What happens to the money when 75% of early access games never finish development?
Developers keep it. Players who paid for the promise of eventual completion get nothing except access to abandoned prototypes that will never improve. Steam Early Access launched in 2013 as tool for indie developers to fund ongoing development while building communities around unfinished games. The model works brilliantly when developers actually complete games. Manor Lords demonstrates this by using early access revenue to hire additional team members and improve already-solid foundations. However, statistics reveal that only 25% of early access titles ever reach version 1.0 release. The remaining 75% either get abandoned entirely or remain trapped in development hell for years without meaningful progress. Players purchasing these games aren’t supporting development. They’re paying to beta test software that will never be finished.
The Grim Mathematics
The three-year average development time for successful early access games sounds reasonable until you realize this statistic only includes the minority that actually complete. The 75% that never finish often remain in early access for five, seven, or ten years before developers finally abandon them without refunding anyone. Seven Days to Die spent over a decade in early access before finally releasing. Beyond All Reason has been in development for twenty years. These extreme examples aren’t outliers demonstrating unusual dedication. They’re warning signs about how early access enables indefinite development without accountability for delivering promised products.
The failure rate creates perverse incentives where launching early access represents low-risk revenue opportunity regardless of whether developers can actually complete projects. A developer can build basic prototype, release it as early access, collect purchase revenue from enthusiastic early adopters, and then abandon the project if development becomes difficult or unprofitable. Steam’s refund policy provides minimal protection because the two-hour window closes quickly when testing early access content. Players who spend three hours evaluating whether games show promise lose refund eligibility despite purchasing explicitly unfinished products that might never be completed.
The mathematics get worse when considering that average development time only measures successful completions. Failed projects might receive sporadic updates for six months before abandonment. Others might get yearly updates that add minor features while avoiding core issues preventing completion. The time and money invested in these failed projects represents pure loss for players because they receive nothing of lasting value. The abandoned builds remain accessible through Steam libraries but provide no meaningful gameplay because fundamental features remain unimplemented and bugs never get fixed.
What Players Actually Bought
Early access purchases are bets on developer capability and commitment to finish projects. Players aren’t buying games. They’re buying promises that games will eventually exist. This fundamental transaction gets obscured by the fact that playable builds exist at purchase time. However, those builds are explicitly incomplete and only valuable if development continues improving them toward finished states. The value proposition depends entirely on developers delivering on completion promises. When 75% of developers fail to deliver, most early access purchases become payments for products that will never exist in promised forms.
The transaction creates unusual situations where players lose money even when they enjoy early access content. A player might spend twenty hours with early access game and feel satisfied with that experience. However, they purchased based on promises of future content and completion. If the developer abandons the game before delivering promised features, the player received incomplete product regardless of whether they enjoyed the limited content that did exist. The satisfaction with partial experience doesn’t negate the fact that the transaction fundamentally failed because the purchased product was never delivered.
This differs from traditional game purchases where players buy finished products and receive exactly what they paid for. Early access transactions include explicit understanding that current builds are incomplete and value depends on future development. The promise of completion is part of what players are purchasing. When developers abandon projects, they’re keeping money from sales that included completion promises as core component of value proposition. This isn’t significantly different from crowdfunding campaigns that fail to deliver products except that early access provides playable builds that create illusion of having received something for the money spent.
The Excuse Factory
Early access status functions as universal excuse for any criticism. Game has game-breaking bugs? It’s early access. Features are missing? Still in development. Performance is terrible? They’re working on optimization. The label provides developers with infinite time to address problems because they can always claim work is ongoing. However, the 75% abandonment rate proves that most developers using these excuses never actually fix the identified problems. The excuses just buy time until developers abandon projects or players stop caring about improvements that will never arrive.
The excuse protection also enables developers to avoid accountability for poor design decisions or technical incompetence. A finished game that crashes constantly gets destroyed in reviews. An early access game with identical problems gets defended as work in progress. The different standards mean developers can release fundamentally broken software and avoid consequences by labelling it early access. The protection should theoretically motivate completing games to escape the excuses and receive credit for finished work. Instead, many developers prefer maintaining early access status indefinitely to preserve the excuse factory rather than face criticism that comes with claiming work is complete.
The permanent excuse state also affects how players evaluate games. Traditional reviews assess whether finished products justify asking prices. Early access reviews must account for future potential that may never materialize. Players have to evaluate not just current content but also developer track record, update frequency, communication quality, and likelihood of completion. This requires significantly more research and carries substantially more risk than purchasing finished games where quality can be assessed directly. The additional burden transfers risk from developers to customers while developers collect revenue regardless of whether they eventually deliver finished products.
Why Steam Allows This
Steam takes percentage of every early access sale regardless of whether games ever finish development. The platform has no financial incentive to enforce completion because revenue comes from initial sales rather than successful project delivery. Stricter standards requiring proof of capability or punishing abandonments would reduce the number of early access titles on the platform, which would reduce Steam’s revenue from this category. The current system maximizes Steam’s income by allowing any developer to launch early access projects without meaningful gatekeeping or accountability requirements.
The refund policy also protects Steam from liability when projects fail. Players who discover abandonment after playing more than two hours lose refund eligibility even though they purchased explicitly incomplete products. This differs from consumer protection standards in other industries where purchasing unfinished products that never get completed would typically warrant refunds regardless of how long purchases occurred before abandonment. Steam’s terms effectively prevent accountability by treating early access purchases identically to finished game purchases despite the fundamental difference in what’s being sold.
Steam could implement accountability measures like requiring minimum completion milestones, enforcing maximum early access durations, or extending refund windows for abandoned projects. The platform chooses not to because these protections would reduce revenue from early access category. The decision prioritizes short-term profit over long-term platform health because the 75% failure rate damages player trust in early access as viable purchasing option. However, enough successful projects exist to maintain player interest while unsuccessful projects continue generating revenue without consequences for Steam or developers who abandon them.
The Success Stories That Enable The System
Manor Lords represents early access working exactly as intended. The solo developer released solid foundation that felt nearly complete at early access launch. The influx of sales revenue enabled hiring additional team members for sound design and other improvements. The developer communicates regularly with community and implements feedback transparently. The game will almost certainly reach 1.0 release because the core product is already excellent and additional work is refinement rather than fundamental development. This success story validates the early access model and encourages other developers to attempt similar approaches.
However, Manor Lords succeeds partly because the developer already built complete game before releasing early access. The early access revenue enables improvements and polish rather than funding core development. This differs significantly from early access projects that launch with basic prototypes and promise to build complete games using early access revenue. The distinction matters because proven capability to complete projects dramatically increases success likelihood compared to developers attempting to learn game development while funding it through early access sales to trusting customers.
Minecraft provides another success story that shaped expectations around early access potential. The game spent years in early access development but eventually became one of the most successful games ever created. However, Minecraft succeeded through combination of visionary design, dedicated solo developer who lived on minimal income during development, and lightning-in-a-bottle cultural phenomenon that made the game popular despite rough early versions. Using Minecraft as early access template is like using lottery winners as financial planning models. The success was exceptional rather than replicable, but it created expectations that any early access game could achieve similar trajectories given sufficient time and player support.
What Players Should Expect
The 75% failure rate means players should assume most early access purchases will never result in finished games. This expectation changes the value calculation significantly. A $20 early access game that never finishes provides whatever content exists at purchase time. If that content is worth $20 based on current state, the purchase is reasonable. If the value depends on future development that probably won’t happen, the purchase is bad bet regardless of developer promises or community optimism. This conservative approach protects players from disappointment when developers abandon projects because expectations were calibrated to reality rather than promises.
The calculation also means players should heavily discount developer promises about planned features or completion timelines. Only current content matters because future content is substantially more likely to never materialize than to be delivered. A developer promising twenty additional hours of content means nothing if there’s 75% chance they’ll abandon the game before implementing any of it. The current build needs to justify the purchase price independently of any promises because the promises probably won’t be kept.
This pessimistic evaluation doesn’t mean avoiding early access entirely. It means treating early access purchases as paying for current content rather than future potential. Manor Lords is worth purchasing in current state even if development stopped tomorrow. That evaluation differs dramatically from purchasing early access game that’s unplayable mess with promises it will be great in two years. The second purchase depends entirely on future development that statistically will probably never happen. The conservative approach to early access purchases treats current quality as the only reliable indicator of value.
The Accountability Gap
Early access combines transparency about incomplete state with complete lack of accountability for actually finishing products. Developers can be perfectly honest about games being unfinished while never facing consequences for keeping money when they abandon development. The transparency feels like protection for players because developers explicitly state that purchases are for incomplete products. However, the transparency just provides legal cover for what amounts to selling products that will never be delivered in promised forms.
Real accountability would require mechanisms for recovering purchases when developers abandon projects or extending refund windows significantly beyond two hours for explicitly incomplete products. The current system protects developers and Steam while placing all risk on players who have no recourse when projects fail. The asymmetry is unusual compared to most commercial transactions where sellers bear some liability for failing to deliver promised goods or services. Early access essentially waives all seller liability by labeling everything as work in progress.
The accountability gap also prevents market feedback from working efficiently. In normal markets, businesses that fail to deliver products lose customers and develop negative reputations that prevent future sales. Early access developers can abandon multiple projects and launch new ones because each project is isolated transaction with no meaningful connection to developer reputation. Players might avoid specific abandoned games but they’ll still purchase new early access titles from developers with poor track records because the early access system provides no effective way to enforce accountability through reputation or financial consequences.
What Actually Needs To Change
The fundamental problem is that early access enables collecting revenue before delivering products without any mechanism for recovering funds when delivery fails. The solution is either extending refund windows dramatically for early access titles or requiring developers to escrow portions of revenue that only get released upon reaching completion milestones. Either approach would align developer incentives with completion rather than initial sales. Current system maximizes developer revenue from initial launches regardless of whether projects ever finish.
However, implementing these changes would require Steam to voluntarily reduce its revenue from early access category because stricter standards would reduce the number and profitability of early access launches. The platform has no competitive pressure forcing these changes because alternative platforms like Epic Games Store use similar early access models without additional protections. The lack of competition means Steam can maintain the current low-standards approach without losing business to platforms that better protect customers.
Players could theoretically force change through collective refusal to purchase early access titles until standards improve. However, the occasional success stories like Manor Lords maintain enough interest that boycotts are implausible. The pattern will likely persist until regulatory intervention forces consumer protection standards or until enough high-profile failures create crisis that damages early access category severely enough that Steam implements reforms to prevent complete collapse of player confidence in the model.
Is paying for early access reasonable when three out of four purchases fund games that will never be completed, or should players reject the model entirely until accountability matches transparency?
