Amplitude have always used early access for their games, even before Steam Early Access was a thing. Ahead of Endless Space's release in July 2012, players who preordered the game got immediate access to an alpha build that was steadily patched and updated on the lead up to launch.
To this day, the studio still uses its Games2Gether program, where they discuss design issues with players and poll them for thoughts on how to proceed. Right now, there are a small group of players giving feedback on the recently announced Humankind 2.
However, as Amplitude prepare to launch Endless Legend 2 after a year in early access, co-founder and CEO Romain de Waubert de Genlis readily admits "The whole thing has changed over time."
"With Endless Space, we were one of the first games in Early Access on Steam, before it was called Early Access," de Waubert de Genlis recalls. He remembers the trouble getting journalists to play and cover their games – "The game's not finished. Why would I come? Let me wait for them to be finished and then I will write an article on it.". This was also a time before influencers were what they are now, so it was a more private relationship with dedicated players. "It was just between Steam players and us. Undercover." When their games launched out of early access, that's when they would see an "avalanche" of players.
"Nowadays, it's a bit different," de Waubert de Genlis says. "More players come in early access, more journalists, more influencers. What we don't know is that if they came for early access, will they come again?" He says that journalists may preview a game in early access but that's no guarantee of a review. (Edwin previewed Endless Legend 2, for example, but we aren't currently working on a review.) "Will we have that avalanche of players coming in again or will it be a small batch?", he wonders.
Like other developers, they've taken to holding back a big update for launch day to give players a reason to turn up for 1.0. Endless Legend 2's full launch sees three new factions added to the game, taking its roster of five to eight, and there are many other changes being made across the game. "There's a lot of stuff," de Waubert de Genlis says. "But we don't know if everyone sees it that way."
But it's not only their approach to early access development that has changed, attitudes towards the release style have inverted. "Going back to 10, 15 years ago, people understood very well it was an unfinished game," de Waubert de Genlis says, adding that if a game was too polished then players would complain – "They were like 'This isn't early access, you should be making the game with us.'" That attitude is very different now. "Now if you come to early access with an unfinished game you'll get crushed," de Waubert de Genlis says. "'I paid you 50 euros and you give me an unfinished game?' The expectations are not the same at all."
That change is a challenge, de Waubert de Genlis says, because it doesn't allow for experimentation. "Originally, I was still seeing it as we could try things, and trying things means you're allowed to make mistakes because if you want to be creative you have to try things and sometimes it will work, but sometimes it will not work. You learn from that and you improve and in the end you have something solid but the path could be a bit rocky, or else you have no risk and and you have something flat. So it is tricky."
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/15-years-ago-people-understood-it-was-an-unfinished-game-as-endless-legend-2-hits-10-amplitude-reflect-on-how-early-access-has-changed
