Doesn't that make early access Vidya an agile strategy?
Sort of. A "Good" early access has a roadmap and development plan actually figured out. They know they're going to add X, Y and Z later, and are willing to incorporate feedback as they go. Core elements may see reworks, UI is a common one here, to improve the quality but the fundamental guts will be the same. You could consider a 'good' early access to agile comparison to be the kind of game that goes in for a fixed period, actually delivers everything it set out for more or less as described, but doesn't seriously change much of the overall plan, just the details. Sons of the Forest might be a good example of this - They released saying it'd be about a year of Early Access, over which new caves, some content and polish would be added to the game to complete the story in 1.0. Then over the year of early access, they did exactly that, with little deviation, good or bad. Opinions on the game itself may vary, but they delivered exactly what was promised in a very reliable iterative update fashion, to the point that the game start screen had a reliable countdown to the next update releasing.
An Early Access game using the shitty agile strategies would be more like one of the hundred indie EA games that comes out with a vague plan to "add more" to the game, changes roadmap goals every six months after delivering half finished features that don't integrate right into the rest of the gameplay whole. You get one update that adds raiding, but raiders are broken and either braindead stupid or overpowered, and really suck to play with. The developer hotfixes in a toggle option to turn them on or off in new saves, then spends the next six months implemented a detailed gardening simulation, while raiders are still fucked. The developer explains he did this because a lot of people who got fed up with raiders turned to base building and wanted to be able to make bases with lots of plants to pass the time until raiders were fixed, so the dev focused on that easy situation and not the actual problem. This game is eventually 'released' when the developer grows bored of it but sucks, or languishes in EA hell, still missing core features to this day. 7 Days to Die is a great example of developers waffling and avoiding the actual core mechanics that were promised, they're launching into 1.0 after what feels like a decade, and still won't be releasing with human raiders as were promised way back in the very beginning - they're now totally coming soon as a future expansion.
If you want a middle ground of 'realistic' agile in game development, Blade and Sorcery is a good one - The game blew up, and a new scope and goal was added to the game after release, instead of just being a dumb sandbox. Expanding to meet needs is a common claimed agile plus, and usually a huge painpoint. But the dev managed to lock down the new scope, and roadmap and release updates with reasonable frequency - every update took longer than promised, but more in the range of a few extra weeks to months, not six years, and did deliver the content more or less as promised. A few things that were speculative goals hit the cutting room floor, but the end product is releasing in a reasonable time frame with reasonable feature completeness, without having spent a fortune to do so or constantly reworking shit. Its not perfect but its pretty good.
