I actually don't see this too often to be quite honest. It more boils down that this is what the developer has finished for right now and is selling to you with a promise that more is coming. When a game is put up on Early Access is very much something that resembles an alpha or proof of concept. It's hardly feature or content complete, so it's not simply just getting people to pay to play test a game. I can't speak for every early access game obviously, but the ones that I have participated in wasn't really just selling a buggy game and hoping that people will catch bugs that they found in it(Though of course the games do have quite a few bugs in them at times!). It was selling a very early version of that game because A) Indie developers are professional poor. Selling early access to a game (which has a whole bunch of warnings about how it is an incomplete game and could change by the time of an official release) gives them money to basically just survive as well as finance their game. B) It is a good tool to use to try and build up hype for your game. It gives the chance of people talking about it beforehand and allow that to build in time for an official release. There are certain games, I feel, benefit more from an Early Access model though. I mentioned this in the podcast but Minecraft is kinda the prime example of an Early Access success story (And I believe that it's success is what sparked many other developers trying the same model) and I think games that are in that survival/sandbox genre work really well for early access because you have these features or content that gets added into the game over time. Rust, DayZ, A Long Dark, The Forest, etc. all are, I think, are good examples of it done right. But I do think other genre's benefit from it. Action Henk, Crawl, Cannon Brawl, Gang Beast, Crypt of the Necrodancer all seem to be doing well under the model (I've been following the latter two for quite a long time now and seeing them evolve has been really cool to see). There are the occasional release that feel like Early Access really isn't benefiting the game much, like Black the Fall. In those cases it really feels like just a demo with it giving you access to the first level or two and that's it. (Because that is probably all that is finished at this point) Of course that is my opinion on it, but I feel like that would be a type of game where it would be better to just put out when done because the Early Access isn't really giving much to look forward too besides just new levels. There are of course risks involved with putting in money for an incomplete game, which if people aren't comfortable with that I totally understand. My general advice to wondering if they should buy an early access title or not is whether they would be fine parting with $10-$20 as it is NOW and be happy with what you got, knowing that you could potentially get more. For example I was completely fine throwing money down forBut I think it's a legitimate business model for the most part and I'm glad that Steam has made a section of their store dedicated to this and that MS and Sony are supporting it as well (Or well, I know at least Sony is as they've allowed games like Warframe, Blacklight, to be made available on their store despite being 'betas' and you have them talking about Loadout and DayZ hitting the PS4 as well but who knows if they will be the 'complete' game by then). (Also yes, I included a Steam link to all the games I listed because I personally think that people should at least check them out :v) EDIT: Huh, through look for links I discovered Cannon Brawl actually left Early Access and saw an official release about 2 weeks ago. Dunno how I missed that lol.
...
We didn't hear much about Kingdom Hearts III during TGS, however Famitsu was conducted an interview with Nomura where he shares the latest information about the game as well as the possibility of a HD remaster of Dream Drop Distance. Here are some tidbits from the interview: There have been reports from the media that Frozen was going to be a world in Kingdom Hearts III. This is false as there have been no confirmed worlds for the game yet, however Nomura says that Frozen is neither "confirmed or denied" for inclusion. Choosing new worlds for Kingdom Hearts III is proving to be a difficult task. Square Enix is strongly considering creating an HD Remaster for Kingdom Hearts 3D. There are some engine-related issue that is giving the development team some issues, however right now they have advanced in the scenario writing and world choices, as well as deciding on new designs for Sora and Riku's outfits. According to the the Osaka team, Sora’s mobility needs to be nerfed as he feels almost invincible by his end-game levels. They are currently a great variety of Keyblade transformations and Nomura compared it to Birth by Sleep's original way of fighting with Keyblades. There is more to the interview, which you can read in full at SiliconEra. Update: Fully translated interview courtesy of Goldpanner from KHInsider:
Out of all the Persona stuff I mention, I somehow forgot to mention 2015's GOTY :c
