Are "early access" perks kinda BS?

[UnderwaterFunktown]

Note: This topic is not about Early Access games on Steam, but about the recent (?) trend of games offering a few days "early access" as a bonus perk of sorts.

I'm not sure when this trend started, but we've seen a lot of games this year (Hogwarts, Diablo IV, Starfield, MWIII, maybe more) that include a few days "early access" as a bonus for buying premium editions or in some cases for pre-purchasing  and I've seen suprisingly little discussion about this practice, which basicly seems to say "we could just release the game earlier, but we'd rather make more money". To be fair, it's not exactly likely to affect me personally as I very rarely buy games at release anyways, but it does seem to me to be another in a long line of questionable ways to make even more money of AAA games.

It's framed as this nice bonus perk to be able to play "early", but really it just means the game is ready to be released, but they're locking it for a few days to only those who are willing to pay extra (in the cases were it's included in a deluxe/premium edition). In those cases it's kinda like selling early cinema tickets for a movie at a higher price. In the cases where it's a pre-purchase bonus, well, that is less scummy I guess, but also more pointless, because then it's definitely just a matter of marketing speak trying to make it sound like a big deal that you get to play the game "early" when really anybody that bought it can already play it. The only real difference is that it might only be available for digital pre-purchases, which again would be a way to make more money, by making physical copies less appealing (since really it's not that those digital pre-purchasers get the game early, it's that everyone else gets it late).

But well that's just my take on it, what are your thoughts on the topic?

Last edited by UnderwaterFunktown - on 20 August 2023