Last year, a growing trend saw AAA video game publishers offering early access to new games if you pre-ordered a pricey special edition version. I worried then that if some publishers were successful in locking games behind a ransom fee, many others would do the same in the future. And here we are, in 2024, and most upcoming games have multiple release dates now and it all sucks.
While it didn't technically start last year, in 2023 we saw an increase in the number of games offering "early access" for a price. Mortal Kombat 1, The Crew: Motorfest, Starfield, and a few others all offered players an option: Pay the standard price to play the game at launch or pay extra to play a few days "early," assuming the servers are working properly.
To me, it all seemed like an obvious ploy by publishers to milk gamers for even more money than they already do via in-app purchases, cosmetics, battle passes, and XP boosters. I hoped that people would realize that all these publishers were doing was holding back a game's release for a few days just to make some extra money. I hoped that gamers would see this was a scam and that these early access perks were worthless.
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