commercial phenomena in games, and digital media respectively, that I don't think I'll fully understand from the buyer's perspective: Early Access and preordering.
The first is buying an objectively incomplete, typically inferior product, paying to basically help test it. The other is a carryover from physical media that doesn't make any sense in a strictly digital context for buyers.
I understand these from the biz end, but for buyers? Seems a mostly bad or worthless deal.
@gmr_leon IMO your characterization of early access isn't entirely accurate. There's many examples of EA games that are enjoyable and worth supporting in their "objectively inferior" state, even if not complete on paper.
True, you are effectively playtesting a game for free, but it's not like you're tricked into it. It's something that people are aware of, or even looking foward to, if it's a game they want to support.
Footnote, the word "objectively" has no place in games discussion tbh.
@mezz "Footnote, the word "objectively" has no place in games discussion tbh."
Typically I agree on this when talking about opinions & experiences of games/media, but when talking technical state and business models I think there's more room for something resembling "objectivity" insofar as that's useful.
Early Access happens to land right in the middle of both of those, & so I think it's fair to swing the objective lens around to it where otherwise I wouldn't be as inclined.
one of the greatest consumerist tricks ever tricked on the public: pay us before the product is even out, based on reviews by outlets that we essential bribe to say nice things about said product
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