Are "early access" perks kinda BS?

[DonFerrari]

Chazore said:

SvennoJ said:

Pre-ordering digital games is what's BS. Yet gamers are very vulnerable to fomo and having to get it first thus marketing plays into that. Any smart gamer knows every game needs several hot fixes nowadays, even TotK and BG3 needed them. Waiting a few weeks for the real finished product is the smart way.

I cringe every time I hear ppl near me parroting "I'm so gonna pre-order than on my PC/console, and it's almost always a digital copy, and I have to keep telling them that the digital copies aren't finite like the physical ones are, but they still don't get it, and I'm still flabbergasted. 

I'm glad I'm not reeled in so easily by fomo, especially with how bad battle passes are heavily inducing it for people out there. That and I don't really bother buying games day 1/week 1/month 1, and mostly just end up waiting a year or two (like I did when ESO just had a mega sale and I snagged the expansions I was missing for a much, much cheaper price). 

I find the AAA space a bit distasteful with how they've been watching what Indie devs are doing with their early access games and tried emulating that, only with big budget games that have no right in pulling an "early access", be it testing or viewing (this is why you're supposed to be hiring QoL test staff, not have us pay and be the guinea pigs). 

Not only that but for AAA games having "open paid beta" for like 2 years where the game is "basically finished" and using that to have not only revenue but do all the QA testing and only "going gold" when the game is quite old and polished inflate the scores as well.