Jason Schreier: Makers of AAA titles should embrace Early Access

In his latest piece for Bloomberg, Jason Schreier looks at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 and sees bugs everywhere.

“Both games feature massive open worlds and high-end graphics, which leads to more glitches as code grows more elaborate” writes Schreier. The problem is further aggravated by the work-from-home policy.

While the release dates can only be pushed back so much, the developers can, of course, deliver post-release patches. It’s certainly a way out, but did it stop CD Projekt’s shares from dropping in price?

Schreier thinks that makers of AAA games should learn from the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, which came out in Early Access giving the devs all the freedom to update and patch the game until its official release.

What if a game like Cyberpunk followed suit? Maybe you could get a discount for buying in early? Tell players: “Look, we know the game isn’t quite bug-free just yet. You can wait a few months for the final product or pay $10 less to buy it right now.”

Jason Schreier