GOG launches early-access program

Early-access games are essentially games that aren't finished yet, that you can pay money to play anyway. This helps the developer out by giving them additional funding during the development phase, and it also allows them to get feedback from people who are essentially testing out the game for them. While some people do take advantage of this concept, plenty of games have been made successful through this means. Unfortunately Steam has been the only place to realistically sell early access to a game.

Valve has had little competition in the digital games market until the last few years. Slowly, different companies have started offering their own platform for selling and managing games. One such company is GOG, which is ran by Witcher developer CD Projekt Red. And now they're planning to take on Steam's early-access program with their own.

Finding a good indie game on Steam that you want to check out during the early-access phase is hard to do these days. Not for the lack of options, but because of just how many options there are. That, and the fact that the screening process is pretty poor.

GOG has announced that they will be doing early access "the GOG way." This means that the company will be hand-picking the titles that they will offer early access to. They will also offer refunds on any such games for up to two weeks with no questions asked.

The program opens up today, with five games being offered in early-access. Those games are as follows:

• Starbound
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Project Zomboid
• TerraTech
• Curious Expeditions

What's more, they are discounting all five of the titles through February 2nd. So if you're interested in any of them, it's a good time to look into them.

Honestly, the industry has needed another player in the early-access game. Valve has done great things in this department, but competition will be good for them, and I think GOG is the platform to do it.

VIA: GameSpot