Star Wars Outlaws' 'Early Access' Issues Just Prove Pre-Orders Are Scammy

Summary

Star Wars Outlawshas, as is the case with many triple-A games these days, launched with a lot of annoying bugs that make it unpleasant to play. However, as happens less commonly,PS5players who bought the more expensive Gold and Ultimate Edition of the game so they could play three days earlier than everyone elsehave been asked to delete their saves and start over.

A new patch for PS5 was deployed soon after early access began, andUbisoftsent an accompanying email to players to tell them that if they’re playing an older version of the game, they “will unfortunately face issues and progression blockers”. Basically, if you paid more to play the game before everyone else, you’ll have to lose all your progress and redo everything you’ve already done because Ubisoft decided to push an update.

Obviously, this sucks. But I’m here to tell you that those people shouldn’t have paid for early access anyway.

‘Early Access’ Is Always Riddled With Issues

Paying more money to start playing a game before everyone else is a weird practice that’s become increasingly normalised within the gaming industry. Most recently,World of Warcraft:The War Within offered several days of early access if you pre-ordered, as didBaldur’s Gate 3(albeit just for PS5 players),Skull & Bones,Diablo 4,Mortal Kombat 1,Forza Motorsport,Starfield, andSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. I could go on, but listing every game that’s done this would take too long.

I’ve already written aboutthe dubious logic behind pre-ordering a game when you don’t even know if it’ll be good or not, but another issue that we’re seeing come up is that early access players are increasingly being hit with issues that negate the time they’ve paid for.

This happened with Outlaws, but it also happened with Suicide Squad. You may recall that players logged in for the first time during early accessto find their game had inexplicably already been completed, which then led toRocksteadyhaving to take the game offline and fix it. This locked players out for six hours, and then the game had to be taken down asecondtime for the studio to fix other issues. When early access periods often only run for a few days, this is a serious chunk of time.

Rocksteadygave affected payers in-game currencyto make up for the downtime. Ubisoft hasalso issued a disappointing apology gift.

Thisalsohappened with Starfield, with many people who paid for early access being met with a“you’re too early” error messagestopping them from getting into the game. Over and over, we see players shelling out money for the dubious privilege of playing a more broken version of a game, then finding that the extra time they paid for isn’t even fulfilling its purpose because of those bugs.

It’s Not Players’ Faults, But Still, Stop Paying For This

I’m not going to victim blame players for expecting they’ll get what they paid for. If these games weren’t being released broken, getting to play early would be an understandable pull for superfans, although I still think it’s silly to pre-order a game you don’t know for sure will be worth the money before reviews,especiallyif you’re paying the higher price of a special edition with early access included.

The Ultimate edition of the game cost $130. The Standard Edition was $60 less than that.

I am instead blaming publishers who are taking advantage of player FOMO to make some extra money. The entire idea of ‘early access’ in this sense of the phrase is flawed – technically, players who pay more aren’t getting to play the game early, the publishers are just delaying it for people who pay normal price. It’s more greedy than anything.

I don’t even understand why this practice is being referred to as ‘early access’, because that’s already a thing that exists. It’s when developers put an incomplete game out to get feedback from players while it’s still earlier in development, letting people who get in early influence the final product. Players getting in a couple of days before official release aren’t getting to do that,andthey’re paying way more. I guess they’re still playing an incomplete game, though, considering it’s usually an inferior, buggier version in comparison to what players who start after day one patches are playing.

The worst part is that the more this shady, predatory practice is marketed to players, the more audiences will continue to pay more for a worse experience. And the more they pay, the more publishers will be emboldened to keep doing it, despite the fact that there’s a very real chance the time you paid for will be taken away from you. It’s the publishers’ faults, but players are enabling it by going along with it. This is one of the most annoying trends in gaming right now, and greed ensures it’ll just keep happening.