Yes. The maximum interest in any game is going to be at its first major launch. All marketing and buildup will get the largest group of players to try the game at that first launch. When we use the Early Access release model, we effectively blunt that because our Early Access version isn't the finished game and commensurately less sticky to the player base. This means that we will likely lose a significant number of players that would have stayed for a finished game - this type will tell themselves that maybe they'll come back and check on the game at full release and then never do so. The second (full) release will also not grab as many players or attention because they've got other new games competing for their attention and the game will feel "old" since it's been playable and in the news for months or even years by that point.
Further, marketing costs a lot of money and time to do. Having to pay for not one but two separate major launch pushes costs a lot more than marketing for one single launch. That additional marketing budget has to come from somewhere, usually the second run is paid for by the initial earnings of the Early Access launch. But that Early Access money could have been used to build more of and polish the game for launch as well. It's a fairly significant tradeoff.
Basically, the big deal with Early Access is that the dev team is effectively borrowing against the future in hopes of getting any release at all. Most of the time, a traditional release with a single launch will be more efficient with resources spent than Early Access. That said, if the team can't secure the funding for a single release, Early Access is still a far better choice than no game at all.
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