Chris: Let’s talk about free-to-play. There has been all kinds of hullabaloo about Everquest Next: Landmark and Trove selling early access. Founder’s packs this and eventually free that. Can anyone against these things say that they really need to buy these packs? Is anything stopping them from waiting for a free invite or the game’s release? Of course not, which leads me to believe many of these critics are just jealous they can’t have their cake and eat it too. Sure, buying into free-to-play early might seem silly but it is entirely the player’s choice. If there is a real problem here, I’m not seeing. These are in-development games you can check out now if you’d like and if not, hey, cool. See you in a few months with most other players.
Adam: While I can certainly understand granting early access to those buying into a Kickstarter MMO, the same can’t be justified with a big company like Sony. Do they really need to hoist a ‘Founders Pack’ on us? Do we really need to be in at the ground floor? Let’s face facts, EverQuest 3 (Yeah, I’m calling it what it is) was always going to be funded, Camelot Unchained however? Probably not. One can be justified because fans have literally brought the game into development, while the other is just corporate greed. Why not give something back you big fat cats?
Chris: Players buying their way into early access is the wave of the future. Developers have found a new way to fund their games and that's not a bad thing. No one makes a player buy into an unfinished game. It's their choice. What I take away from this isn't a negative. Players care about other players being fleeced. Good on us. But if we enter into an agreement to test an unfinished game, to have our voices heard, to remove the velvet rope and make sure the games we want to play get made, all the way to release... I see a future where more indie games see light of day. I see more creative ideas that would never get publisher backing. I see our games becoming wider and more varied and better because we supported them with our time and development dollars. That's what early access means to me.
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Adam: Nobody can deny the positive effects that selling the carrot on a stick early access can have for an indie MMO. But this isn’t about the small timers. This is about big companies peddling more and more ways to extract coin before we have even had chance to sit down with the finished product. It represents the slide into rampant monetisation that is extending to excluding races, including cash shops with subscription fees, and now asking us to pony up to help test the product. We’re in the era of 60% finished products with 200% mark-ups. Shelling out hard earned cash to aid in development is wrong. The buzz, the excitement of an unexpected beta invite is just one of the facets of this genre. It’s an institution two decades in age now, and to make us have to pay just seems like a step too far. Pay for early access. Pay for the box. Pay for the subscription. Pay for the cosmetics. Pay to unlock the races and classes. No thanks.
So what do you say, folks, is selling early access the wave of the future? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Christopher Coke / Chris has been an MMORPG player since the days of MUDs. These days he can be found climbing the hills of Telara or tearing up the skies in War Thunder. Pew pew! Follow him on Twitter: @gamebynight.
Adam Tingle / Adam wishes he lived in Norrath. But he doesn’t. He makes up for this with random sessions of sobbing and occasionally standing in his town centre shouting “SOW, anyone need a SOW?”. Follow him at @adamtingle
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