When is it acceptable to buy Early Access games?

When is it acceptable to buy Early Access games?

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store.steampowered.com/app/286340/?
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If you want to play it and it is fun. My only early aces experience was when state of decay came out on pc

Never

when it officially releases

When it's a game called Squad.

Prison Architect
however this is the only example I can think of where the finished product ACTUALLY came out, and was better than originally promised, incorporating everything they initially promised

When they're not early access anymore

when the early access build as already worth the asking price and you're not throwing money at the mere hope it will get better in future

When the game is fun to play in its current iteration. I mean Distance is STILL in early access and it's a fun one to play. GRIP's coming along pretty well too

>Easy Mode: Never ever.

>Hard Mode: When the game is actually worth playing even in its unfinished state and the devs show a clear intention of finishing the game properly through frequent updates.

Hard Mode requires you to do a bit of research before buying the game (and possibly pirating it first to make sure it's any good). And even then there's always the risk that the devs will fuck the game up at some future time, or simply declare it finished long before it's actually done.

Never really. If the game is/going to be bad then you wasted your money and if the game is/going to be good then you are spoiling yourself on an inferior version.

At least that is my logic.

Because they're generally cheap. Golf With Friends, for instance, was $6.

When you're interested in the development and enjoy whats been offered so far.

For example Squad was a great purchase for me even though it has a lot of work still to do

When you want to, but, don't expect anything beyond a shit unfinished product.

I also avoid buying playing early access games/development builds for crowdfunded games because I want to experience the game proper the first time around. I'll still occasionally buy a game on Early Access that I find promising (who have shown through their updates so far that they're reliable) since I want to support their work

UnEpic was in early access for a century for reason it didn't have a proper multiplayer yet.

When they're made by a developer that clearly has intent to finish their game in a decent time-frame and actually finish it.
Signs to not buy:
>Newly released into EA
>No games under their belt before
>Games under their belt with bad histories
>Game has been in EA for more than a year and is nowhere near content complete
There's probably some others off the top of my head, but this clears out a bunch.

Factorio

when 80% of it is finished and only when you REALLY love what you see in gameplay videos.

That made me want to buy Plague Inc., which was only months before ironing out the bugs and gameplay and pushing it into release state.

On the other hand, I recently purchased Subnautica and still had to refund it due to hideous framerate drops here and there.

Here's of example of a potentially good game, ruined by early access
store.steampowered.com/app/286340/?

It is a genuinelly fun game to play, but it only has 2 hours of content to explore - then there's nothing else to it (but everything that's in the game plays well)

Result: Mixed reviews and buried for eternity under massive pile of greenlight shovelware, barely working shite

Remember when people were paid to beta test others' games?
Or at the very least remember when they allowed you to do so for free?

But nowadays we're expected to pay to beta test their crap.

Also as an added bonus, you can implement mod support, have your audience finish it for you and get praised for doing it.

Remember when those games you were thinking about were produced with publishers, making the situation completely different from independent developers? They use Early Access for an early revenue source so that they can keep making the game. People beta testing for them is an added bonus

When it's already in a state that's worth the money in case it's never finished