As I have expressed before, I do not like the Early Access program on Steam. Sure, there are many games that ended up being a total success through the program, Subnautica being the prime example, but you can't say the same for an overwhelming majority of them. Early Access is the silliest thing ever. Developers used to pay people to test their games and now it's the other way around. It also makes them lazy: they already got our precious cash so there is absolutely no reason for them to get the product out quickly or provide meaningful update in a timely manner to the games being developed. Since I have been on a survival game binge lately, I have been lax with my "completed game" requirement and gotten titles that are still in Early Access. Thankfully, most of them are very playable though some of are showing signs of developer malaise like this horror I saw in 7 Days to Die:
My character is so handsome... and so blurry.
I was playing this game with the highest possible settings and the textures on the character model was just... bad. The whole game is actually pretty ugly. And let's see, this game has been in Early Access since December of 2013? And it's still in alpha? I should have known better. Since I read a lot of good things about the game, I just couldn't help myself because it was cheap during the recent Lunar New Year Sale. Steam should place a limit on Early Access in which developers who took longer than a year in the program must offer a full refund to all paying customers while still allowing them to keep the games. Just like pornographic VR games that are now flooding the store ever since Valve started allowing such creative liberties on Steam, Early Access games are getting out of control. While the former is a victory in gaming freedom, even though I don't partake in them, Early Access games are starting to look like a scam. 7 Days to Die seems playable though despite the visual presentation and oh, despite the name, I did die on day one thanks to a nasty bug that kept teleporting me away from a settlement before I could reach it. That's Early Access for you.
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