Hmm, to be a fly on the wall in the meeting that decided upon this...
I dunno if this is a good idea or not, I don't have enough information to feel strongly one way or the other - I would expect/hope Larian does. How long has early access been around for that we can accurately judge for D:OS? What percentage of the market purchases early-access games and to what extent do these people talk about their impressions beyond steam forums? Is there any evidence that the (relatively minor) controversy surrounding Wasteland-2 is actually going to harm (net negative) its long-term reputation or overall sales?
I suspect that if games are good, then they will ultimately speak for themselves. Same goes for the quality of the early-access product. There may be a question about whether the overall effect is positive or negative, yet if when finally released Original Sin is as good as it looks like it will/could be, then who is going to give a shit frankly about any early-access steam quibbling?
In Larian's case any potential backer backlash regarding the pricing will be mitigated by their opening up the alpha to all backers. Did that move even cause any flack? I didn't notice any. Larian is pretty damn good on the PR side of things, my concerns are more that they may be spreading themselves too thin when they really need to be finishing this epic game.
I do wonder what all this early-access hoohah will mean for future kickstarter pitches and pledge rewards. It could be that the idea of asking people to pay money for the privilege of testing your game is inherently flawed, and project creators will have to come up with other better ways of encouraging pledging. It seems like devs should be making a point of including alpha access with all tiers, which is after all what Larian realised was in the best interests of the game. I recall other devs saying the same thing in their kickstarter post-mortems - the free testing and feedback is simply invaluable for small or independent studios.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it goes, assuming that the article is correct of course. It wouldn't be the first time video game *cough* journalism hasn't been entirely accurate. Maybe Swen only mentioned to the guy in passing that they were considering it. Or maybe Larian needs the money to finish the game ;-) Let's not let the lack of evidence get in the way of wild speculation. I need to stop typing now, this post is getting out of hand... sorry for waffling on
