Charging money for advance access to games should be banned

EA was one of the first publishers to sell deluxe editions of its games before their official release. For a developer that’s been voted worst company in the USA several times, this strategy wasn’t surprising. As a result, most gamers paid little attention to the whole thing. Turns out EA was only the first assault.

Playing a game earlier for an extra charge has long been normalised, and offers are becoming increasingly brazen. The most recent example is Life is Strange: Double Exposure from publisher Square Enix. Their adventure game will be officially released on 29 October for 49.90 francs/euros. If you fork out an extra 30, you can play the game a whole two weeks earlier. Well, nobody's forcing you to, you may be thinking. True, but with a story-focused game like Life is Strange: Double Exposure, you run the risk of being spoiled if you wait until the official release.

Even in games such as Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, where the only spoilers are at the rear of racing cars, more easily tempted gamers are shamelessly exploited. Manufacturers ask you to pay through the nose for your FOMO. With Solar Crown, publisher Nacon even created different levels. The Silver Edition let you play two days earlier, the Gold Edition a whole week. The Steam reviews are correspondingly scathing.

Here are some examples of games with premium advance access from this year and last year, compiled by game blog Kotaku.

• Assassin’s Creed Shadows – 3 days (now withdrawn)
• Age of Mythology Retold – 7 days
• Baldur’s Gate 3 (PS5) – 4 days
• College Football 25 – 3 days
• Concord – 3 days
• Diablo 4 – 5 days
• Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO – 3 days
• EA Sports FC 25 – 7 days
• Forza Motorsport – 5 days
• Earth Defense Force 6 – 1 day
• Enotria: The Last Song – 3 days
• Lies of P – 3 days
• Life Is Strange: Double Exposure – 14 days
• Madden NFL 25 – 3 days
• Monster Jam Showdown – 3 days
• Mortal Kombat 1 – 5 days
• Silent Hill 2 – 2 days
• Sonic X Shadow Generations – 3 days
• Starfield – 5 days
• Star Wars Outlaws – 3 days
• Space Marine II – 4 days
• Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream – 3 days
• Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown – 2 to 7 days
• The Crew Motorfest – 3 days
• Undisputed – 3 days
• Visions of Mana – 1 day

Pay to be a beta tester

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, you’re often faced with a double whammy here. With many games, you don’t so much buy yourself advance access, but rather the right to be a beta tester. It’s not uncommon for a huge update to drop at the actual launch. Before that, you always have to deal with annoying bugs. This is particularly frustrating if you have to delete your save and start all over again – as happens in the obviously unfinished Star Wars Outlaws. To me, Deluxe, Gold and Premium mean something different.

At least Ubisoft rolled back its plans for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, foregoing a more expensive pre-release version. However, the phenomenon won’t disappear. Sure, we could do without all this. But when a new, eagerly awaited game’s available a few days earlier and it feels like everyone’s talking about it, many players give in.

So, in my opinion, this nasty scheming should be banned. Publishers and manufacturers should earn money with real content, not by exploiting well-off and weaker-willed gamers. I’m one of the latter by the way and off to play Life is Strange: Double Exposure. In protest, mind you.