Steam Closes Early Access Playtime Loophole (arstechnica.com) 26
An anonymous reader shares a report: "Early Access" was once a novel, quirky thing, giving a select set of Steam PC games a way to involve enthusiastic fans in pre-alpha-level play-testing and feedback. Now loads of games launch in various forms of Early Access, in a wide variety of readiness. It's been a boon for games like Baldur's Gate 3, which came a long way across years of Early Access. Early Access, and the "Advanced Access" provided for complete games by major publishers for "Deluxe Editions" and the like, has also been a boon to freeloaders.
Craven types could play a game for hours and hours, then demand a refund within the standard two hours of play, 14 days after the purchase window of the game's "official" release. Steam-maker Valve has noticed and, as of Tuesday night, updated its refund policy. "Playtime acquired during the Advanced Access period will now count towards the Steam refund period," reads the update. In other words: Playtime is playtime now, so if you've played more than two hours of a game in any state, you don't get a refund. That closes at least one way that people could, with time-crunched effort, play and enjoy games for free in either Early or Advanced access.
Craven types could play a game for hours and hours, then demand a refund within the standard two hours of play, 14 days after the purchase window of the game's "official" release. Steam-maker Valve has noticed and, as of Tuesday night, updated its refund policy. "Playtime acquired during the Advanced Access period will now count towards the Steam refund period," reads the update. In other words: Playtime is playtime now, so if you've played more than two hours of a game in any state, you don't get a refund. That closes at least one way that people could, with time-crunched effort, play and enjoy games for free in either Early or Advanced access.
Some people are assholes (Score:2)
The assholes need to be plugged up too.
Re:Some people are assholes (Score:4, Insightful)
Some may enjoy it, even look forward to it.
That said, this is why we can't have nice things. A human always finds a way to screw things up for the rest of us.
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tbh, they're in good company: 99,7% of devs/publishers/platforms are assholes too.
btw "early access" was intended to make the lifes of small devs easier, but it's been years already that it has been abused to oblivion.
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A lot of shit never makes it out of Early Access. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one of the reasons I generally do not buy those titles and just watchlist them.
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Going through the reviews you can usually get a feel for whether it's worth your money or not. Reviews that focus on "Needs polish" and "Shows potential" and "Roadmap says that by 2029 ..." should probably put the game on your wishlist for the future, while reviews that go "How is this not the full release?" and "I already got my money's worth ten times over" can 'legitimize' a purchase even if you normally dodge Early Access games.
Over the past half year I've seen two Early Access games I thoroughly enjoye
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Only buy a game if you're happy with the current release being the last release. Regardless of the size of the company putting it out, you just never know what's going to happen.
And even worse, "preordering" digital games before even a review is out is just a moronic form of gambling.
Or games are marked 'early access' for too long? (Score:1)
Developers can arbitrarily mark a game as "done", and this mechanism allowed customers to retroactively get their money back for broken promises.
No, I've never done a refund on a Steam game. And yes, I assume people will abuse situations (like Costco's old return policy that allowed years old, used products to be returned for full refunds). But the current system turns customers into beta testers that pay (versus being paid for their efforts).
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The refund change, i.e. having them at all, means their sales aren't as good but it more than makes up for it. Essentially I can demo the game for 2 hours or 2 weeks and get a full refund for ANY REASON in that window which has been amazing.
If I think the discount at some shady key site is worth not being able to refund I do that too. It gets flexibility which I love.
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Nobody is forcing people to buy early access, and they always come with a big fat textbox stating the differences to release. If there's a market for that, why not? Providing people the option to be beta testers for free, in exchange for early access and slightly lower price for product is fine, and apparently a lot of people think so. Certainly there are abusers, and Steam is trying to improve things.
The flip side is that when halfway through the development cycle, the dev decides to go a completely different direction and starts over with a radically different concept, now the people who bought in at the beginning don't have any ability to vote with their dollars and ask for a refund, which is problematic. So there are abusers on both sides.
More importantly, this change makes early access a whole lot less attractive and a whole lot riskier from the perspective of a potential buyer. As a result, I'd e
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It's rough for a developer, or more likely Steam, when they suddenly have to refund a bunch of money. If they're doing early access to fund development they've probably already spent that money. I think early access was intended to be only for the final stages of development, but it's turned into something more like kickstarter. You release what's sometimes little more than a tech demo, get a bunch of people to give you money, and use it to fund further development. Steam probably doesn't want to continue t
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I use it all the time, since game demos are for 99% of the new games a thing of the past, the only way to get an actual feel of the game is actually by buy/install/play, if after a few hours it doesn't line up with expectations, refund.
have zero remorse for this approach, allows you to actual discover new content which otherwise (if refund does not exist) would be skipped.
Good (Score:2)
Refunding is really only for crappy games and ones you do not like from the start. Although, with a good reason you can ask for a refund later and I have done that successfully several times. Essentially what Valve does is pretty fair and pretty sane.
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Refunding is also for when what you bought is not what you thought it was. I bought Tabletop Simulator, only to find out it has NO ability to automate. It's solely for play with a live game master. Automating the DM component so I could paly alongside my players was the whole point, and it doesn't do that. So, refund. It's not a bad product, but it's also not useful for me.
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Agreed.
Abuse by Game Devs (Score:2)
Refunding is really only for crappy games and ones you do not like from the start.
What about an Early Access game that promises several features you really want and then abondons those promises and just releases as-is? It's easy to see how the new rules can be abused by game devs just like the old rules could clearly be abused by players.
Perhaps with early access games half the purchase cost should be held by Steam and when the game is finally released purchasers can choose whether to get a half-refund and lose access to the game or keep the game and release the held money to the dev
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What about an Early Access game that promises several features you really want and then abondons those promises and just releases as-is?
You bought it Early Access. You don't get to consider your purchasing decision as a promise of the future. If you sunk more than two hours into playing it then you got some entertainment and your money's worth. Early Access is a risk you take to play an unfinished game. And there's no coincidence the abbreviation for Early Access is EA, both are equally likely to be turds.
Perhaps with early access games half the purchase cost should be held by Steam
No. If you want a finished experience, don't buy it in early access. If you are open to an unfinished experience then your ability to ref
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Early access is a gamble on the honor and capabilities of the publisher. Just expect, say, 50% miss and 50% where you actually get do experience the evolution to a good game. For me, this is worth it and I have done it quite a few times now. If you do not like that gamble, do not buy early access. It is not like the good games coming out of the process will be unavailable later, they will just be more expensive.
All modern software is beta (Score:1)
Pre-Alpha? (Score:3)
What, they give you the design brief, level spec notes, and you get to look at them and pretend it's running code?
Good for developers, bad for gamers. (Score:2)
If you buy bundles, you've probably picked up a lot more early access games then those who don't. One of the problems with early access games is that some developers rip out unfinished content and features so they can claim the game is suitable for release. Early access supporters are left wondering what happened to the game they bought and those looking at reviews see all the positive pre-release reviews.
It's my opinion that one of the best things you can do is not review an early access game until it's