Extra Option requested for "Release Type"

[bigbossman]

Hi,

I wanted to suggest (and request) an extra option for when adding a new game to the database. When selecting a "release type", would it be possible to add an extra option for games that are listed as "Early Access"? In many cases a game can stay in early access for years. Once it has been upgraded to a full, official release, then it & the date could be changed.

[tripredacus]

You are referring to digital games only. You can use Official Relase (Upcoming) option and in the description put in the date the game entered early access.

[aliensstudios]

What physical games have early access?

[Cartagia]

I've often wondered about this myself - how well is this data point managed?  Seems like tracking "upcoming" releases and updating them when released would be quite a headache.

[dhaabi]

I've often wondered about this myself - how well is this data point managed?  Seems like tracking "upcoming" releases and updating them when released would be quite a headache.

It's not. Personally, whenever I come across any entry marked as Upcoming that has since released, I update it, and also vice-versa. Many users will submit an Upcoming item with its Release Type unchanged even months later post-release, on account that most of our users are not concerned with the details of database entries. Alternatively, it is not uncommon for upcoming items to be marked as already released. Given our current system, we don't prohibit users from submitting items which haven't released yet, which is why Upcoming was added as a formal option not long ago.

To mitigate this problem entirely, though, barring users from adding items prior to their official time of release would needed to be implemented, but that probably won't ever happen. There are plenty of released items missing from the database, so submitting items that technically don't exist shouldn't be a focus, in my opinion. Unreleased items being added causes more problems than not, I think, since they will always be submitted with missing information while also regularly being submitted with incorrect information that will be outdated as release details update.

[tripredacus]

What physical games have early access?

Nowadays there are probably not any, but in the past they used to exist as Alpha or Beta releases.

In any case, we won't add a release type for one specific type of item in the DB. Anything in release type must be applicable to any of the main item types. The current outlier is Demo which shouldn't be a release type because it is also an Item Type.