The folks at GOG continue their evolution towards full Steam-like platform with the introduction of their own Early Access style program. Called Games In Development, it will offer the same service you’re used to from Steam in terms of games that are playable but in alpha or beta states. It’s also looking far more curated right now, with just five high-profile (and good, but not old) games making their debut.
Here’s our guide to how to succeed on Early Access according to the devs who have.
The first games on the service are the following, all currently available at discount running until February 2nd:
- Starbound, 33% off
- Ashes of the Singularity, 25% off
- Project Zomboid, 40% off
- TerraTech, 30% off
- The Curious Expedition, 15% off
GOG Managing DirectorPiotr Karwowski confirmed in a statement that it wouldn’t be as open a platform as Greenlight or Early Access, saying “We want all gamers on GOG.com to have access to what these titles have to offer, but we want to get it right, carefully evaluating each and every game, offering a 14-day refund policy, and providing GOG Galaxy support with update rollback and more.”
The press release is keen to make it clear that the refund policy has no limits other than the 14 days – if you’re unhappy for any reason, you can send it back. Karwowski also explains how GOG Galaxyrollback – which is a totally optional client – works:
“If a game update breaks something or introduces unwanted changes, GOG Galaxy lets you easily rollback to any previous version of your game while you wait for the fixes.As an added bonus, rollback actually stores historical snapshots throughout a game’s development – that means you can always revisit any point in the game’s history with a single click.”
That’s actually fairly massive for a lot of different communities. It helps developers not worry about pushing broken updates by accident, means amateurs can see the process across its lifetime and players can revert if they just prefer an old version. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect Valve are working on, but struggling with the scale of their own system to implement it. GOG don’t have that issue when it’s only five games they have to support in this way, adding them irregularly and carefully from teams they trust. They’ll be looking at the community wishlist to help expand it, if you want to influence.