If funding is one of the primary reasons for Early Access, then that's a bad business decision on the company. Gathering the funds should be only done before the game goes into early project stages and have a budget that can cover a lot of the costs involved. Those costs, for the most part, can be calculated to some degree. So if they can't cover what I would consider a reasonable amount of the game's development costs (roughly 80%), then they shouldn't have even started the project in the first place. Poor financial and budget planning is a sign of poor business management.
Anyone can start a company, get some people together with the skills necessary to make a video game, get their garbage Greenlit on Steam, and then start raking in funds that they should have had in the beginning anyways.
Another issue with Early Access is it kills the hype of a game. People buy into the game, Interstellar Marines and Star Drive are examples of this, and then the game loses a lot of traction because the people that fronted money for incomplete games (Star Drive is still incomplete even if it's officially released) start spreading negative reviews. Those negative reviews detract potential sales, which lowers the amount of funding the game gets, and then that means more game features and longer development processes it takes to finish the product. So having the funding already ahead of time eliminates that entire process.
Early Access shouldn't be a tool that game developers use in order to fund their products. It should be a tool in which the developers identify game breaking issues with the product, such as multiplayer features. It should be a testing phase for an extremely polished game but also be part of the hype and discovery phase of the product.
All of these Early Access issues stem from Minecraft. It was the first game that anyone can really think of that did this on a massive commercial scale. Although the game has historically influenced the game design of video games of all kinds, it has historically and literately fucked over a career field (why pay someone to test your game when you can charge someone, right?). It is the singular game that has been side-swiping the money from consumer bank accounts by the fact it was such a successful Early Access game and even was the first to coin the phrase Early Access.
None of these things are necessarily illegal in any country that I am aware of but is it ethical or moral? Not from my perceptive. It completely tricks consumers into purchasing incomplete products. I don't think anyone would be purchasing incomplete non-video game products, such as a freezer, a vehicle, a house, or piece of furniture. The reason for this is because we expect to get a finished product with what we see in a store.
A solution that I could recommend is getting these game developers to attend conferences and discuss the matter every year. Another solution is starting your own business that makes video games and join those kinds of conferences and speak out against Early Access. Consumers aren't stupid people no matter how we each individually want to think they are. They are powerful individuals that can make or break any business in the world. They want value for whatever their country's currency can provide for them and want to see that currency stretch to get as much value as possible. They aren't hard to satisfy, are hard to keep happy at all times, but most importantly not hard to satisfy if you give them exactly what they are looking for in whatever the product they are trying to purchase.
I am not completely against Early Access. I am just a consumer, aspiring business owner, and content creator that doesn't like purchasing incomplete products that still feel very incomplete long after the product's initial release date.
