Paying to be beta testers

Jono

Jono

Jono

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I read something - I think it was a comment, and not on this forum, but I'm not sure.

Do you think the reason we have to pay to beta test new games is because publishers are so paranoid about leakage when alpha/beta clients are released to testers that they just chuck the game out the door after a very short period of time, no matter what state it's in?

(comment said that stalker testers got ONE week to test before it was officially released/went gold).

Just about every new release these days has a fairly big patch to fix several MAJOR issues about a week after it hits the shelves.

Should we be paying for this "priviledge" or is there anything else that can be done to ensure we the paying gamers get a quality product in the first place?
 
A lot of the time its down to the developers trying not to delay the games release due to it not being quite 100% finished. With the Publisher pushing for that deadline to be met its only natural that the testing stage gets cut short.

If developers miss deadlines they can some time incur a financial penalty or run the risk of the publisher not using that company again. This effects the smaller studios more.

Another thing to think about is that games these days are generally more complex, meaning that a lot of things are more likely to be buggy.
 
not all BETA's are pay to play, LOTRO isnt, CVG had the client free with tons of keys.. many peeps wont pay to subscribe to say Fileplanet to obtain a beta place because of the fee, but £3 a month doesnt break the bank, its just a preferencial taste i suppose

If ET:QW beta was announced and it cost for example £5, id glady pay to get it purely to learn the game mechanics and see IF it was all that was promised plus like you touched on, if you have to pay your more likely to fully get involved and use the beta with a view to finding bugs and enjoying the experience
dont forget, PC games have far more code to enable the majority of PC hardware to run it ie covering all gfx cards and hardware specs etc, this is why many develop for consoles as its less of a headache but the games are considerably more shallow with gfx buffed to max ie eye candy over gameplay (hmm, i know this will infuriate the consolers, but its true and yes i use a 360)
PC gamers tend to demand more involvement in the software they purchase, they want to be able to MOD it, improve it and even totally change it which again is just a preference but yes ultimately be able to run it straight out of the box so to speak , therefore i welcome BETA's and like to participate in the evolvement of them, you get to play whats basically the full game and even shape how it turns out, so to sum up, i dont mind paying to test ..
 
Most beta's (NOT DEMOS) supply you with a full version of the game for about a month, why shouldn't they ask for some money back? As eekfek said, a couple of quid isn't exactly bank breaking, even if your only doing one beta per month. I have bought two games simply because of the beta's i have played.
 
No I mean, not offical betas. but games that are released REALLY unfinished. And we go out and buy the product... and beta test if AFTER it's been released... like S.T.A.L.K.E.R for example.
 
some betas work, some dont.

Stalker didnt. :P

I think 2142 did. It was a nearly finished game, they tested it with us (closed beta 1) and we had great fun and gave throughs in a forum, they tweaked it, made it better allround and released a second closed beta. Same things happened, we had less fun (no pod jumping :( ) but it was a more rounded game. Then they released.

Using the target audence's feedback and doing something worked wonders! Even after it was released they still kept a tight nit community with the gamers.

THeres no way you can go "heres a beta" then it actually mean "and..its actually released like in 4 days so theres no other point to use the beta except for publicity"


IMO to pay for a beta test is silly. THeres plenty of comps about giving free keys, learn to know the right people and your fine :)
 
Jono said:
No I mean, not offical betas. but games that are released REALLY unfinished. And we go out and buy the product... and beta test if AFTER it's been released... like S.T.A.L.K.E.R for example.
Click to expand...

hmm, well if you bought STALKER thinking the game would run fine then thats naive considering how long the game was in development, its problems and the reports from testers saying how bad parts were .. then the beta test which lasted a week? etc etc , im not going to buy it until its £5 bargain bucket

your thread title 'Paying to be beta testers' means just that, not ' buying unfinished software' , very misleading
 
I agree theres a trend now just to shove these unfinished games to retail then release huge patches. The game devs are gonna get burned doing this tbh, cant see it lasting.
 
I think fast internet connections has exasberated the problem. Back in the days before the internet, if a company released a game riddled with bugs it usually impacted their sales quite a bit. As the only way to fix games back then was for consumers to spend another 5 quid or so buying game mags that 'might' have a patch included on the cover disc, etc. Many of us wouldn't accept that. We took games back to the store and told them to shove it where the sun don't shine....

These days its easy to download hotfixes/patches so we kind of accept it as part of life. Game companies/publishers think, hmm, they don't really mind so lets keep doing it. This mentality doesn't just apply to games either. Many applications are released unfinished as well and rely on patches to get them completed as to what they should have been to start with. Sure, we still moan at this situation but go ahead and download the fixes anyway.....the only way to send a clear message to the publishers is to refuse buying anything significantly bugged or return it immediately to the point of purchase screaming our statutory rights.
 
I think it's a really tough choice for some developers, if your publisher is really pushing, it may be a case of release it now or never (as I think was probably the case with Stalker) so for a developer that has genuinely worked hard to see their vision through to completion it would be heartbreaking to gain nothing from years of work.

Not always the case I know but I'm more forgiving of a game like that. Test drive unlimited on the other hand (PC version) is utterly ridden with bugs and that I find inexcusable.
 
slighty of topic sort off having been invited to sweden to beta test GRAW (Ghost recon advanced warfighter) a few select off 20 ppl from all over europe were invited to test the game and have some input into what we thought the ghost recon players wanted stack full of ideas we went all excited.

Played the game gave em loads of input into what we new worked and what ppl wanted in the next series of the gr series. Came away all excited and then the game was released.

Hardly anything had been adopted from what we had said, just felt a complete waste of our time and money.

after reading forums about what people are saying is wrong with the game basicly was what we said at the start.

but hey got me name in the credits thou :(
 
I agree, its a huge issue these days - releasing buggy, unoptimised, unfinished games seems to be becoming the norm, rather than the exception.
AND its a crying shame, it can only serve to hurt the rep of the companies involved, and the reluctance of the gaming public to buy that company's games. Games are far more intricate than they used to be, but it doesnt really excuse the sometimes sloppy work of supposed professional developing houses publishing professional work. Having tried coding myself, I can honestly say its not damned easy, but the amount of bugs and glitches we find these days is sometimes more reminiscent of indie coding than professional work.

At the end of the day I wouldnt be surprised if it causes more and more gamers to try game piracy either, as it becomes more and more common to find hugely bugged releases, and easier to download huge amounts of data - who wants to pay for bugged releases, when they could try now using pirated copies, and then possibly buy it later when it actually works, IF they enjoyed it enough?
 
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Jono said:
Do you think the reason we have to pay to beta test new games is because publishers are so paranoid about leakage when alpha/beta clients are released to testers that they just chuck the game out the door after a very short period of time, no matter what state it's in?

(comment said that stalker testers got ONE week to test before it was officially released/went gold).
Click to expand...

Wouldn't surprise me where STALKER is concerned because there was a leaked Alpha build around 3-4 years ago.

Just about every new release these days has a fairly big patch to fix several MAJOR issues about a week after it hits the shelves.

Should we be paying for this "priviledge" or is there anything else that can be done to ensure we the paying gamers get a quality product in the first place?
Click to expand...

One way of looking at it would be to say that because of modern patching syndrome, we are actually better off because:

1) Games can be released earlier than they otherwise would, as devs/publishers are safe in the knowledge than major issues can be patched. So we can get our hands on them sooner.
2) As consumers, it's fairly easy to get hold of patches for games these days. In the old days, if a game didn't work out of the box you were often in big trouble.

In general I think that the only true way of testing games is getting the full release out there to customers as it makes it much easier to identify bugs than in a closed beta test due to the sheer numbers involved.
 
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