14 DAY TRIAL // Battlefield developer DICE is apparently considering Early Access for their next Battlefield titles, not because they need the money, but because they want to deliver a better experience at launch.
Early Access is a pretty new concept in games, where you get to pay for the unique chance to play broken and unfinished games, something that five years ago would have seemed like nothing more than a bad joke.
Granted, many small indie developers are helped immensely by the infusion of cold hard cash that keeps them fed while they toil on their projects, but with a monster such as Electronic Arts to back them up, DICE's statement seems a bit out of place.
Another useful aspect of Early Access is the fact that developers get the community involved in the creation process before it's too late to ditch bad ideas or to commit to new ones. Then, having a wealth of hardware configurations try your alpha or beta product in advance can also serve as a very good testing ground, in order to iron out kinks and stomp on bugs.
Which is pretty much what DICE already did with Battlefield 4, albeit post-launch. Now, it appears that the company wants to make things more official though.
"We have nothing to announce, but we are having discussions when it comes to [early access]," DICE General Manager Karl Magnus Troedsson has told Gameinformer.
The reason that EA and DICE have offered for considering Early Access is that it would make their games better at launch, something that BF4 adopters are all too well aware of.
"It comes not from a business perspective, but more from a perspective of if it would help us have a stable launch of the game," Troedsson continues.
The fact that the video game industry attempts to broaden its business models is a good one, but it used to be that major publishers attempted to finish products before making money on them, which seems like the way it should be, considering the piles of cash they rake in.
"We would ask our players in a controlled way. We probably wouldn't open the floodgates for everyone, but we might do it for geographical territories or people who bought the last game. Yes, it is something we are considering, not from a business standpoint, but from one of creating quality in our products," Troedsson concludes.
The conversation is still in its early days, and there's still a while until the question of a price point can be addressed. DICE has mentioned that their community will be involved in the talks about whether to proceed with Early Access, but for now it's too early to tell how things will go.