Star Wars Outlaws finally has a release date and with it comes three versions of the game, two of which undermine said release date of August 30th with access to the game 3 days early. This has been a growing trend in the industry with all sorts of games getting this, with Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones being two of the more recent ones this year. Ubisoft themselves have loved this model, making it part of most of their recent releases.
Last year, another game was released with this model, the Xbox-exclusive Starfield. While the title was hyped as a day-one release Game Pass and to Bethesda and Microsoft’s credit they offered multiple versions of the game to attempt to turn an additional profit on it, including a version that simply offered 3-day Early Access to the title without needing to but the game. What happened after was a massive influx of players and articles like Game Rant’s Starfield is Already a Big Hit on Steam and It’s Not Even Out Yet. Is that a fair take though?
There was a time, years ago when physical media was still marketable, that these early access versions were only available through a pre-order in a story. Only the people who fully committed to the game would get these versions as preorders shut off months in advance and only enough to fulfill these numbers. This period was short-lived though, giving rise to the digital deluxe edition, which means you needed to embrace digital media to get the highest version.
Today these versions are available in multiple formats and have never been easier to purchase. Digitally, everybody who owns a platform to play the game has access to it. In all honesty, if you want to play a game at the first possible opportunity there is nothing barring you from doing so other than the act of purchasing the game at a higher price. Is 30 dollars the only thing that invalidates an Ultimate Edition from being day one? The fact of the matter was Starfield was purchasable by anybody who wanted to play it prior to its release date with zero limitations, which effectively means it was indeed out.
A quick Wikipedia search of both Starfield and Skull and Bones shows that both games only have one release date listed, which implies that we don’t even count these higher tier access times as a point of entrance, you own a game everybody can buy before it has been released to them despite being released to them. This is a narrative we accept? That we can live with?
Look, I understand you have to choose what to spend your money on, and in many cases, consumers don’t need or want digital items like a season pass or cosmetics. In this vein though, a player might choose to not buy a game at all, either waiting till a sale drops the cost from the standard $70 that games have cost this generation. Money is always a major aspect of a product that costs a large amount to make and a hefty some of your paycheck to purchase. An Ultimate Edition or Gold Edition, at the point of release, is free to be purchased at least digitally by everybody when it releases. That IS the game’s release date.
My argument here, is maybe these points of release should be regarded as the day of release. Then, perhaps, the standard edition is released 3-days after release or 3-Days delayed. It isn’t as fancy, not as special, not an exclusive club you get to enter. It is, however, more of a fair representation. In the case of Starfield, there was no wow moment to its big release. Why? because the truth is, most players excited for the game already had it ‘before it released’, which is an even weirder narrative.
I’m one person of course, and these are my thoughts on the matter. I would love to get multiple perspectives on the topic so feel free to leave a comment. As for Star Wars Outlaws, it will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, and PC on August 27th with the standard edition 3-days delayed to August 30th. I just thought I should try that out at least once.
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