I'm pretty sure you're threatening him with a good time.

His affinity for homoeroticism and drag is even stronger than your average manosphere chud.

Oh, for sure. I forgot that was even him. In twenty or thirty years, this useful meme template will be the entirety of his legacy. I find that funny, so I'll continue using the template.

Ya know, Calvin really has more in common with Crowder than you might think.

They obviously both childish. They're fundamentally selfish beings. They have incredibly vivid imaginations, but they only ever use them to amuse themselves and reinforce their delusion that they're the most important person. They believe themselves to be rebels against a banal and suffocating system, but in reality they're just irritating little shits, constantly acting upon every rogue impulse of their raging ego and id, with no regard for how they're making life hard for the people who have to live near them.

If that was strictly true, I would agree, and I wouldn't bother talking about it.

But it's NOT strictly true. There are Early Access developers who actually use the model to get funds for developing games, within reasonable timescales, and without doing exploitative shit.

It's important for Early Access to exist, because it's a way for independent developers to exist, completely outside of any big business control. A truly independent developer never has to deal with corporate jackals, breathing down their necks, demanding that they add more microtransactions and gambling into the game. They can make games that are truly outside the mainstream genres, without having to justify themselves to traditional investors.

These are GOOD THINGS. If I truly believed every single Early Access developer was just a scammer, I wouldn't bother saying any of this. I think Valve needs to get a handle on the system, rather than just letting it twist in the wind, the way they have been. There needs to be a time limit, before a game has to either be released, or else be cut off from further Early Access sales. They need to disallow DLC and other forms of microtransactions, within Early Access games. They need to establish rules about Early Access developers having connections with outside investors, and what exactly would be considered acceptable, within the system.

The developers who use the Early Access program the way it's supposed to be used are not making massive profits from it. They are paying for the up-front development costs of a game, and hoping that it will turn out to be a big enough success that it will continue to be profitable, after development is complete.

When people do annoying, scam-adjacent shit like selling DLC content for an Early Access game, it fuels opinions like yours. It makes people throw their hands up and say "Early Access is all a scam." And that fucking sucks. Because if it goes away, there's no alternative but for indie developers to sign up with traditional corporate psychos, who always try to make games worse.

There have been many truly amazing early access games though that might not have been made without it (rimworld, factorio, etc)

Nah there are actually good early access game (Palworld, and predecessor come to mind although predecessor is f2p) but one should use caution when buying Early access games

Same for Wube and Factorio, and Re-Logic and Terraria. I think we're on the 8th "final patch" for Terraria.

Found it on the Internet

So they'll have to avoid games based on what people say about them, and nobody will be able to hide behind the excuse of "but it's still in Early Access, maaaan."

Steam's refund system is really good. I say get rid of Early Access and let every game stand on an absolutely equal footing, with no excuses anywhere in sight, for anybody. No privileged "oooh, but you don't get to judge this game yet" roped-off section for people to play shell-games with.

Start selling your game any time you want, in any state you want. But beware the wrath of the consumer. That's fair.

EDIT: I realize this could seemingly contradict another comment I just made, where I defended the Early Access program, as a vital means of securing funds for independent developers. To be clear, I think that the function of Early Access should essentially remain, but not be labeled, in any default way.

I think all the games should be on the store, all the time, any time. And it should be up to each developer to make their case, on their own, as to why the customer should be willing to spend money on their product.

Don't call it stillborn, call it vaporware.