Yes, I bought Industries of Titan day 1 on epic games store because the game director is an old acquaintance ;) Agreeing with sibling comment. This works for

Yes, I bought Industries of Titan day 1 on epic games store because the game director is an old acquaintance ;) Agreeing with sibling comment. This works for some games, but not others. The examples you mention are based around a core gameplay loop that was refined and expanded over years. Specifically, there isn't anything lost by playing it early. Some of my favorite games took a long time, weren't early access, but I'm really glad for it. Fez took 5 years, The Witness took 7, The Outer Wilds took 7 (with caveats, started as a student project that was released, but wasn't iterated on in public afterwords). They're all giant puzzle boxes that are intricately assembled into something that requires the whole to be present to really work. Plus it's all about understanding the game, so there's no reason to go back and play it again if, eg, they did a final art pass. There are plenty of other games that take forever in early access. So early access or not doesn't really change whether people get things done quickly, and often can lead to the opposite problem where they utterly fail to make meaningful progress to something that's "complete". (Yes, I'm looking at you, Star Citizen) It's totally fine if that works for the game and they get it done. My general rule these days is only buy it in early access if what you get today is enough to make you happy.