Early Access, a special benefit that is typically awarded to gamers who pre-order the deluxe or premium editions of a video game, allowing them to play it for several days early, exists merely for marketing purposes and does nothing to ensure that the official launch of a game goes smoothly, according to the latest thoughts shared by Mattias Lilja, deputy CEO of Cities: Skylines 2 publisher Paradox Interactive. Lilja’s comments come nearly a year after the release of the city builder by Colossal Order, which suffered a rough launch in late October 2023 due to major performance issues—problems that the executive says would not have been helped if it had offered Early Access for the game. A promo for the city builder, whose PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions remain indefinitely delayed, can be seen below.
…he doesn’t think that early access would have been the right way to go. It’s a “marketing tool” he says, which has “zero impact on the depth”. And players don’t really treat early access games as works-in-progress. “You’re in a live environment with actual people who want stuff in the game, which is the same as if you launch it. A dev team that thinks they’re going to have a nicer ride on an early access game, I think fool themselves.”