Valve Adding New Rules to Early Access Games

Steam, as you know, started a program called Early Access in March of 2013 with a rather lofty, ambitious goal: allow developers to publish their games in-progress so they can acquire a fan base and funding while development continues. Since its original 12-game start, the program has grown out of control, with hundreds if not thousands of early-access games hitting the virtual marketplace—with some being wildly successful while others are decidedly not.

The decidedly not ones, in fact, have led to a lot of controversy, as poorly-made, shoddy titles are thrown onto the Steam storefront as “early access” titles despite A: never being finished or B: not really deserving to be. People have cried foul, attacked critics, and sometimes refunds were issued.

Well, after getting flack for not doing more to keep the crap off the shelf, it seems like Valve is finally ready to do something about it, and has officially issued some new rules and guidelines for games being submitted under the “early access” category.

First of all, a game has to always be advertised and sold under the guise of Early Access—even when the game is being sold on marketplaces other than Steam. Likewise, the price has to be uniform across all platforms, and must launch simultaneously over stem as they do on other marketplaces.

Secondly, Steam is forbidding games from advertising or teasing features that aren’t yet present in the game. You cannot make promises to customers about future content or release dates. Specifically, Valve say:

"There is no way you can know exactly when the game will be finished, that the game will be finished, or that planned future additions will definitely happen. Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized."

In addition to those two new rules, some non-obligatory suggestions were also listed, namely:

• Don't launch in Early Access if you can't afford to develop with very few or no sales.
• Make sure you set expectations properly everywhere you talk about your game.
• Don't launch in Early Access without a playable game.
• Don't launch in Early Access if you are done with development.

Pretty straightforward stuff, but it’s still some welcome changes. It probably won’t stop crap from finding its way to early access, but at least with these rules they’ll be easier to kick out of Steam when they cause trouble.