While Steam Early Access was initially a great way for developers of smaller titles to release games a bit early in order to get gamers in on the development process and help fund the game's further development, there have been very few solid examples of that working as intended.
Kerbal Space Program is one such success story, offering thousands of hours of gameplay to some before it's far from feature complete. However there are many other disappointing stories of developers releasing games well before they're ready, or in-many cases, even fun. Often those developers have stopped working on the games as soon as the pre-orders dry up.
Valve wants to put a stop to that.
In a new piece of Early Access documentation, Giant Bomb spotted the following new clauses:
Early Access games must be named as such when keys for them are distributed on other websites to make sure customers know what they're buying into.
Developers should not make "specific promises about future events" so that customers will buy a game based on what it offers now, instead of what it may or may not offer in the future.
For the sake of consistency, Early Access games must be released on Steam at the same time as on other online stores, and their price on Steam cannot be higher than it is elsewhere.
Valve also released guidelines for developers, like not releasing a game into early access if they cannot afford to live on just a few sales, and setting proper expectations for a game's success - chances are, you didn't just make the next Minecraft.
Most of all though, don't enter early access if your game is barely playable and certainly don't do so if you plan to stop development before it's done.
What do you guys think of these guidelines? Will they help people from getting screwed by the Early Access process?
