Short Thought - What Use are Beta Tests?
It won’t have escaped anyone’s notice (if you’re reading this, anyway) that beta tests are a thing that happen regularly. If you haven’t, then a beta test is where a publisher puts out a demo for a limited time, either via invitation in a closed beta, or available for everyone as an open one. Usually it will be to test that the servers can handle a ton of people playing all at once, occasionally it will be to see how people react to certain parts of a single-player game.
Many years ago, I belonged to an elite cadre of European PlayStation 2 owners. We got to try out games before release, in the comfort of our own homes, and would report problems via SCEE’s Beta Forum. There were tons of us, and it was more to stress test the limits of game servers -- there were specific times on specific days that they would want us to pile on as much traffic as possible. Sometimes literally, in the case of Twisted Metal Black...
I had one of these bad boys, free from Sony
Having been involved with tons of beta tests over the couple of years that the program ran, current betas confuse me. You have games that release with broken multiplayer, and curiouser yet, there are games that don’t get out to reviewers before release, specifically because the multiplayer servers will not be turned on until launch day. How do either of these things even happen?
You’ve had your 4-5 day multiplayer beta two months ago. You then turned off the servers, and decided to alter the already-perfect code of the game? There are occasions where a game has hit beta, and people have been vocal about what needs fixing -- but that’s when they decide not to alter the code in any way!
What’s the use of beta tests, and why are they called that when they are literally just demos? So few games get a demo these days, especially AAA releases, that I fear the term “beta test” has been co-opted by demos! Several years ago there was a brilliant multiplayer demo for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, and when the game launched it was pretty much spot-on. Was that because High Moon Studios actually worked on the game until launch? Did the demo help? I’d say it was because it was a Transformers game, but I’m not so jaded by the franchise that I forget that Rise of the Dark Spark and the other movie tie-ins exist…
So - why do betas exist? Because I have no idea...
COMMENTS
Kaostic - 02:08am, 26th May 2016
Personally, I believe triple A titles that have betas are for two reasons. 1. They create free advertising. It allows people to get a free look at the game and possibly but it if they were on the fence and gets people talking about the game a lot. 2. Improves review scores. They can get feedback from players and what would potentially lower their average review score which in turn loses them money.
Acelister - 11:16am, 26th May 2016 Author
They get feedback, but then why do they keep not acting upon it?
Kaostic - 04:25pm, 26th May 2016
You say that, but it could be they're collecting feedback and making small changes. Not every bit of feedback will result in a change, regardless of how much support it gets behind it as it wasn't the intention of the developer to change that.
TheSphericalCat - 07:34am, 26th May 2016
Ultimately, the recent trend of putting out time-restricted "betas" for free to the public is great for the consumer, because it's a good test to see if these games work on your PCs and are something you want to spend real actual money on. If only there were a word for that kind of thing that doesn't infringe upon an already misused word.
Joking aside, I think they call them betas because of exactly your experience with the PS2 beta initiative: people want to play games early and feel like they're special because of it, so developers are using this free QA testing or stress tests and getting all the hype from it too.
Acelister - 11:18am, 26th May 2016 Author
It's a great idea to check the capabilities of the servers. But why then turn them off?
TheSphericalCat - 11:33am, 26th May 2016
Well, in the case of DOOM, it was because they were too scared of negative reviews affecting sales so they held off until day 1 and used that as an excuse
Kaostic - 04:26pm, 26th May 2016
Could be because if you allow somebody to do something, then revoke the right to do that, it makes them want it more.
Mister Woot - 12:19pm, 26th May 2016
I remember betas being used to actually test for bugs too.
A perfect example is the Legion beta going on right now, my wife is finding buckets of bugs in that and submitting them when they occur, but I am 99% sure that come release day, if we go look to duplicate those same bugs they will still be there. I know it was that way for Burning Crusade, WOTLK and Cataclysm.