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Halfprice access to early beta to help with development costs, ensuring a better, less rushed games gets out the door.
Funds always help and will ensure the game won't fold or get released when clearly not ready.

Quote (Soldado @ Nov. 23 2005, 12:02 am)

Halfprice access to early beta to help with development costs, ensuring a better, less rushed games gets out the door. Funds always help and will ensure the game won't fold or get released when clearly not ready.

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I'm kind of thinking this is a bad idea, and for a number of reasons.

In terms of open beta, which is probably the only kind you could actually charge for, is really a stress test. Stress testing really is little more than bringing as many people onto a server as possible to see if things don't go kaboom. You tend to want to have as many open beta testers as you can. That is why it is "open" to everyone generally. You don't want to discourage testers.

Second issue is beta testers who are using beta as a test drive of sorts. The gamers who are on the fence. They don't want to spend the 50 dollars to buy the game unless they know they will like it so they try the free beta to find out if they want it or not. You would be killing these people and someone who isn't sure about a game is not going to pay to test.

Third issue the game, at least in closed beta, tends to be buggy. I don't know how many people would be willing to pay to play/test a game in an early beta stage. Closed beta pools tend to not be huge as it is because beta's often have very restrictive rules such as needing high end computer, high speed internet, age requirnments, participation in the community, etc. I don't know if shrinking your beta testing pool by putting a price tag on it is a good idea.

Fourth, beta is often a reward for veteran community members who have been following and activly contributing to the game development. Paying for the experience kinds of removes that idea as well.

Overall I just don't see the point. Your only real case of paying for beta is an attempt on the devs side to spend all the time they need in beta. Well I suppose that is true, but in reality I doubt even that would satisfy a game company. It is generally the marketing and accouting types that push a game out even if it is not 100% ready because they want to see some return on their large investment instead of having to spend even more money. I doubt the small income from beta testers paying half the normal fee would overcome the desire to see positve returns on an investment.

Heck!   SWG players pay full price for a beta, so why not?

  Sorry!   I couldn't resist!

Quote (Zaddik @ Nov. 22 2005, 8:14 pm)

Heck!   SWG players pay full price for a beta, so why not?   Sorry!   I couldn't resist!

Actually we did pay for SWG beta, I was second draft.

$40CAN plus shipping of the beta CD's.
Still have 2 Sets unwrapped, stoopidly figured they might be worth something someday, other then an object of ridacule that is

No.

Requiring payment to join a betatest has been attempted before. But result have been that only people being prepared to pay to have the game as early as possible will be the majority joining.

Thing is that during beta there isnt a "game" yet so to speak. Its in beta for a reason and possibly fragmanted and with features missing. So those people end up being frustrated with the game beta build and thus spreading bad karma to their friends about the game and as a result we have bad advertising. Also this kind of tester is of little use to the developers and we have a larger chance for critical bugs escaping notice untill the full release.

So a closed + open beta free of charge is still the best option as it increases the chance that more people joining the beta test are serious testers and not just freeloaders.

It would be neat, but I don't see it happening.  Perhaps it would be better to grant beta to those who pre-pay?

Quote (sheldie @ Nov. 23 2005, 4:59 am)

It would be neat, but I don't see it happening. Perhaps it would be better to grant beta to those who pre-pay?

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Can't do that for one key reason.  Beta normally happens ages before pre-ordering of the game takes place, at least closed beta any way.  Closed beta happens months before launch and sometimes even an entire year before in the case of some games.  What happens if the game is delayed because of poor beta tests or the game is scapped all together in beta?  That would certainly make pre-pay an interesting thing now wouldn't it?

Pre-order tends to get people into the later stages of beta which tend to be stress tests only, and not real hardcore testing of the game mechanics.

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Pre-order tends to get people into the later stages of beta which tend to be stress tests only, and not real hardcore testing of the game mechanics.

This was I was actually refering to.

Quote (Ellessar @ Nov. 23 2005, 5:16 am)

Pre-order tends to get people into the later stages of beta which tend to be stress tests only, and not real hardcore testing of the game mechanics.

well techincaly if you pay for a pre-order you could get a secured beta spot it has happend in the past and they also got a 3 day head start on the main retail version before anyone else
(CoH and CoV did it)

Quote (ian967 @ Nov. 23 2005, 5:56 am)

Quote (Ellessar @ Nov. 23 2005, 5:16 am) Pre-order tends to get people into the later stages of beta which tend to be stress tests only, and not real hardcore testing of the game mechanics. well techincaly if you pay for a pre-order you could get a secured beta spot it has happend in the past and they also got a 3 day head start on the main retail version before anyone else (CoH and CoV did it)

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Is that not what I just said?  A lot of MMOs tend to give late beta to pre-order gamers.  

Early beta linked to pre-order is not a great idea for the reasons I stated above, at least in my opinion anyway.

SWG was the first beta I had to pay for, $15 canadian, as those greedy bastards didn't want to do digital download which every other game does even their own planetside did it months before swg. I guess even at that time they didn't have much confidence in the game and decided to get as much money as they could before release too

I don't agree with paying to get into a beta either. You make people start paying to get into closed betas and they will expected to be treated differently than regular beta testers, just because they paid for it.

But more and more games are going the pay for beta access route, CoH CoV had preorders for beta spots, WoW used fileplanet for the open beta accounts, other games are starting to follow that route.

Im 100% against it.

Mmorpgs are released in halfassed condition when companies charge for beta testing.

Beta should be free and the particpants picked based upon their:

1. History of testing other games in the mmorpg market
2. Constructive and helpful posts in the forums in which Perpetual Entertainment often used to help facilitate their progress
3. Computer specs (whether it is good or bad specs; to cover the spectrum of all systems)

Beta should never be placed on fileplanet to add subcribers to their database nor should they be placed upon a person if that person pays through monetary means or if they pre-ordered the game.

Beta is suppose to be filled with players who are testing the game and submitting bugs, exploits, and other weaknesses or errors imbedded in the programming.

The moment you grant beta access to anyone with a credit card and 15 bucks you no longer have a genuine beta. You get a pre-p2p game that is riddled by players who have no desire to test the system and a gaming company who is merely interested in getting as much money as possible...even if it means the game has not eevn been officially released yet.

Trust me, Perpetual Entertainment do not need beta money to ensure continued development of this game. They are being supported by Paramount Studios; I think they are comfortable.

Let's just put it this way. Ive never seen a successful mmorpg that made people pay for beta. Never. And my full time job (I get paid a salary) is mmorpgs...I have enough experience in this field to know what Im talking about.