One of the most important jobs we have here at MMORPG.com are our reviews. Our jobs as critics is to provide the best actionable information we can for you, our readers, when it comes to the games and hardware we come across in our everyday lives. Reviewing a game helps not only provide critique and analysis on what the developers were hoping to accomplish with their latest release, but also can help influence whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a product in its current state.
While we can debate the use and place of review scores in the modern landscape of games criticism, one aspect of reviews we haven't been scoring over the year was Early Access games. Yet, throughout the years, Early Access has felt like the real release for many titles, especially when developers and publishers are also asking players to part with their hard-earned money for the right to help test and provide feedback for an unfinished title.
Yet, when Early Access first arrived on the scene for a while, many felt it wasn't fair to apply a review score to an unfinished product. We haven't done so ourselves over the years for that reason. However, as more live service games are released into Early Access and sit in limbo for years, our stance has shifted. Oftentimes, these Early Access releases are the "true" release of the title, and it can mark the high point of when players are most interested in picking up the game to play for themselves.
As a result, with so many of the titles we cover falling under this catch-all term, and with so many of them charging a premium for the price of admission, we feel a change is in order.
Scoring Early Access Reviews
So, starting in 2024, we will be scoring Early Access reviews. The scale and criteria we use will be the same as our normal reviews - if a developer asks you for money to test their game in its unfinished state, it deserves the same level of critique as any other paid title. However, these reviews will be clearly marked as an Early Access Review alongside the score, and we will reserve the right to revisit this score as the game improves or is released out of Early Access.
A few points:
- We won't be reviewing every Early Access game. There are just too many games being released into the wild for us to cover all of them with our current budgets and manpower. But we will attempt to review the ones that we notice our readers are most interested in, even if we aren't filing a review on day 1.
- While the criteria will be the same as our normal review process, we are understanding that many of these titles are still very much works in progress. However, if a developers is charging money for access, we believe we owe it to our readers to provide the best information and critique we can. There are differences in how we approach an Early Access review versus a fully released game's review, but the fact remains that if money is changing hands, our first priority is to let you know, regardless of launch state, whether a game is worth your money and time.
- We will revisit Early Access games that have previously reviewed and scored when the full release does finally happen. We cannot guarantee we will revisit all of them - this is dependent on budget, manpower and reader interest at the time - but we will strive to revisit as many as we can when they leave Early Access. We might also revisit Early Access games when a major update comes down the pipeline and fundamentally changes the experience. So if you're keen to see a game covered, let us know.
While this focuses mostly on paid Early Access games, we'll also be applying this to a free-to-play release since the vast, vast majority still have some paid features, from a cash shop for cosmetics and convenience items to a paid tier for access and more. Free-to-play very rarely means "free to play" anymore.
As I noted on our forums earlier this week, we already have the first Early Access review in the works, with more to come. As MMOs and multiplayer games continue to use Early Access as a way to develop a game with its community, as well as fund the development, we'll continue to watch and review these titles as they come down to us.
As always, we're open to suggestions and constructive critique from our community as this rolls out - so make sure you comment on the articles with what you'd like to see as well. This is going to be a fluid process as we're ramping up in 2024, and we'd love to take our readers along for the ride. Make sure you also reach out to us via our tip line if you have any ideas or suggestions for games you want to see us cover - it helps a lot since so much of what we put on the docket will be driven by the interest we are seeing from our readers.
