The Daily Grind: Paying to play... in beta?
Filed under: Betas, Opinion, The Daily Grind
While Richard Garriott only recently figured out that open betas were more for marketing, and less for testing, it is a strategy that's been in use for some time. The Matrix Online was also one of the titles that did the "put $5 down for a pre-order and get a beta key" deal -- and while theirs felt more "finished" from a bug standpoint -- it came back to haunt them as well. Several people we know won't even try it again due to that experience, even with large changes to the game including a complete overhaul of the combat system. More recently, the folks at Flying Lab finished their beta and then entered a "pre-launch" phase (wisely avoiding calling it "beta" at all) and allowing people to level to 20 before today's launch of Pirates of the Burning Sea. (We can't speak for you, but several of us have had a blast in the pre-order.) So this morning we ask you -- have you ever "paid to play" in a MMO beta by going the pre-order to get in route? What was your experience like? Do you think that the idea of paying even a nominal fee to get into a beta makes you evaluate a game more harshly? Are you also unlikely to give a game a chance later after a bad beta experience? For that matter have you ever bailed on a game pre-reservation after a bad beta?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-22-2008 @ 9:24AM
Green Armadillo said...
I have no problem paying for access to betas. I paid Fileplanet for early access to the WoW stress test and beta, and was very impressed at how polished the game was (nearly five months before it launched). I paid for a pre-order of LOTRO, though that may not count because I was already in the closed beta (then again, they also featured no character wipe AND a lower monthly fee for pre-order customers, so that pre-order literally paid for itself). And most recently, I pre-ordered Hellgate: London and hated it so much that I decided to let the store keep my non-refundable deposit as thanks for saving me the other $40 of the box price.
Point being? If you're talking about a monthly-fee game and the beta access is going to last a month anyway, it's definitely worth paying to check it out. Most games don't seem to change that much in the last month or so of beta anyway, so you probably aren't missing out on too many changes. Of course, the catch for companies is that the game has to be ready for retail, but that's going to be just as true if they don't hold an open beta and keep the NDA in place until right up until launch day.
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1-22-2008 @ 9:35AM
Almohada said...
Yes, I have paid to get into some betas. Honestly at this point in time, a lot of people do because of companies partnering with Fileplanet and the like for "exclusive" access to their betas and stress tests, Pirates of the Burning Sea included. I want to get into betas to see how the games play out because at $50 or more a piece, blindly buying any MMO that hits the market is just not financially smart.
That said, I was one of those Matrix Online people, and I did much the same. I also didn't buy Vanguard or Lord of the Rings Online because I was completely unimpressed with how they laid out the mechanics of the game. I knew they were going to be buggy, I expected that, but I didn't like their quest or skill system. I saved myself some money, time, and frustration.
My bigger issue with betas is that I'll play to the level cap, seeing everything there is to see, and wind up going, "That's it?" I have to curb my normal leveling to not burn myself out on the game while trying it and not ruin the actual game for myself.
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1-22-2008 @ 11:12AM
Angel said...
I have been involved in about 25 beta phases over the last 10 years. Autoassault, DDO, and TR I “bought into”. I was in closed beta for PotBS but picked up the preorder for the treats. PotBS is the only beta I bought into I will be going live with. I did not go live with Autoassault, DDO, or TR. Keeping the fact that those games were going to be buggy I was still vastly under impressed.
When I personally get involved in a beta I am in it to watch the game evolve from its post alpha to its launch version. I enjoy watching the games develop weather I like the end result or not. I take beta very seriously and become heavily involved in improving a game. I also, given my research interests look at the developing narrative structure of a game. seeing where it starts and what it ends up being is very revealing some times.
For me, paying to get into beta phase affects my perception. I do not see paid beta as a true beta. This has a lot to do with the implications of paying to be in beta. At a certain level I do not see it as a true beta. In my experience when a company charges for beta entry it is more of a pre-official launch. Oft the version opened up to open beta is nearly the end of the development phase and can have much more polish that the term beta implies.
If there was to be a truth leveled against this concept of paying for beta that truth would take the form of this really being a paid trial with minor bugs. What shows up in a paid beta is nearly the final game form for launch.
With that I would have loved to have been in on the early beta phase for both AoC and Warhammer Online. The shifts in game play and pushing back of launch dates indicate a seriousness of devotion to the development process at the level I saw in CoH (of which I was one of the first 1000 testers allowed into beta). Would have I paid for the privilege of being in beta for those two games? No. if i am going to pay for a beta, which I will never do again, I would want to experience something more akin to a final version of a game.
This causes me to raise a second question: Should there be a paid unlimited trial of about a month for a fraction of the cost of a subscription?
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1-22-2008 @ 2:27PM
Green Armadillo said...
I think that a paid trial month without restrictions would solve a lot of issues. Free trial accounts sometimes cut off way too early in the game to really learn what it's going to be like at higher levels. Meanwhile, charging for the trial would basically end the ability of gold-sellers to make endless free trial accounts to spam the paying playerbase (and thus remove the need for so many restrictions on legitimate trial players). It would also lower the adoption barrier for MMORPG's - I'm willing to pay the $15 the month of service would have cost, and I'd even be fine with a nominal fee (another $5 perhaps) for the privilege of downloading the client, setting up an account, etc. What I get worried about is paying the full $50, finding out within minutes that I hate the game, and wasting the other $30 or so of the purchase price since, unlike off-line games, I can't very well resell the game to cut my losses.
The only catch for the companies is that they only get $20 from customers who stick around for a month, compared to $50 now. But I think it would be worth it for them in the long term. And SOE may agree, one of the interviews about The Agency suggests that they might be looking into just this issue.