Bwahahahahahhahahahahaa... Love it. :)

Nice, now where do I buy a copy of that book again? ;P

I absolutely despise paid "early access" because I come from a time when developers freely gave out betas for people to test (the good old 90s). Its like having to pay to do a job. You submit reports to the devs about what is broken, what you think needs to change, be added or removed to make the game better, therefore allowing the devs to make a better product so that they can make more money. F'in mindblowing. I hate that some developers abuse the consumer with their paid for alphas and betas, the so-called "early access", by never releasing an actual final product but just abandoning a project after spending years in "early access" by calling an unfinished piece 1.0. Sometimes the price for these "early access" titles are well above what the final 1.0 price is.

Now, after getting all of that off my chest, I respect the economic climate we live in today, and appreciate that indie developers can take a bite out of the corrupt old publisher model, and with things like Kickstarter we can get some highly polished AAA type content that big publishers would never put out. I think this a fantastic move for GOG.com. I hate that I currently have to use Steam still when I beta test a Kickstarter game. It is literally the only reason that I still have that horrible invasive garbage software still installed on my machine, and it makes me feel dirty because as long as it is installed I'm agreeing to an end-user license that I absolutely do not agree with.

Another reason this is such a great move for GOG is that it takes away something that was pretty much a Steam exclusive, therefore potentially hurting Valve's obscenely massive profits while modernizing and providing more legitimacy to the (usually) good guys, GOG (except I still hate regional pricing, but we'll not get into that debate again). Also, I guess it means that I'll get to preview games that I'd otherwise never have heard of. I've never purchased a beta before (except for Kickstarter I guess, but I don't really consider that purchasing a beta, I'm supporting devs and occasionally I do it at a level that includes beta access so I help out).

I guess as long as GOG is screening the betas and devs putting the betas here to make sure that they don't abuse the consumer, I can't see a downside to this. I'm kind of excited, even if I still want to puke when I see the term "early access". Also, this really showcases Galaxy's rollback feature which I love sooooo much and have used a few times already with content-complete titles.

Is there any GOG Mix or forum thread listing games in that category? Now that changelogs/patch-updates have been removed from the game forums, and are only visible to people who already own the game, it's very difficult to know if GOG versions are behind Steam in patches, and by how far.

The Humble Store is even worse for visibility... I bought a game there recently only to find that the DRM-free version is the release day v1.0 from 2014 while Steam has had bugfix patches and content additions. In a Steam thread, the dev has the hide to claim he's avoiding GOG and sticking with just Humble and Steam because "it's a huge effort to support multiple storefronts". I'm not sure how he knows that, since he's put zero effort into supporting the Humble version.

3d games utilize pixels too, every game utilizes pixels because that is what our monitors use, so that is how our display cards process and output a game's visuals.

Indeed!

Except the original Star Wars arcade game! Muahahahahahaha! Vector graphics much!

</troll> ;oP

They can do this on Steam but there the developer needs to add older versions for people to keep playing on to the beta section, so if GOG keeps them by default that gives them an edge. Early access games often have access to older versions I believe. Just checked Kenshi and they do at least, though only 2 older ones and then the new experimental.

You make some great points. What's to stop a developer from using Early-Access as a model to simply fine tune when they're going to stop working on the game? So they release the game Early-Access and they have a roaming budget and an expected ROI over time. They simply watch their sales figures for the Early Access, keep the game in perpetual development and it might gain interest and sales over time as they continue to develop it, then just keep doing that and like any game released (officially or early-access) they eventually reach saturation and sales start to decline. They might then continue to develop/fix bugs until the ROI drops below a threshhold while they quickly plan their exit strategy and maybe finish what they've got in-progress at the moment, a few bugs, then stamp "1.0" on it and more or less release it and stop development. Essentially the game is abandoned, or maybe they do a couple minor bugfix releases then wander off with the money. If they even bother to ever release it as a stable 1.0.

Also, what stops them from just keeping a game in Early Access perpetually?

Some companies might use it in a more responsible way than others, but it just seems so easy to abuse, and also seems so widely abused at the same time that it just isn't interesting to me personally even if the model can/does work out well for some games.

Uh what?

First, this thing where games are "allowed" to have discounts is nuts. Stores shouldn't prevent publishers from discounting their games whenever they feel like (up to a point -- I realize that there might be cases when the store distributing an essentially free game hurts them).

Second, between an InDev discount and a discount on release, of course an early purchase should be financially rewarded. Money now costs more.

Third, the pricing/trust issue for kickstarter backers vs InDev buyers is the same as for InDev buyers vs release Day 1+ buyers, so I don't know why you're flip-flopping.
Pillars cost $20 to $25 for a copy. Torment was $20 to $28. Now both are at $44.99. Unless they're discounted more than 50% between the campaign and, say, a year after release, I don't see how it's unfair.

Well, this thread exploded. Can't say I'm surprised. Great that GOG is offering refunds for this kinda model, though. But hey, this is sort of the new normal for games. Oh well, oh well...

There's a thread here for that very purpose: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/suggestions_wanted_for_gog_mix_games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens

While I agree discounts on games in EA should not be a thing, I'm fairly sure Desura was the one setting this precedent?

Well, the thread was definitely tl;dr before I even noticed, so for what it's worth, I'm just going to iterate on what I've said several times about the early-access-kickstartmeplz-iwantyourmoneynowandyou'llgetyourgamewhenyougetit model that seems so popular right about now:

"Oh, so you need money to finish your mildly-cool-looking-game which you promise will be infinite-plus-ten times cooler once you finish it? Sure, why not, I love games and indie people with good ideas, so I'll be glad to be your partner on this. So, as your partner, what's my cut of the benefits, other than the finished game that anybody will be able to buy when it's done with the added advantage of actually knowing whether it's half as cool as you promised? What?! Zilch, you say?! Oh, looks like you want me to be your client, then! Sorry I misunderstood you, goodbye, just call me when you got a finished product you're confident to sell and put your reputation on the line for".

Bad, bad GOG. No cookies for you this week.