According to the added scene of the unicorn he is.

Okay OT, but am I the only one who didn't get that!? Everyone, director actor fan alike, said 'Yes, the unicorn shows he might be a Replicant.' I'm sitting here thinking, HUH?

Don't buy them. Problem solved.

I don't really see the problem with Early Access, but at the same time I see no reason why anyone would want to buy an unfinished game. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised about people buying unfinished games when people are willing to throw money at games that haven't even started development. Or even games where the developers themselves have no idea what they are ging to do.

I see no problem.
As long as they are DRM-free...

Just don't buy them. Your preferences should not apply to everyone.

I'm fine with it especially if they add an alert function that will send you a message (or e-mail) once the game is released as "1.0". That way people who want games with some assured content and less bugs just need to look for what they like and add it to that list.

They should also be put separately from the normal catalogue so you have "browse games" and "early access" (or whatever they call it).

Goes without saying but DRM-free should be a requirement too.

Well early access allows us to check out some really good games too like Broken Age Part I coming on Steam early access. As long as its not against GOG policies I don't see any harm in that.

There are complaint on the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter forum now about the beta and early access going on Steam, which a lot of people don't like. So what you're saying is that people who want early access should have to put up with Steam even if they don't like it.

I don't think that's initial issue especially if you solve it like I said, separate it between "normal" catalogue and early access games then you only look for the normal to avoid it.

The problem is more its potential affect on the business. Developers find it convenient to keep customers testing their product because it's cheaper and they can give up whenever they want because customers aren't supposed to expect a final product, only access to an alpha or beta and that a finale release may or may not come. If this takes over you can see it will lower the standard for stability of games in general. The chances for this to happen is slim at best especiallt if it happens to arrive here. Also, a reason to avoid this larger issue GOG could easily add an artifical limit of up to 10 or 20 games, there can be no more active early games there and once finally jumps over to "1.0 release" then it opens up a slot for another game.

Although my arguments might not be completely the ones you may have, I've just requested that gog abstain from an Early Access program following yesterday's article on Eurogamer.net.

It is my firm belief that it would be a wrong step from the standpoint of morality as well as profitablity.

Would be nice for this to get some traction.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/dont_implement_an_early_access_functionality

It's GOG choice, but I for myself am against paid early access. Why should I pay to beta-test a game? Don't they have people paid to do that?

This argument never makes sense to me. You do realize people who get paid to beta test actually *do* testing, right? They don't just play around a bit and log off.

Imo this is a step GOG needs to make to keep up. There's a lot of good Kickstarter games, classic remakes etc that end up on Steam long before they get a chance to show up on GOG, simply because of the early Access program.

But why should I pay to be a guinea pig? I am already appalled by the general quality of recent games at release. Most have game-breaking bugs for up to 6-7 months from release. As I said, it's a personal choice, but I myself am not a fan of early access.

Oh, people do play games in beta stage on Early Access, but they're usually not beta testing. The feedback they're giving would probably never heave a game in actual beta stage to one that could be called ready to be published. The last two weeks before release, however, developers can weed out the remaining bugs pretty darn well with gamer feedback.

It that's your calling, go ahead and buy games on Early Access. It's your decision. It's the same decision you make when participating in an 'open beta'... with the smallish difference that you pay full price for an Early Access game. And THAT I consider indecent.

Should gog actually implement that Early Access crap, maybe they could implement a feature that lets developers reward actual betatesting and feedback giving gog'ers with refunds for their game.