Paying To Play Early: Gaming's Sad New Scam (The Jimquisition) 

This is especially hilarious considering AAA games already charge $70 to play them early, since no AAA game ever arrives finished 🤣

It's the "influencer fee" that every Twitch streamer will happily pay so they can be part of that first wave of coverage.

The really sad thing is that what most of these games actually need is later release dates so the devs have enough time to actually finish them without crunch.

It's not paying to play early. It's paying to play first. It's an important distinction, and one I think needs to be made because "pay to play early" doesn't totally capture the cynicism behind this move. People aren't paying to play a game early, they're paying for the game to be delayed for everyone else.

I remember when I first found out about this method of scamming people by changing words. World of Warcraft, during its beta, had a detriment to exp, called 'unrested' or 'exhausted' or something; which was removed bit by bit over time if you stayed at or logged out in certain friendly zones. People hated it. So they renamed the normal exp to 'rested' and called it a bonus, and the debuffed exp became the standard, normal exp. People loved that. Nothing as changed but the names. The system was the exact same. At that moment I learned that simply renaming a bad thing to make it the new normal and renaming the normal thing to make it look better makes people think it is good deal. From that moment onward, I saw everything that does such a thing as the scam it is. Shops giving discounts? The normal product is overpriced by that much or more. Early access for buyers? You mean delayed release with paid exceptions, right?

I have a picture of Steph in my wallet, so whenever I feel the need open my wallet to buy a brand new collector's edition of a game, with battle passes, DLCs n'shit, I just look at her disapproving stare and put my wallet away...

Damn...I'm 35 years old and what you just said made me sad Jim. To the new generation, dlc, pay2win, lootboxes and other awful things are simply common because that's the world they grew up in

This is why I always buy a game a year or two after it releases.

The thing I find particularly gross about charging for "early release" is that early release actually provides a pretty extreme benefit to a lot of games. Any game with remote servers, really. Think of how many games have released, and their servers are slammed on day one as everyone tries to play the game. Now imagine you can convince half those people to slam the servers a week early instead. And they're charging for it. They're charging people to solve a technical problem on their side.

Back when Sears was a thing, they got in serious trouble over how horrendous their price hike then discount game was. The discounts were consistently pricier than the original price.

Re: the ending monologue - This is not about them selling you something of value. It's about them holding the customer hostage. You pay to access Starfield a week early because if you don't, you have to spend an entire week dodging spoilers and being acutely aware people are playing it without you. They are trying to create a situation where people who aren't buying into the early access are, essentially, socially tortured by those who did (unwittingly or otherwise), and then selling them relief from the torment.

One aspect of pre-order early access that I'm surprised to not have seen anyone (including Steph in this video) talk about, is that reviews for games can't be published until the actual release date, which given the growing trend of unfinished, unoptimised and buggy games on release has absolute potential to be exploitative, as players can't post reviews for the game on Steam, Metacritic, etc., often not even for a short period until after the launch.

Back in my day game studios paid game testers. Now players pay the studios to test the game.

I never understood why pre-order were a thing in the modern era of gaming. Pre orders made a little more sense when everything was physical but now there’s digital downloads so no such scarcity exists anymore. I guess when publishers are releasing half-finished or overly buggy games they wanna get that money up front before people can be disappointed

AAA could have also spun it as "pay $80 to play it on Day One, or we can give you a discount if you wait a few days".

I'm someone that plays sports games and it's wild that single player games have early access. Like Steph said FOMO. Very few games to me are worth buying day one because of how incomplete the game is and the 'promise' of road maps and season passes.

if there's any single group that these companies can count on to buy things "early", it's content creators. because having days of videos and blog posts ready to go in advance of anyone else gives them an advantage with engagement and income compared to if they sat on their hands and waited for the rest of the world to catch up. they've essentially monetized review embargos, in a way.

Good to see Zilla got hired onto the team. The edits recently have been amazing

I still remember the days when the release date for a game wasn't even that big a deal. Games would show up a day or two before their supposed release on store shelves, for no extra cost. How far we've fallen...

I've spent years not caring about release dates, only buying games months or years after release, complete and at a discount. Patience saves you a lot of money and disappointment. This is especially true considering how broken and incomplete games tend to release right now.

I really like the minimalist intro skits. Makes it easier to share these videos with people who don't know the Jimquisition already.

Of course this is what the tRIpLe aAa industry has cooked up next. 'All the money' seriously isn't enough for them - as we already knew, but still. Still! "Playing something early" is, basically, just pushing back the release date for everyone else. You're not exactly breaking any embargos here, gamers.

CEO's and COO's really don't like it when you point out to them that constant growth is a statistical impossibility.

Pay for patches is my guess for their next con (could say some DLCs are this already). Either a small fee for each one or they rehash the online pass thing and ship two versions of games, one without a code, another with a patch code that is £15 more expensive than your basic broken version. They'll say its only fair because we never used to have patches...

Imagine buying a digital deluxe edition of a game a week after launch and one of the bonuses was playing the game 4 days early. What the hell are you even buying at that point. A digital artbook that you could google and costume pack for £10 extra? Not worth it in any way.

I uses to have to wait six months to a year to buy a game due to budget, now it's to not get scammed.

They want as many people as possible to pay for their games before they're release them so they can pocket the money before the reviews are in to let us know which ones are bad. And of course then they manipulate gamers into being personally invested in a game's success so every attempt is made to delegitimize even mildly negative reviews. (Even though like Stephanie said they almost always eventually become the prevailing opinion.) NEVER prepurchase ANYTHING.

I remember reading a report from gamebiz that the "average gamer" was middle class men with salaries over 64K a year. I always think about that when someone brings up $70 isn't that bad of a game or that games used to cost $80 30 years ago so we should be grateful. I do genuinely believe that portion of gamers is driving gaming to be so egregious along with vulnerable people who can't control their FOMO. I saw a survey done by a gaming company where they asked how many games a month u buy and there was no answer for me to say 1 game, 7 months ago. Or how much money you spend on games every month and for me that's I buy a game 7 months ago and then no more money.

I feel like the early playing is targeted directly at content creators (or in MK's example: kontent kreators) so that if they get it early, they'll get more engagement from their followers who aren't going to pay up for the early access. It's a small minority, but as you've always said Steph, video game companies will go for every last nickel if they could.

It’s wonderful that you sound so happy now and at peace. Hope that you’re still playing D&D. 😊

2 things - Congrats to Z. Mann Zila for co-editor! Their work has been as I've mentioned in other comments a wonderful play off between the two of you. And to say the sound of all of your simps IMMEDIATELY pulling the credit cards out of their wallets when you mentioned OF was audible from about a 5 km radius is an understatement. In short, Thank God for you and your fantastic cadre of friends and associates!

Throughout my childhood all the way to my mid 20's gaming was my primary hobby. So it's wild to me just how little I care now all because of the industry's practices. I very very rarely buy new games at launch anymore. The most recent being Elden Ring. Before that TLOU 2 (actually bought for me) and before that I actually don't know. Resident Evil 7 maybe. Now I pretty much only buy games years after launch, heavily discounted in sales, and I truly don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Even Tekken, a series I religiously bought at launch since Tekken 2, I haven't so much as looked at Tekken 7 because I saw how much DLC that there was for it that even when it was massively reduced to like 30 quid for the complete edition I just wasn't fucked to buy it. A lot of my friends have kids and more responsibilities so it make sense that they have less time for games but honestly I just spend my down time doing other things that bring me far more joy than the gaming industry can manage these days.

The Early Access scam also includes an attempt to control the initial narrative around the games. In Starfields case, the graphs on Steam show a significant difference in the balance of positive to negative reviews during the Early access period and afterwards - and the front-loading of the review system has meant that it's taken far longer for the aggregate review score to come down to a level actually reflective of the games quality. Between this, the 'selective review copy' fiasco and the general tone of Bethesdas public comments since the game came out, I was feeling that there were just a few too many red flags around this release - both Bethesda and Microsoft were desperate to make this game out to appear far better than it is, and deflect / downplay any criticisms regardless of how valid they may be. I had my suspicions, but then the Microsoft leak happened and it turned out the actual situation was far worse - and those were old docs. Imagine claiming that Starfield was your companies biggest release, when it only reached 10m players in two weeks while being offered at no extra cost on a subscription service with 30m+ subscribers. Meanwhile, Fallout 4 shipped some 12m physical copies (that people would have actually chosen to pay for) in week 1 - & I know this isn't the actual number of copies sold to customers in the first week, but it's as close as I can find to it. Hell, Skyrim shipped 7m in its first week back when it originally released and the market has more than doubled in size since then. They're desperate to make Starfield look like a tentpole game and some industry-defining success, and it just isn't. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect that maybe things haven't gotten any better at MS in the time since those leaked docs were put together.

I remember preordering "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" on the Nintendo Gamecube where not only I get the game, but also have the walkthrough guide with a poster/map of Hyrule as well. It was a nice piece of something for me to have in my collection. Nowadays, I now get weary in how games get too expensive over time. I can't imagine a decade later or so that the least expensive games would hike up to more than $70 brand now, and the only way to purchase them is if they are on sale. Especially when you can find used games that sometimes are affordable depending on the years going by and the discount. So there's no point in preordering games anymore when I can just get them later whenever I want to.

That was a great way to announce a permanent change to the team, congrats to the new co-editor!

I think alot of "early access" is for the streamers (or want to be streamers) if your first you have a chance to stand out and either get a name for yourself or not. However with some many people doing it, it kind of kills the advantage.

For literal years now, there's been predictions that the videogame industry would have another crash. Well, I think it might actually be happening soon. At least when it comes to the Triple-A game publishers. If they're selling you brand new games a little bit earlier than the day they're supposed to release, then I have to wonder what they need the cash earlier for. I mean, other than lining their pockets. A reckoning within the major game publishing industry is coming, and they seem to know it.

We all know that a game being broken throughout the entire early access period is an *any day now* kind of thing, right?

You mentioning how the 2010s were when the poisoning was in full swing made me realize that it poisoned me as well, in a way. I used to be excited for a lot of new games - big and small. Did a few midnight launches, took a day off here and there, treasured the discovery of a new world I’m going to step into. That slowly chipped away until it just… stopped. I didn’t even notice when I reached this point, or when was the last release I was genuinely excited for, with a capital E three times as tall as you are. I see a bunch of interesting games in the times ahead (mostly independent), but nothing in the same postal area as how it used to be. I still find great games, but on my own time.

I already know what they're gonna monetize next. The actual character creation. It's a huge part for some of us, the visual look of our character. Paying extra to get unique customisation options that are only available for one week. Comes with a special digital edition with early game access. It's surely the next step for AAA games.

We can always count on the Videogame Industry to come up with a new predatory scheme

This sad age of gaming makes me glad to be a nomad who usually plays games on day (some number you're probably not thinking of). It also makes me sad that because I'm a nomad, I have to exclude any titles that are always online or once-per-session. But meh, too many games exist to ever get through the ones that pique my interests. 😹 Keep fighting the good fight, Steph.

Company's will eternally demand more money for less product, and so long as those with substantial disposable income and no financial literacy keep paying them it will only get worse.

15:30 You've touched on classism before and I think that's where this exclusivity comes from. Upper classes will pay a LOT to be part of 'exclusive' clubs and societies even though it's rarely worth the money. The same psychological mechanisms are at play here and are depressingly effective.

This is the very reason why I always wait until honest reviews are out to determine whether it’s worth the money or not. Why pay extra for an early unfinished game when everyone else will be able to pay less for a finished product.

There really needs to be a term other than early access, because the Early Access you get from things like Baldur's Gate 3 (on PC), World of Horror, etc. are not the same thing as these early release scams.

Perfekt. - I've been saying a lot of this for years. :( Crazy how many people simp for companies to take advantage of them. - Paying for access a week "early" is almost as bad as paying for an NFT. See how mad people get when you compared the two. - "2010's: the great poisoning of video games" Yep. I used to talk about all of these subjects to friends and acquaintances. Had a lot of people vehemently defend all of these predatory practices. "Oh but DLC gives the devs more money, isn't that good?! aren't you bad cause you dont want devs paid?!" Some of the stupidest conversations/arguments I've ever heard. - As someone who worked at Gamestop for a long time, I've heard MANY (too many) people tell me they buy the latest games on release/pre-release, and could possibly never play them, but they just HAVE to get them as early as possible. It's "keeping up with the Jones'" but for nerds. People gotta stop consuming so much.

Totally agree. It goes a bit beyond "hey, there's something I'll let all people buy in 2 weeks, but I'll let you buy today for more". In this day and age, the product you're getting is objectively worse 2 weeks before. There's bugs. There's multiplayer and download infrastructure that people need to properly configure. If you think about it, companies should be paying you to play their game early, since they're going to use the data for adjustments. That's what I love about (free) open betas. You get to play the game, devs get to see how it performs with lots of people playing it.

There was some top-notch editing in this episode 🤣

So much for day1 on gamepass.

Pay extra to access it even sooner, y'know, before the day 1 patch. Yeah, sounds like a solid gamble. Also, I think this is really aimed at streamers and content creators, so they will not only pay to get in on it, but also to create that FOMO.

Great episode! This trend gets especially nefarious when it comes to games with competitive play. Fomo and actual disadvantage for not jumping on the corporate slop train.

It's a bitchin jacket though Steph, well worth the crinkling

All I got out of this is that the game industry's self-regulating itself is not working. A trade Commission needs to step in and start busting heads. That's the only way they will stop.

I think the attitude around "spoiling stories" also feeds into the desire for early access that then gets monetized by these companies. I'm immune to spoilers -- knowing information about a game/story doesn't ruin the experience for me -- but some people act like it's the end of the world if they come across any information from media they haven't interacted with yet. And then the defense to this becomes -- watch/play/read it day 1 so that you can get ahead of it.

I miss all the inserts we used to get in video games. Instruction manuals, art books, maps, etc. Now all that stuff is deluxe premium early pre-order limited release collector's edition bonus material that you pay extra for.

Thankfully, I'm old enough that I have (mostly) learned how to manage my impulse control, ignore Fomo, and just be patient. Generally, when one of these big titles comes out, I wait until it's first discount sale, minimum, before buying them. By that time they usually have been patched enough and have enough mods to make it good enough to play. Doesn't change the fact that game companies should stop selling early-access titles as complete titles though...

The irony is "AAA" games are usually being played early anyway. Broken games until they get around to releasing a 12 gb update. Now they just want to charge you even more for their broken rushed release.

Being able to play “early” is one of my recent hates, I’ve seen at least one game grant “early access” no matter what edition you pre-ordered. Like, that’s not early access…that’s just the release date.

1:25 Garfield reference... well played. 12:50 Singer reference... I'm loving some of these deeper cuts!

I simply was not prepared for the Alice's Restaurant reference. My smile was enormous. Thank you for that.

I wouldn't call this a "new" scam, pretty sure this has been going on for at least 7 or 8 years now with "early access"

oh my gosh, thank you for including the futurama clip. The other day in a conversation i actually said "I am technically correct, the best kind of correct." and legit could NOT remember where I got it from.

Congratulations to Z. Mann Zilla. I was last week years old when I found out he's also the Sesamerot guy. Thank you for your work.

The price hike to $70 wasn't the last good card they had. There's always the hike to $80. In fact, there's infinite numbers after $70! :]

I was considering buying Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition until I saw that all I really got for the extra £30/$40 was to play it a week early. My reaction was quite literally akin to the Jackie Chan wtf meme.

Minecraft and Planetary Annihilation (PA) were two sides of the same coin. Minecraft did early access (before it got named as such) with an increasing price until release, get in early for lower price. PA did a kickstarter, and more expensive tiers got earlier builds, more access and more influence. But PA also did something odd and released for purchase on Steam with the early builds, but using the expensive tier prices so as not to screw over the initial groups of backers. It was a very odd time.

It doesn't make sense to us adults, but I can imagine it being crucially important if you're 12 unfortunately. In the harsh world of playground politics whether you can afford to waste money on early access or not could quite possibly determine your worth as a human being in the eyes of your peers.

It is weird how for some, we never noticed this under just recent with Starfield, Lies of P and Mortal Kombat 1 all doing this back to back to back. Definitely also helps to push digital sales too if you can install the game early on and just immediately jump into the game days before anyone else who decides to wait. It has been tempting, but I’ve yet to bend the knee to this tactic. Still, it is kind of crazy how games are being treated kind of like review codes (only that they cost more than usual for those not in that particular loop).

I had massive FOMO for Starfield but I really wanted to finish BG3 first so I held off. Now that every video, discussion and stream are not all about Starfield, I don't feel the need to jump it to it anytime soon. Whether it be genuine desire or just marketing the pull to be part of the zeitgeist is powerful!

A brilliant man already suggested paywalling reloading. I mean, you're already 20 hours into the latest Call of Duty or whatever. What's a small charge for an extra reload? I know someone irl who doesn't seem to realize the monetization schemes at play and literally said "You don't have to buy them" when I said "Man, they are designing games for and around these monetization schemes, knowingly and at the cost of player experience."

Totally spot on with this, it seems to be a new tactic since GamePass took off, now they need to find a way to get people to buy their half finished games early and letting you play a whole 3 days early is enough for some of those who have much less dopamine than money. However I wanted to point out a small mistake - That Final Fantasy 7 Deluxe comes with a physical artbook and CD. I had to look it up because honestly, I believe that Squeenix would do that, but it look likes for the extra $40 they are willing to print you a book and CD for now.

i'm glad to see the editor evolved into having a formal position and a fursona

We need Steph's fashion corner

I can't remember the last time I've played a Triple-A game... I guess Skyrim, probably? The Indie scene is so robust these days (and much more affordable), that I just don't have either the time or the money to play the 70 dollar games. And I feel like that's the right choice.

Their targets are people who don't care about money, RU-vid contributers and people who have to show off, because they have nothing else. I am surprised, that they still seem to make so much money that way.

It's like these companies are holding the video games hostage. That is how I see this business pratice.

I love these early access periods. It's saved me so much money letting other people pay extra to play games early so they can tell me the game isn't worth it at all to buy. And I get 20% staff discount in video games. 😂

Nice video Steph, as usual! What's the game with the industrial building gameplay that features regularly in the background?

What is the tube game playing in the background?

5 day early access* *if the account servers dont meltdown first

I was in a public discord vc about 8 hours before starfields (proper) release. 3 people joined and asked if we thought it was worth it to buy the early access, 2 of them bought it after being told when they could buy it normally. we're so fucked.

When I got D4, it just so happened that I had some time off right during the "early" release, so I got the "medium" edition. Then, in game, I was offered a "starter pack", which included just enough coins to upgrade in-game to the "large" edition". It cost 3 euros less than the regular upgrade. So they basically had a way to incrementally motivate you to actually get the "large" edition.

The editing on "4 fucking ever" was so brilliant! LMAO

I’m glad that you’ve taken the time to talk about this. Even though I’m very good about keeping myself in check to not impulsively spend money on pre-orders and deluxe editions unless I am 100% certain I will enjoy the game, I will be the first to admit that the idea of getting something early is very tantalizing for me as a neruodivergent person, *especially* if it’s something I’m really passionate about. So I can see this being something that will hook neurodivergent folx in very easily, and I shudder to think of the consequences of something more egregious than just getting a game a week early happening in the future. I wonder if you’re planning to take a crack at Square Enix again, since it seems their plans to get their plan to invest so much time and money into live services seems to be biting them in the ass right now and, as you pointed out, that deluxe edition for “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” is just pathetic.

As soon as I learnt the term FOMO, I talked about it to my boss and he was impressed. And for that I Thank gOd and the Jimquisition. Bisous Stef

Eh. The sword of Damocles isn't hanging over the CEOs' heads. They can walk away and have money for the rest of their life. That sword is hanging over the heads of everyone who works for them.

Glad someone said something, i felt like the only one. The "early access" to me was just the release date, everyone else got late access. Another thing, there were channels that came out of nowhere, channels that have never covered a bethesda game, hyping starfield. Felt astroturfed to me.

This was the game's biggest innovation 😂 gave me horse armor vibes when I saw it

Your videos always make my day.

I wonder if reviews are allowed to be released on or before the early access date, for those outlets that get review copies?

Reminds me of the rested xp mechanic from world of warcraft. In its earliest form it was a debuff that reduced your xp gain after a certain amount of time playing and it was hated. But the same mechanic reworded to you get bonus xp for a period of time after logging on was well recieved. If the framing was that they hold the game back a couple of days unless you buy a special edition or preorder or whatever there would be more visible backlash. But they do that exact thing and say you're getting a bonus for getting the special edition and so many people easily excuse this.

Great video, as usual. While watching, before you got to it, I was thinking early access was driven by FOMO, because I feel it myself from time to time when presented with that "opportunity." Now when I see it I try to reframe it as not so much missing out, as other people doing one last beta test of the thing to find all the problems. Because the AAA developers can't release a game without some problems anymore. As for what's next, I heard news that the mid-life Xbox Series X was going to ditch the optical drive and be digital only. That's what I think will be next. The death of physical media and the aftermarket marketplace of games.

AAAA YOUR VOICE! YOUR JACKET! YOUR EVERYTHING. So proud of you Steph.

I hope some company forgets to give the early access players the Day 1 patch because "it's technically not the street date" Congrats to Z. Mann Zilla really got the visual vibe that suits the Sterling style.

10:32 - what is that from?

You are a fine human being and I respect you for who you are and what you're doing.

The best part about mondays.

Another benefit to publishers for this "early access" to further fuel FOMO is the Twitch effect. All the big Twitch streamers get the game on that early access day either through free codes or because they feel the desperate need to be playing the next big title for fear of their sub/viewership numbers collapsing. Meaning anyone not paying that deluxe price or buying that pre-order gets to see all these people online playing the game they were all hyped about. Maybe they want to avoid spoilers or maybe the game just looks like so much fun and they know if they just shell out an extra 20-40 dollars more or pre-order now they could avoid spoilers or be having fun right now! It's quietly insidious.

It looks like the DRIBBLE A industry is in a bit of a bubble economy right now. Once it bursts, they'll be in deep shit and we'll be pointing and laughing about the pitfalls of greed and hubris.