8 Video Games You Didn't Realise Broke The Industry

7. Minecraft - Opened The Floodgates To Early Access

minecraft video game
Mojang

There's been a lot of controversy surrounding early access games over the last few years. Players who invest in early access titles do so with the risk that the game they're investing in may never be fully developed, while there've been repeat cases of early access titles amounting to little more than scams.

The practice itself isn't inherently good or bad, and for indie developers who don't have budgets to hire play-testers, having a title be early access can actually prove invaluable. It's a great feature to have when used appropriately, but there have been cases where games have stayed in early access for years on end. No less frustrating is the fact that big publishers have also dabbled in early access, offering players unique benefits while they effectively pay for the pleasure of play-testing a title.

Numerous games have adopted early access, but by far the most notable example was Minecraft. The game is beloved by (mostly) all and kickstarted gaming's early access obsession, opening the door not only for indie devs to secure greater funding and feedback for their projects, but sadly also to the prospect that players could be taken advantage of by a duplicitous studio or individual.

Some games have spent multiple years in early access, and it means some have effectively forked over their money to play something that'll never be finished.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.