Early access games have picked up a bit of Steam lately (pun intended). Rust and Dayz have even managed to rank among the most popular games to play on Steam, and have been on many a wishlist. The Kickstarted Planetary Annihilation generated a ton of buzz at its early-access launch because of its price, around $100. It has since gone through several development phases (Alpha, Beta, Gamma), and has gone down in price. It's been in development for over a year!

Perhaps the most-buzzed game in recent memory is The Forest. It is marketed as "open-world survival horror". Many people have joined on the bandwagon to test it, and most have given it positive reviews. This, however; is not always how early access ends up. Sometimes it bombs, and the game dies away.

I am personally not very interested in early access at all. It is high-risk, and is often expensive. I like to get my games on the cheap or in bundles. Also, very few early-access games interest me. Rust, The Forest, and the recent Darkwood: None of these can hold my attention and aren't the games I like to play very much. I might be willing to give Dayz a shot for the right price, though.

What about you? Are there any early-access games that catch your eye? Do you have any? Which games would you get at the right price?

List of early access games on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Early%20Access/

I personally can't stand the prices of early access. I have seen Assassin's Creed on steam for a total of 55-60 Euros (The equivalent of 78.85-80.57.) I don't know about any of you guys, but that is WAY too expensive for me. I wouldn't spend more than 20 Euros for a game, unless it is a game I know is HUGE.

I stopped supporting early access after I bought Maia.
I think I paid between £12-18 (about $30) for it, only to discover that it was essentially early alpha. They advertised it as having a lot of unfinished features, but in actual fact it had almsot no working features. They should not have been selling it. Even now, maybe a year down the road, its only late alpha/early beta.

Previously I bought 'war for the overworld bedrock beta', which is the spiritual successor to dungeon keeper 2 (one of the best strategy games ever). That I have no regrets about. It was decent, if buggy, and now its good (and buggy). But there was some playability.
I still want a refund for Maia, regardless of how good it gets, I'll be angry with the developers for misselling it.
I get the concept, and it gives them funds to continue the project, but games shouldn't be charged for pre-beta, and if they are they should make it abundantly clear just how bare bones it is.

I feel like early access games are just a way to make some quick money. Of course there are some early access games which are real and will be released within the near future, but there are those other games that will never actually be released, and if they are they are severely unfinished. I bought DayZ simply for the fact that I had played the mod extensively and I really liked it, and I knew that the early access standalone version would not be nearly as good as the mod in it's current state. The developers of DayZ standalone though made it very clear that the game was in the very early stages of development. To be honest if the developers of DayZ didn't make it clear that it was still in the early stages the game would've been a complete failure. It had already taken over a year for them to even start working on it which had upset A LOT of people. I still bought the game for a reasonable $30 and as of right now I do not regret it.

thenumberone : Your post actually reminded me of a game that was completely shut out by the steam community called WarZ. As you can tell by the name it is essentially a DayZ rip off. I don't remember exact dates or months of when this was happening, but I believe it was some time in the middle of last year. WarZ had claimed to have been in development 2 whole years before the DayZ mod had even been released, and that's why they had the name WarZ and that DayZ had stolen the name from them. This was never proven and the developer of the game continued to lie and ruin his reputation. He would even trash talk other people in-game and use the newly implemented admin commands to give himself items like guns and food. These are only the things we know that he did because they were recorded (not by him obviously). So the game was released on Steam Greenlight (I think) and some people bought it and stuff. Now this is where the story gets juicy . The game was still in the extremely early stages of development and they were marketing it on Steam as a finished game. Valve noticed this and actually took the game off of Steam and then after that happened I assume that the game just stopped selling all together (it was still for sale on their website, but nobody was buying). I heard that the developer tried to resurrect the game by changing the name, but that's the last I've heard of the game and I'm glad of that.

jack3604 :
Its called infestation now, and by all accounts its terrible:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/infestation-survivor-stories

thenumberone : Yes! That's it and I guess it was all happening late 2012 to early 2013, I didn't realize how long ago that was.

It depends on the game, but I can be a big fan of it. It gives indie developers a way to get money to help fund the development of their game, while still giving something back. Plus you get to see how the game evolves as its development continues, and if the developers care enough your opinions can help shape what the game becomes. It's not true for all early access games, but some developers do a good job of it.