true, every option should always allow to turn it on or off.


you mean to show that it was a review by the devs/publisher himself?
that would be great cause each dev/publisher is alwaysgiving a sunnyside review of its product :D

while users will give different reviews depending on there own experience, and these can be more valuable then a one side review of the creators of the game.

No it is not. Blind fanboys are cementing the current gaming culture of buying unfinished products. If people approached every game rationally and checked the value proposition of the game as it is now, not as it might be in the future, then we wouldn't be in this situation.

Think of it like this: if an "Early Access" or "In Development" game had a boatload of features and was worth the asking price, then why not get it? It's already worth the money now, so any development afterwards is just a bonus.

The problem with Early Access right now is people buy games that are "promising" or "may be good", rather than games that are actually good right now and then get inevitably disappointed when the game ends up going in different directions or gets abandoned. Don't do that. Buy for the product as is. If you don't think it was worth it as it is right now, return it. If yes, then have fun with it. Anything after is just a bonus.

i know everyone has his own tastes... but i only see this addition in gog with only defiance...
it is true SOME games who went all the line of early access had some stories not to be ashamed with, and used the early access the right way and behaved properly. those rare few had already much to put on the table to begin with:

take prison architect, take darkest dungeon (who was already rather "working" enough in early access

but those exemples are sadly the exception to the dissapointing rule, even as they just represent what the early access normal/regular stuff should be.

so two things draw my attention in gog announcemenht:
"excellent hand picked games"... what are the criterias of "excellence" and to pick them out ? i can't just take this sentence for granted without some level of disclosure, honnesty and without lifting opacity about it.
"14 days refund no question" that, though, might help sort off the bad from the good.

get an early access game, test it 14 days max. if the game doesn't meet your own criteria for either a good or a promising game, or ain't not already interesting and satisfactory enough in its actual state for its price, then off with it.

BUT gog need to make clear how things will work from this point: what if you buy it again (qtill in early access) after a major build release ? what if you wait for final release to give a second chance ? what if final release still doesnt do it for you and you still find some of the "flaws" that made you ask for a refund ?

they should refine the refunding process, makes it clear about what happens in further purchase of same game, maybe ask and keep a small checkbox evaluation from customer after a refund, and use it for further reference

also what i am really unhappy with gog is that the early access are too easily blending in the regular catalog with only a small disclaimer on one top corner.
NO ! don't do that ! separate the confirmed good old or recent games from those wannabes, make a new distinct and separate section and tab for it ! i dont want unsure promises to casually linger in the crowd next to legitimately acclaimed classics or recent indie gems, unde no circumstances.

or at least give people an account based filter for the ENTIRE website to obsfuscate and HIDE every early access game for users who just can't stand it. make it either a clear border and section, or make it a user choice


and i say that especially when we knows gog refused some developpers/games to enter catalog with finished games, or took waay much time for that to happen while the games were already drm free available elsewhere. For a developper not to be interested to work with gog and/or in a drm free format is a dev/publisher choice; but when some are willing to come on drm free with a finished product, contact gog but gog refuses, then ok it's gog choice by that time.
THOUGH if gog refuse some finished games but "excellently hand pick" some rather lousy early access ones at same time, then we are heading for a major problem with their credibility

Not a fan personally, but it's optional so for those who want it great, those who don't, just don't get it. Pretty simple I'm not seeing any reason to hate GOG for this.

That said, and I agree with other posters that there needs to be a very clear(better than what is there currently) indication that these games are in development.

What I would really like to see is have these in another category all together and kept separate from the current games that are available right now or soon to be. It gets very confusing when you're trying to search for games that are on sale that are available now, vs. pre-order release and now in development.

I see a lot of hate here for early access games. I understand everyone vision of things, but in all honesty, there are some great games which are still in development but keep being nicely supported. Paying up for an EA game is risky, but it's not that GOG is forcing you to buy them. I think that before acting so much against this we should evaluate how GOG will handle EA titles (my priorities are updates in time and DRM FREE, obviously).
I have to say though that, it would be nice to enrich the gog store with fully complete titles (still waiting for neptunia sequels and other jrpg, van helsing director's cut, and so on).

I don't like that they have a sale on release. That feels like you're trying to get us to buy a game quickly before word gets out how unfinished it is and that it probably will never be finished.
A sale when it is finished would be much more proper I think.

Yes I know my reasoning could be applied to a lot of games but those in development have a much higher chance of being affected by this.

I mean make it clear that the review was made during EA so its to be taken as potentially outdated. They're useful while there isn't a final version, but ultimately misleading to have a +500 helpful review from 5 years ago on top of review list.

I don't think devs that write their own reviews will make it public knowledge that they do, to GOG or to the rest of us. It's unlikely that anyone will spend manpower to catch conflicts of interest on a regular basis, as annoying as it can be.

If this new Early Access market is good for GOG in order to help them grow, then I'm ok with it (even though I don't care about E.A. games).

My "red line" still remains the same after all these years: GOG must always remain DRM-free (and that includes the games being downloadable and playable without Galaxy).

As long as GOG remains true to its roots they have my support.

Blame it on precendent set on steam. EA games have been allowed to have discounts since day one.Pretty disappointing when one considers high profile crowdsourced games have taken advantage of this to disappointment of backers ie WL2, PoE, Grim Dawn etc..

I just view it as GOG being competitive, since these are presumably all games that have been deeply discounted on Steam before.

If wishes were horses... sure, blind fanboys are part of the problem too. I often remarked about that. But people are never going to be absolutely rational. In a world where all customers are rational, all the developers and publishers are trustworthy and always deliver quality products. That's Earth-487 unfortunately, not here.

The fact is, by offering Early Access GOG is encouraging participating in that culture I dislike so much, and let's not fool ourselves about the "curation". There were already plenty of issues with curation of unfinished games raised here. And like I said in this post, to me GOG used to be about not participating in, and not encouraging trends like this.

I'm not saying every Early Access game is bad and will be left unfinished, I said as much already. But I have a lot of problems with Early Access, and I greatly regrett that GOG is no longer standing by the kind of approach to gaming that I held precious. Even if all the Early games offered by GOG actually hold to a certain quality, accepting it is still accepting this culture of buying unfinished products that I just can't approve of. Because it gets people used to the idea of paying for things unfinished, and accepting things unfinished.

The problem isn't just that games get released in borderline unplayable state. It's that people grumble, but accept it, and buy the next game and the next the exact same way. And they do that, becasue they go used to playing unfinished, unpolished games. The fact that people got so used to lack of polish, even in "good" games with "boatloads of features" is the shift in gamers mentality I blame Early Access for.

I feel some people are failing to distinguish between Early Access in its base form and Steam’s implementation of it. Steam don’t own Early Access, they merely gave it a bad image – no oversight and no refunds (till recently). GoG curate their stock and have an application process and they’re offering a great refund deal. I probably won’t be buying Early Access games myself, having tried it and found they burned through my anticipation for the final product, but if consumers want this choice and are given the protection needed, then why not? Frankly there's a lot of developers out there who won't make it without the support.

Normally, I would agree. But in this context, I think "don't like, don't buy it" is a perfectly valid argument!

See, people are not just saying that they themselves don't like 'early access' games. What they are saying is that GoG shouldn't sell those games at all.

I'm not trying to convert them to buy early access. That's their choice. But they see it as some kind of problem that GoG sells early access to me.

I think they could be a little more broad-minded and accept that GoG is selling products that they belive are crap, but which some other players likes. In other words: If you don't like early access, don't buy it.

I don't understand this. Just because Steam does it it doesn't matter if it's a good or bad idea we need to do it to compete. Wouldn't it be better to only pick the good steam ideas?
So the solution then is GOG getting them here first. ;)