The bit about Early Access as a way to build community and hype really jumped out at me, because like - I currently have two games on my radar (Hades 2, Fields of Mistria) that are in Early Access and I regularly check for updates. So you're onto something there

This idea of the stealth release or the aggressive secret keeping as a way to build hype - it IS very out of date, with so much out there demanding our attention, but the executive class keeps clinging to it out of sheer inertia