gaming Whats the worst gaming era/generation in your views

[Laurel 43]

in my views it has to be the early 2000s. Mostly 2000 to 2003. 3D games was starting to come on PS2 and PC. But with games i remember mostly is

 

Warcraft 3

Prince of Persia Trilogy, sands of time, warrior within and Two Thrones

GTA 3, vice city and San Andreas.

Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3

Broken Sword 3 and 4

Sonic Heroes/Shadow the Hedgehog

Ratchet and Clank 2 and 3, Gladiators and PS2 sequels. (1 was sort of interesting with the exploration but still not the greatest)

 

Basically what i dont like is i feel i am just wasting too much times. There is the idea of just doing stuff just for the sake of it, i dont feel rewarded or have a purpose. Thats basically how i feel everytime i go back to those games. Later games have done a much better job i think of creating the atmosphere of being rewarding and fun. Like Broken Sword Director's cut while i dont think its perfect its certainly more entertaining than 3 and 4 in the series. And i havent gotten far in Broken Sword 5 yet but its deffinetly doing justice.

 

And i have honestly not tried the later Prince of Persia, i somehow dont seem to like any of the games except maybe the DOS for nostalgic sake. But Assassin's Creed did it more justice in my view

 

What do you think?

Edited December 29, 2016 by Laurel

[Megas 27,060]

What gen was had the gaming crash happen? I pick that one

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

Today's gaming industry as a whole is not so good.

 

Sure, there are some true masterpieces around, but in a sea of crap. And by "crap", I mean all the pre-orders, Day 1 DLC, content from games that are stripped out and later re-sold as DLC, and yearly releases that have almost no changes to the game mechanic (Call of Duty is the perfect example). While I am a PC gamer, I used to be heavily vested in the consoles, specifically Playstation. It's because of the current consoles that I moved to PC. I was tired of having games that didn't look or run as good as they could because of woefully underpowered hardware. Also, having to pay to play online after the PS3 didn't require is really shitty.

 

I know exactly what is the root of this: Fanboys.

 

Fanboys are the ones who pre-order games based on an announcement or a tarted up launch trailer at E3, or buy them Day 1 without even waiting for reviews. (I will admit to being guilty of this.) Fanboys go around "supporting" one company or another because they have developed some kind of emotional attachment to a big corporation who only cares about getting their hard-earned dollar. Fanboys are the ones who defend shitty business practices, like paying to play online, or even a price hike for said pay-walls. Fanboys spread lies and misconception as fact. Fanboys want to see their competition "die off" without realizing that competition in the market is the only reason there even is any changes to hardware or software.

 

I know this didn't talk about games specifically, but my point is that publishers like Activision, EA, Konami, Ubisoft, Square Enix, etc. are not the reason why they operate as shitstains in today's gaming industry. It's the fanboys who defend and buy into these practices that gives these companies further incentive to do it. I've said this time and time again; the consumer is the reason why the gaming industry is in the toilet. There are good companies who deserve your money because of good business practices, but a lot do not.

 

The consumer has ultimate control, but we went down that path and I don't see it getting any better any time soon. If anything, it will only get worse.

[Kamii 594]

What about the video game crash of the early 1980's? That has to be the worst era ever.

[Laurel 43]

What gen was had the gaming crash happen? I pick that one

Crash 1,2,3 and CTR is perfection.

 

Crash Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity was in the 2000s. Although Twinsanity could've been worse to be honest i just think of it as lackluster.

 

 

What about the video game crash of the early 1980's? That has to be the worst era ever.

Lack of inspiration i consider it the reason it crashed. The 2000s i think lack innovation which is why i consider it the worst era for games. 2010 and upwards i think has done for the better recently. 1990s has lots of gold games in my view. Although Pokemon games i guess would be the best bet in the 2000s since they haven't changed much since it was made.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Laurel

[Kamii 594]

Crash 1,2,3 and CTR is perfection.

 

Crash Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity was in the 2000s. Although Twinsanity could've been worse to be honest i just think of it as lackluster.

 

I don't think that's what he/she meant x'D I think they meant the gaming crash of the 1980's.

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

Crash 1,2,3 and CTR is perfection.

 

Crash Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity was in the 2000s. Although Twinsanity could've been worse to be honest i just think of it as lackluster.

 

No, he was referring to the North American video game crash of 1983, which was caused by a flooded console market, no quality control for games, and overproduction of games which led to only an estimated 10% actually turning 75% of sales, with sales figures dropping from $3 billion in 1982, to as low as $100 million in 1985. It wasn't until Nintendo actually stepped in with the NES, branding it as an entertainment system (hence the name NES). They also introduced quality control for their games. That being the "Nintendo Seal of Approval", which is still being used today. Similar standards were introduced by other companies. By 1988, the industry had generated $2.3 billion, with 70% of the marketshare held by Nintendo.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Vulon Bii

[Laurel 43]

No, he was referring to the North American video game crash of 1983, which was caused by a flooded console market, no quality control for games, and overproduction of games which led to only an estimated 10% actually turning 75% of sales, with sales figures dropping from $3 billion in 1982, to as low as $100 million in 1985. It wasn't until Nintendo actually stepped in with the NES, branding it as an entertainment system (hence the name NES). They also introduced quality control for their games. That being the "Nintendo Seal of Approval", which is still being used today.

Yeah i read too fast. My bad.

 

But 2006 is a very infamous year for video games. Sonic 2006, but i do know a few games that arent the best that year either. And i can assume because it tried to improve and make graphics shine on a new engine like the use of physics engine and stuff to add to the realism, and due to that the overall game animations and function didn't work a 100%

 

If one for example look at "Donkey Kong Country Returns". That works, the background is fully alive and the graphics are charming and its an overall fun game. I am not saying all modern games are perfect but they work and thats what i think they improved upon. Now all what is needed is creative people making new ideas. Yooka Laylee is one which i am looking forward to seeing more of to mention one example.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Laurel

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

But 2006 is a very infamous year for video games.

 

A shitty modern Sonic game is not it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOHqG1nc_tw

[trademark2 485]

I think the worst era was the gamecube era

Edited December 29, 2016 by trademark2

[Laurel 43]

I think the worst era was the gamecube era

I tend to like it over Wii even if GameCube could be described as somewhat lackluster and i dont want to get it again. I mean Wii had some good games but to hook up the censor infront of the TV is such a pain when i have to vacuum clean and stuff. But i did like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns on it. But GameCube i think had in someway better graphics than Wii if you for example look at Mario Kart Double Dash, although i am glad they focused on making games rather than trying to be pure graphical achievements of specs.

[Envy 5,998]

Speaking solely of Nintendo (I happily own a PS2, PS3, and PS4 so this isn't so much bias speaking lol) I think that the Wii era was the worst by far, and for two reasons:

 

1. Nintendo went too far into gimmickry. What makes today's consoles (including the Wii U, yes) an improvement is that they force the gimmickry on you less. Many Wii games did not allow for options in controlling them, and the Wii Remote was required to get past the main menu. On the Wii, games that didn't benefit from motion control at all, like Animal Crossing City Folk (a bad AC game, but we'll talk about that later) required it, even to their detriment (trying to make patterns in CF with the Wii Remote is the worst thing ever). And up until Skyward Sword, I never found the motion controls to add anything to games ever. Even in the loved by almost everyone Super Mario Galaxy games, it was only gimmickry to me. As I mentioned above, it is gimmickry that goes beyond gimmickry, it is annoying, and at times it made the Wii very hard to even play for me (at one point the censor's very weak power cord broke, making it impossible for me to play even GCN games that don't even need the Wii Remote until I got a new one)

 

2. The games. After the high-quality games of the N64 and GCN era I had very high expectations. Perhaps when that happens and they're bound to fail, but no, some of these games were slopped together, while otherwise Nintendo changed them to something different. City Folk is the worst offender. I loved Animal Crossing GCN so much. I accepted Wild World but thought Nintendo could do better. I was hoping that CF was when they would do better. They didn't. CF is a worse game than Wild World... Because it is pretty much a watered-down port of Wild World to the Wii. It's watered down because the developers didn't care about the game, either that or they were rushed. I don't know. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a disappointment. Not one I can really point at and say is bad like City Folk, but too much work was put in some places as opposed to others, and it really shows. And yes, I'll even say it: The Super Mario Galaxy games are a disappointment, too. Sure they have pretty graphics and music, but I found the sheer linearity of the levels to be a disappointment compared to Sunshine and 64... And since then that's all we've gotten.

[Discordian 6,013]

Anything pre-PS1. Gaming has only ever gotten better since then. Before that was when technology couldn't keep up with the ideas so 99% of games were barely playable or just a shadow of what they could have been.

[Steve Piranha 28,765]

Speaking solely of Nintendo (I happily own a PS2, PS3, and PS4 so this isn't so much bias speaking lol) I think that the Wii era was the worst by far, and for two reasons:

 

1. Nintendo went too far into gimmickry. What makes today's consoles (including the Wii U, yes) an improvement is that they force the gimmickry on you less. Many Wii games did not allow for options in controlling them, and the Wii Remote was required to get past the main menu. On the Wii, games that didn't benefit from motion control at all, like Animal Crossing City Folk (a bad AC game, but we'll talk about that later) required it, even to their detriment (trying to make patterns in CF with the Wii Remote is the worst thing ever). And up until Skyward Sword, I never found the motion controls to add anything to games ever. Even in the loved by almost everyone Super Mario Galaxy games, it was only gimmickry to me. As I mentioned above, it is gimmickry that goes beyond gimmickry, it is annoying, and at times it made the Wii very hard to even play for me (at one point the censor's very weak power cord broke, making it impossible for me to play even GCN games that don't even need the Wii Remote until I got a new one)

 

2. The games. After the high-quality games of the N64 and GCN era I had very high expectations. Perhaps when that happens and they're bound to fail, but no, some of these games were slopped together, while otherwise Nintendo changed them to something different. City Folk is the worst offender. I loved Animal Crossing GCN so much. I accepted Wild World but thought Nintendo could do better. I was hoping that CF was when they would do better. They didn't. CF is a worse game than Wild World... Because it is pretty much a watered-down port of Wild World to the Wii. It's watered down because the developers didn't care about the game, either that or they were rushed. I don't know. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a disappointment. Not one I can really point at and say is bad like City Folk, but too much work was put in some places as opposed to others, and it really shows. And yes, I'll even say it: The Super Mario Galaxy games are a disappointment, too. Sure they have pretty graphics and music, but I found the sheer linearity of the levels to be a disappointment compared to Sunshine and 64... And since then that's all we've gotten.

I agree with you with the WII, it was a disappointment for us who stuck with the GCN and you'd pretty much covered it why . But I'm particularly not done with that generation: While the WIIappointment happened, got a PS3, had a blast with it.... until the shitty practices started showing their ugly faces half-way. With all the dominant bad AAA games dominating, with their preorder, tons of DLC, and shit, it's hard to pick masterpieces with so much average and shitty games . I believe the industry will suffer a crash in the future due to these practices, but with so many consumers it'll take time 

[Slammy 58]

Personally I feel that late Xbox 360/PS3/Wii U and early Xbox One and PS4 was an absolutely terrible time for games. A lot of really (in my opinion) bad practices started to shine through around this time, such as micro-transactions in fully priced games, and games rushed out in a largely unfinished state. On the pc side of things, we got the poorly executed Steam Greenlight which has pretty much flooded Steam with tons of really bad games and asset flips.

The Wii U massively flopped too thanks to the terrible advertising campaign and both the Xbox One and PS4 had really poor starts. Though I definitely think things have gotten way better since then, but some of the issues are still around even if less common.

 

 

I agree with you with the WII, it was a disappointment for us who stuck with the GCN and you'd pretty much covered it why . But I'm particularly not done with that generation: While the WIIappointment happened, got a PS3, had a blast with it.... until the shitty practices started showing their ugly faces half-way. With all the dominant bad AAA games dominating, with their preorder, tons of DLC, and shit, it's hard to pick masterpieces with so much average and shitty games . I believe the industry will suffer a crash in the future due to these practices, but with so many consumers it'll take time 

I highly doubt that the game industry will have such a major crash again as part of the reason it happened the first time was that there was zero way of knowing if a game was worth the money or not. Thanks to the readily available internet nowadays, people are actually able to check on the quality of a game before they buy it. I think it might lead to some rather large changes if the current trends continues. I can see people getting real fed up with some of the scummy practices, and they may resort to buying more non-AAA games which while not perfect, are much more clear of the money-grabbing schemes. AAA games really need to step up their game (no pun intended) soon or face the consequences of being so anti-consumer.

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

It would have to be the video game market crash of 1983. You can blame Atari for releasing games that were so sub-par in terms of quality all because they wanted to meet the Christmas deadline. Other developers can also be blamed as they released shovel ware just to make a quick buck on Atari's console. To think what might have happened had Nintendo not saved the industry from itself back during its infancy.

[Kamii 594]

But 2006 is a very infamous year for video games.

 

It could be a pretty bad year for games, sure. But two of my favorite games of all time came out (in Europe) in 2006: Okami and Shadow of the Colossus (ok, Okami was in 2007, but Bully is also from 2006 and I wuv it ^w^). Unfortunately, I've gotta disagree with you here...

 

EDIT: Just to add something, I read a few posts about the Wii being lackluster. It could have been way better with better quality control and better controls overall but that's the console I have to thank for becoming a gamer in the first place. So many amazing games like Okami, Mario Galaxy, a few Legend of Zelda games.. even SSB Brawl was better than the ones before.

Edited December 30, 2016 by - Baby Squirwell -

[Flutterstep 46,279]

I think the era of games we are getting now is the worst. The PS4 and Xbox One are not future proof like the Xbox 360 and PS3 were. Games are already reaching their peek and they aren't even that great. Lazy remasters are coming in along with boring copy and paste bullet sponge MMOs. Nothing truly feels "Next Gen", like it did on the PS2 and Xbox 360 at the time. Let's not forget about season passes and missing content you have to buy after already buying a game. Before, DLC was additional content; now, DLC is halted content saved for the future. Also, not to forget micro-transactions.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,268]

I don't think anything can top the early 80's in terms of an awful era of gaming. Sure, gaming was just starting to hit major mainstream popularity for the first time and yes, gaming today definitely has its problems, but back then, it was all out chaos. Game systems releasing every other day, games for these systems popping up everywhere, whether they were approved or not, and back then, video game developers were never credited for their work and often, they were worked to ridiculous levels. Many of these games also were sold over $20 before the crash happened, which would be about $40 today. I just bought 3 games digitally on the Xbox Live sale for less than that price.

 

Gaming today has all sorts of issues, but there are many, many things I am thankful for when I look back at the video game crash era.

Speaking solely of Nintendo (I happily own a PS2, PS3, and PS4 so this isn't so much bias speaking lol) I think that the Wii era was the worst by far, and for two reasons:

 

1. Nintendo went too far into gimmickry. What makes today's consoles (including the Wii U, yes) an improvement is that they force the gimmickry on you less. Many Wii games did not allow for options in controlling them, and the Wii Remote was required to get past the main menu. On the Wii, games that didn't benefit from motion control at all, like Animal Crossing City Folk (a bad AC game, but we'll talk about that later) required it, even to their detriment (trying to make patterns in CF with the Wii Remote is the worst thing ever). And up until Skyward Sword, I never found the motion controls to add anything to games ever. Even in the loved by almost everyone Super Mario Galaxy games, it was only gimmickry to me. As I mentioned above, it is gimmickry that goes beyond gimmickry, it is annoying, and at times it made the Wii very hard to even play for me (at one point the censor's very weak power cord broke, making it impossible for me to play even GCN games that don't even need the Wii Remote until I got a new one)

 

2. The games. After the high-quality games of the N64 and GCN era I had very high expectations. Perhaps when that happens and they're bound to fail, but no, some of these games were slopped together, while otherwise Nintendo changed them to something different. City Folk is the worst offender. I loved Animal Crossing GCN so much. I accepted Wild World but thought Nintendo could do better. I was hoping that CF was when they would do better. They didn't. CF is a worse game than Wild World... Because it is pretty much a watered-down port of Wild World to the Wii. It's watered down because the developers didn't care about the game, either that or they were rushed. I don't know. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a disappointment. Not one I can really point at and say is bad like City Folk, but too much work was put in some places as opposed to others, and it really shows. And yes, I'll even say it: The Super Mario Galaxy games are a disappointment, too. Sure they have pretty graphics and music, but I found the sheer linearity of the levels to be a disappointment compared to Sunshine and 64... And since then that's all we've gotten.

Yeeeees, someone else who sees it the same way I do. While the way gave me some good memories and it had some damn good titles, looking back, I friggin hate that system. Gimmicky, insanely underpowered and not built to last at all (by this I mean the insanely outdated hardware) and it simply made Nintendo arrogant. Not to mention it was a third party disaster and any third party wanting to make a great game for it was pretty much ignored by Nintendo at the time. I appreciate that they wanted to try something a bit different I guess, but even then, the motion controls weren't spectacular at all. Most of it was simply 'waggle' controls. I personally think it is one of Nintendo's worst systems overall.

[Stone Cold Steve Jobs 22,410]

This current one without a doubt. When i was little, you could go to a store, spend $35-$40, and get a complete game, and have the option of expansion packs later. Nowadays, you can spend $60-$70 for a half completed game, and then they just give you the rest in dlc after charging you more.

 

And Early Access? Gaming's best selling scam.

[Steve Piranha 28,765]

I don't think anything can top the early 80's in terms of an awful era of gaming. Sure, gaming was just starting to hit major mainstream popularity for the first time and yes, gaming today definitely has its problems, but back then, it was all out chaos. Game systems releasing every other day, games for these systems popping up everywhere, whether they were approved or not, and back then, video game developers were never credited for their work and often, they were worked to ridiculous levels. Many of these games also were sold over $20 before the crash happened, which would be about $40 today. I just bought 3 games digitally on the Xbox Live sale for less than that price.

 

Gaming today has all sorts of issues, but there are many, many things I am thankful for when I look back at the video game crash era.

Yeeeees, someone else who sees it the same way I do. While the way gave me some good memories and it had some damn good titles, looking back, I friggin hate that system. Gimmicky, insanely underpowered and not built to last at all (by this I mean the insanely outdated hardware) and it simply made Nintendo arrogant. Not to mention it was a third party disaster and any third party wanting to make a great game for it was pretty much ignored by Nintendo at the time. I appreciate that they wanted to try something a bit different I guess, but even then, the motion controls weren't spectacular at all. Most of it was simply 'waggle' controls. I personally think it is one of Nintendo's worst systems overall.

It was, the reason it was so commercially successful, it's because the casual games were drawn to it, and it was a time where mobile free to play games didn't exist. Sadly, games were..... fine at best, and those were far in between. Most of them were trash. Hell, 2016 worst year? Try enduring a year stuck with a WII where the best they've showed off was the WII Music

 

Personally I feel that late Xbox 360/PS3/Wii U and early Xbox One and PS4 was an absolutely terrible time for games. A lot of really (in my opinion) bad practices started to shine through around this time, such as micro-transactions in fully priced games, and games rushed out in a largely unfinished state. On the pc side of things, we got the poorly executed Steam Greenlight which has pretty much flooded Steam with tons of really bad games and asset flips.

The Wii U massively flopped too thanks to the terrible advertising campaign and both the Xbox One and PS4 had really poor starts. Though I definitely think things have gotten way better since then, but some of the issues are still around even if less common.

 

 

I highly doubt that the game industry will have such a major crash again as part of the reason it happened the first time was that there was zero way of knowing if a game was worth the money or not. Thanks to the readily available internet nowadays, people are actually able to check on the quality of a game before they buy it. I think it might lead to some rather large changes if the current trends continues. I can see people getting real fed up with some of the scummy practices, and they may resort to buying more non-AAA games which while not perfect, are much more clear of the money-grabbing schemes. AAA games really need to step up their game (no pun intended) soon or face the consequences of being so anti-consumer.

Sure, at this point the industry being close to collapse like back then is night impossible, I do believe a crash WILL happen, at a minor degree sure, but it'll happen. The industry won't fall, but many companies will go bankrupt, other will banish from the face of the earth, and the flow of games will be reduced. 

[joanro 247]

I guess I would have to say this gen as well. There are good things and bad things about this gen. For example, I read people talking about games being released as a finished product in past generations, but that was not always the case. There were definitely unfinished or buggy games released in the past as well. However, if a game was a buggy mess back then there was no possibility of it ever being fixed or patched like there is now. On another note, I do not think micro-transactions are as big a deal as people make them it out to be, especially if it's for something that is purely cosmetic like costumes or weapon skins. I hear people constantly complaining about micro-transactions in games like Gears of War 4. No one is forcing anyone to purchase these things and having these things does not give them any advantage over other people who did not purchase them, so what is everyone complaining about? Guess how many micro-transactions I've made in that game since I purchased it...zero. It has no effect on my enjoyment of the game whatsoever.

 

What has bothered me about this gen is the amount of re-released games. I admit I have purchased a few of these games, but I'd rather have new games even if they are sequels instead of playing an old game I've played last gen with slightly better graphics. I also dislike how there seems to be so much emphasis on graphics. It's great there is more foliage in said game, but does having that make the game somehow much more enjoyable?  

Edited December 31, 2016 by joanro

[Concerned Bystander 2,901]

The worst generation?

 

Easy.  Right now.

 

Too many different genres of games have been subsumed into a single bland homogenised FPS genre.  There is still a bit of variety of course, strategy and puzzle games etc. but on the whole the gaming industry seems intent on dispensing with diversity and the 'gene pool' of games is becoming ever shallower.

[Once In A Blue Moon 894]

I don't really have much experience of games made prior to 2000 (well, aside from a spot of Red Alert, Tiberian Sun, X-COM and a few others) but my experience has been of constant, if not entirely consistent improvement. For all that F.E.A.R. and Rome Total War were great games (and ones that I still play occasionally) to compare them to their more modern iterations (Rome 2 and F.3.A.R.) misses the point. Yes, I rate the originals higher than their sequels because they were some of the best of their generation, but if you're comparing one generation with another then they're up against the best comparable games - and, at least in my view, Crysis is generally better* than F.E.A.R. and ... hmmmm... maybe there hasn't really been a game that completely dethrones Rome in a like-for-like manner, but it certainly isn't my go-to light tactics/strategy game any more (I usually go for a dedicated tactics or strategy game these days.) And I haven't touched the original X-COM since Xenonauts came out.

 

Certainly if you pick the best of each generation then you are going to see an improving trend - any given genres have good and bad periods (traditional RTS hit a nasty point, and was pretty much just Starcraft II for quite some time... and kind of still is, although I heard good stuff about Grey Goo) but this disappears in the bigger picture of more games being produced, more experienced developers and a much wider audience, all of which are good things.

 

New problems such as pre-order-centric design, bug-ridden launches and suchlike are an issue, but for now at least I've avoided them by waiting. Maybe there will be some future game design apocalypse that will render this tactic ineffective (I doubt it) but for the time being I can just scrape the best games off the top a year or two later, and at a cheaper price than at launch too (X-COM 2, the last game I bought close to release, has fallen from £40 at release to £35  now, three months later; that's around £1.60 per month, and it will probably have a temporary sale price under £20 at some point in the next year.) The rule of thumb that Rome II taught me the hard way is that if games aren't going to be finished on release then don't buy them on release^.  

 

Errmmm... the point to this.... ah yes. The best generation is this one, and it will be until the next one arrives. As a corollary of this, each generation is better than the one before it, thus rendering the first one the worst (let's be honest, for all its neat simplicity Pong isn't a patch on practically any functional game today.)  

 

 

 

*not uniformly, or without caveats, but if I was forced to choose between them I would go with Crysis as I enjoy it more. And although I haven't played it yet, the new Doom game will probably beat both of them.

 

^Purge the pre-orders! Scorn the launch day sales! 50% off or no deal!

Edited January 3, 2017 by Once In A Blue Moon

[\/ 650]

This current one without a doubt. When i was little, you could go to a store, spend $35-$40, and get a complete game, and have the option of expansion packs later. Nowadays, you can spend $60-$70 for a half completed game, and then they just give you the rest in dlc after charging you more.

 

And Early Access? Gaming's best selling scam.

DLC isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, there are some shitty rip-offs out there, but lots of games have okay DLC. And I'm pretty games have cost about the same price as they did 6 years ago. $60 new releases have always been a thing. There are notable exceptions, but that's just what they are, exceptions.

 

Early Access games can be great. You just have to pick the right ones. If you're worried about the game getting dropped, check out the developers. See how many updates it's been given in the past year. If it's new to Early Access, give it some time and see how it works. I've picked up some really good Early Access titles in the past, and I still enjoy them today.