Gaming Discussions

[Wally_AMD]

Hey, Red Team!

I know plenty of us have a bunch of games on our lists this year. The new COD has been talked about recently and others like the new World of Warcraft expansion (for anyone who plays) can be exciting.

One new-ish one that popped up on my radar this weekend was a game called Marauders. Some of you may have heard of it already, but it’s basically a space version of Escape from Tarkov (just not nearly as complicated).

I jumped into it blind (after a friend recommended it) and thought it was pretty neat! I haven’t invested many hours into it just yet but will definitely be playing more this week with friends.

One thing that slightly irked me was that it’s still in early access and costs roughly $30 (USD). If there’s one thing I’m not the biggest fan of, it’s paying for early access games. My friends convinced me on this one, and so far it’s not too bad. I’m hoping the developers stick with it and push for a polished release when the time is right.

I’ll hopefully get to a better review once I put some more time into this game but for now… I was wondering what everyone else’s thoughts were on early access games with price tags to them. If they don’t bother you, is there a limit to what you’d spend?

[Mainspring]

I have sworn off of any early access games after poor experiences with Subnautica: Below Zero and Valheim. Below Zero was ok, but decided I would rather put it down until the story was fully finished. Even after release, you could clearly look at the finished product and see story arcs where they had been going somewhere but then ran out of resources/motivation.

Valheim was a much worse experience -- I saw it listed as PC Gamer's Game of the Year and bought it despite the early access warning, only to realize that the game world was as empty as an old MMO and the graphics and animations were worse than vanilla World of Warcraft from 16 years earlier. Maybe that's on me for not doing my research, but IMO a game in early access should not qualify for 'game of the year' awards.

[Wally_AMD]

Totally hear you on Valheim.  That's one I ended up getting when it entered early access as well. Although I didn't hate it, it definitely left me wanting a bit more. A lot of hype surrounded it for sure!

[Key-J]

Thanks for sharing @Wally_AMD - I am fine with playing Early Access games, but I agree when you price it around that of a more polished or released game that can really annoy and put me off from trying the game. 

Another thing of course is that many Eary Access games don't allow refunds because they say that it is a donation rather than a purchase.

[Wally_AMD]

Good points, @Key-J. I've actually never gotten to a point where I thought about refunding an early access game... so it's good to know that little bit about refunding. 😅