Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Cost of Early Access

I actually prefer it this way. I find if game in EA is cheaper then 1.0 I feel pressured to buy now, even if I don't intend to play EA. Lower prince EA makes sense, as the product has lower value, but it also make sense to to do it, if you don't want to invite people to jump in early outside providing feedback.

If you want, you can think of Early Access like a preorder, only you get the following bonuses:
- you will greatly influence the game at launch
- can actually play it instead of waiting a year
- have access to unparalleled transparency over its development

It’s additional value, not subtractive
👍

I'm sure they have a minimum number of people they would like to have in EA for testing purposes. If they discover there aren't enough people, that will be a good indication that the price is too high and they will lower it. If they are satisfied with the number of people, then the price is justified.

Interesting how you could manage to make your post here (after several obvious edits at least) palatable vs. the pointedly flame-baiting troll version you made on the Steam forums (that was since deleted) where you knew you could get away with it. I notice you didn't pointedly call out Larian for being 'greedy' here

As someone else pointed out elsewhere, alot of EA's involve independent developers or smaller dev teams, etc, so how EA is handled, whether discounted or free, is a different contextual framework there. Larian is well known at this point, on top of developing a AAA game using the most recognizable roleplaying IP/system in the world....so to expect even a discount in this context isn't really logical. And as has been stated already, you're not paying for EA, you're paying for the full game ahead of time, and being granted the ability to play a bit of the game now and help provide feedback for refinement of the game, *if you even choose to* - and you don't have to make that choice if you don't want. You could instead wait until full release and pay the exact same price for the game then if you don't feel comfortable paying for it now.

So I get to both pre-order the game AND play it, AND help make it better.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

That's basically full game price LMAO

Correction: It is full game price. As expected.

Well, if you saw all the childish answers on steam, there was no point in continuing the conversation there.

Yes, I think it is greedy to have people pay full price for something that is essential a alpha/beta, even if they call it early access.
If they want people to test the game, give people alpha/beta keys. If they want money, make people pay for the beta key and call it early access. I'm not saying early access is bad, but it is still just early access.

Personally, I have never seen a company put a full game price tag on a early access before, specially not a $60 price. And the reasoning behind the full price tag was that Baldurs Gate 3 was bigger and more expensive than Original Sin 1 and 2. Just because one game is biggger and more expensive than another, does not make it worth more as a Early Access title. This is why I think it is greedy.

Larian are going to reinvest the money they get from Early Access in order to make the game as good as possible so they can maximize sales when they fully release the game. I’m very much okay with this. I was going to spend $60 to preorder the game, anyway. I don’t see the problem with paying full price for Early Access.

Steam discussions are always pretty terrible, I think the accessibility of them are a big reason why. It's so easy to get there that it's a quick and easy outlet for all sorts of degenerate behavior.




This is exactly what they did, I guess you just don't like the price. Early access doesn't always mean a discount, yeah a lot of games do it (I mostly see the ones that end up spending 5 years in EA do it, which BG3 is hopefully not going to be one of those), but plenty also do not. 60 bucks may be high but for the quality we can rightfully expect from Larian, I definitely see the value in it.

And of course you don't have to buy into EA. You can always wait for the full game to justify the price tag.



So if they're putting a larger investment into the game, with double the staff and significantly more complexity and all that, you don't see how they can justify charging more out the gate? I mean that all seems perfectly reasonable to me. If the cost to produce something is higher, that usually translates into the cost to consumers.

They aren't having you or us do anything.

Taleworlds did it a few months ago with Mount & Blade 2 : Bannerlord.
Not a problem to me... I can choose to buy it now or at release and I can choose to become a "beta tester" or not, whatever is the price.

I'm a regular participant on the Steam forum, I was actually one of the people who responded to you, and the responses were not childish at all....they were simply refuting your opinion with actual logic and fact. And you do yourself no favors when your first post out the gate basically is telling everyone that if they don't agree with you, they're delusional and wrong.

Also, comparing a hardware appliance such as a tv to a piece of gaming software is more than a bit of a ridiculous comparison - its not even comparable to apples vs oranges, but rather more like apples to socket wrenches.

Crowdfunded games have you pay MORE for early access.

Here is the thing: if you are not sure if you won't to buy Baldur's Gate3 - then don't buy it yet. Larian doesn't want to encourage people to buy in early, if they are not already interested in BG3 - they have been vocal about it, and pricing supports it. You have nothing to gain by buying to EA - you will get the worse experience and you pay the same as if you wait. If you are interested in BG3, however, and want to provide feedback and be a Guinea Pig for their experiments - you can pre-order the game and test it. If you are not interested in it - wait for 1.0.

EDIT. As mentioned before, there are titles that release for full price in EA. It is uncommon, and generally business model wants people to buy in early (aka. we need money to actually work on the game). Not so much in this case (Can't speak about Larian's budget but 1) with that scale it would be silly to count on EA money to finish the project 2) they said it: Buy EA only if you want to make the game better.

Oh, hey Tyndaleon, good to see you here and not just over there.

Likewise sir. /bow

No one is going to force you to buy Early Access. There is not going to be any preorder bonus or incentive given to Early Access backers which people who buy it on launch won't get. If you feel the price is unfair, then don't buy it. It's really simple.

I do believe that's the point. They're displeased with the price, and won't buy it - and being vocal because they feel strongly about it.

Never seen a game in beta who cost that much. I'm not paying this price for a beta game, you guys should be high on something. And congratulation on the italian translation, fucking liars

Hmm...

Ignoring the "greedy" aspect of things, there is someting of a conundrum here for some of us.

I like video game RPGs, FR games in general and the previous BG games in particular, but did not really like D:OS, partly because for video games I am exclusively SP, and the Larian style recently is really focused on what makes a good co-op game. So, as things stand, I don't have certainty that I will want to play BG3, am therefore unlikely to join EA to give feedback, making it less likely the final game will be something I want to buy..

So, if the purpose of EA is to improve the game, but it is full price, it is unlikely to attract any but those that would have purchased the final product regardless of EA. You get something of an echo chamber effect, and are likely to get a more restricted range of feedback.

As this is not a means of gaining funding, one would not expect to receive access to the 1.0 release for anything less than the normal full price; but, an alternative might be a lesser EA price, which can be "upgraded" for the full game. I don't expect this to change, but there is some logic to it.