stop me from having fun I’ll buy the game
That’s one of two scenarios where I’m happy to buy early access. Valheim and Palworld both fall in that category. The other category I’m happy to buy early access is for a project I am particularly interested in seeing succeed (and willing to give some feedback on to help). So far I think I’ve only done that with BG3 and that turned out pretty well for me.
I have 10 times more full release fail buys than early access. While early access often costs half of a AAA title. So you better switch those images.
Preordering is a bigger issue than early access. At least with early access there is an existing game people can review.
Correction: Completed game under $20. 🧐
I mean, just do a little due diligence, Jesus. I’ve bought PalWorld, Planet Crafter, Traveler’s Rest, and more in early access and had a blast with all of them. In fact, I’d say it’s some of the best bang for my buck in the last ten years of gaming. I’ve also not bought early access games because the five minutes of due diligence suggested that it was a garbage game.
I particularly think it’s fine with small, indie studios that don’t have a lot of devs or resources. No way in fuck am I buying an early access AAA release.
It’d be nice, if those AAA games were at least marked as early access instead of just being released and sold as something finished. But yes, you’re correct.
Satisfactory I bought for 30 dollars 4 years ago and it’s sitting at 1,600 hours for me. I think sweeping general statements are really the bad guy here
the journey of this game is wild.
it was super fun from the get go years ago, but somehow every single update made it better and better.
i haven’t seen a game with such a focus on quality of life updates before. that team is glorious
Pocketpair releasing Palworld into Early Access when Craftopia is still in Early Access leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth
Same, I looked at craftopia and thought “palworld is an obvious cash grab”, which it might end up being. I’m glad people are having fun now, but I’m not buying into its future :)
I’ve read they also have a HollowKnight look-alike in the works as well.
The HK ripoff is called “Never grave” and they are stretching their resources thin on three unfinished products simultaneously
Same. I love both, but when I purchased craftopia I was funding the development of craftopia, not palworld. They’re a small company so I kinda get it, but it still has me concerned that they’re not going to properly finish craftopia.
I think it unfortunately just comes down to money. Craftopia wasn’t popular enough to pay the bills to finish it.
We’ll see what happens with palworld. If they abandon it too then we’ll know they’re just scumbags. But if they finish it then we’ll know abandoning craftopia was a financial need.
I can’t say I’ve ever played Craftopia, but after hearing about this I went to the steam page to see for myself. They have released consistent large updates in the last 6 months and even since the launch of Palworld.
Most of the reviews from people who’ve played it mention it’s getting review bombed because of this mis-information and is actually quite good.
Seems to me if they can pull off making two games with multiple teams both which continue to have development, I say more power to them. I’m enjoying Palworld and will at some point check out Craftopia now because of it.
Eh, I bought Grounded in Early Access. Maye by Obsidian and backed by Microsoft. I think this should count as AAA. Also I think you don’t mean that “small, indie studio” cause those are few and far between. Sons of the Forest? They have a Publisher (literally the opposite of being independent). I think there are lots of games which you have put into that category that are not actually indie devs at all. Anyway, my point is just that it’s not a black and white issue.
Couldn’t agree more.
Games like Valheim or Satisfactory have also been great, despite technically still being in early Access. And, looking back, Risk of Rain 2, Hades and Dead Cells developers have all done excellent job at using early access to develop their games and listen to the community.
Early access, just like any other development model, is a tool. All depends on how it is used.
Yep. The indie boom that PC gaming experienced would not have been possible without early access funding, full stop.
Not every early access title has gone perfectly and there are some studios that have gamed the system.
Still, the stuff that managed to make it through the process and become successful has been some of the only stuff saving us from a live service hellscape
Right? People need to take a little responsibility. If you want early access, expect issues. If you don’t want to see issues, wait. Easy. What’s the point complaining about a company providing early access or other gamers purchasing it? You don’t need to make it your business, just don’t buy the game yet if it bothers you.
My rule is that it has to be an enjoyable experience in the game’s current state. Factorio was fantastic years before it left early access. I bought Space Engineers practically as soon as it hit, before there was even proper weapons in the game, and I had a blast building space ships.
I’m holding off on Palworld. I’m sure what’s there is enjoyable for many people, but I’d like to see the endgame fleshed out a bit first.
RimWorld, Subnautica, darkest dungeon, streets of rogue, project zomboid, oxygen not included, starsector, skull the hero slayer, dead cells, caves of qud quasimorph and universim are games i bought in early access that I do not regret in the slightest.
I’d say the biggest problem is these big companies who release “finished” games that are clearly not finished and the people who keep pre-ordering them
I think the problem is that it’s a gamble, and there’s always potential to get burned.
Money up front for something you really have no idea how it is, is stupid.
Add Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades to the list
Valheim, Grounded, Satisfactory
And Factorio as well.
What do you mean? Suicide squad early access purchasers got their games automatically completed!
Spares them from actually having to play it.
This is more applicable to over-hyped, AAA titles. A lot of the games mentioned in comments are smaller, indie developed passion projects that get the TLC they deserve.
Have you heard the tragedy of Cube World the Incomplete? I thought not. It’s not a story the Indie Devs would tell you. It’s an Early Access legend.
Gosh I loved that game! I pirated it because I was a broke kid, it ran like a Diashow on the netbook so I did not buy it. Then when I got a gaming PC I pirated it again, and later wanted to buy it. I was disappointed lol. Still got it on my steam wishlist.
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Imagine breaking so many hearts with one hang glider trailer that you spawn an open source mmo.
Castle story was the other big horror show.
No! I want my illusion of choice!
