Pay to beta test

[HawkMan]

Is this really something we should accept ? today we have games where we pay to join betas before release, which is kind of a cheap way to force pre-orders. this isn't such a terrible thing as you just pay the same thing, though you are paying to help the developer for a game you may not even end up wanting...

 

but even worse, Steam is full of pre-release free to play games, where you pay to be a "founder" and get beta access...

 

and then you have stuff like Elite Dangerous in the attached picture....

 

 

Not only am I paying 20 euros more to help them find and fix bugs before the release, in addition to this full AAA release price, they're selling micro transactions....

 

It used to be people at the very least got to play betas for free as they provided a service to the developer, sometime you even got rewards, from as simple as a name in the credit roll or sometimes you got the game for free or on some MMO's you got special items. now they're instead taking advantage of the fact people want to play these games to get them to pay more to help them find and fix bugs for them... How is this acceptable...

 

 

The best solution would of course be if everyone at the very least boycotted buying into these beta and pre-release packages... but that seems unlikely to happen... especially since I myself don't think I'll be able to stop myself from buying a 20 euro overpriced access to help the developer beta test Elite Dangerous  :/

[blank]

No one is being "forced" to do anything. Usually you end up paying less for these betas and early access games by supporting them early.

Some games have amazing concepts and ideas and are worth supporting if they can actually deliver the envisioned product. Also by supporting early, you usually get many bonus and extra features.

Let's face it, games take money to make. Everyone cries about the big "evil" publishers like Ubisoft and EA, so supporting smaller studios trying to create quality games is worth it and should please many.

There does seem to be ALOT of "early access", and "kickstarter" games out there, and i supported several, and some dating back several years ago that still havent came out with a final product, but no one forced me, and again in the end if they come out with what they promised, then it was worth it.

Some games have a long development timeframe so f2p with microtransactions is the only way to keep some games up and online for small developers, especially ones that require data severs and such for multiplayer play, so even after the final game is out, still costs alot of these small companies to keep the support and online infrastructure online. Again, no one is forcing anyone to do anything.

I'm happy alot of developers are doing this type of early access now. Gives us more choices, and its fun to support and watch development.

[spaceelf]

The best solution would of course be if everyone at the very least boycotted buying into these beta and pre-release packages.

I don't see why everyone would agree with you.  If 'everyone' can't be arsed to boycott the 'worst company in America' why would they do that?

 

If anything, I think we should be able to pay to get early access to AAA games if we want to.

[Eric Veteran]

Wow, $75 and doesn't include the DLC or anything extra? I'm not even paying that for the release copy WITH all of the DLC.

The fact that it's already littered with microtransactions doesn't help any, either.

@blank: This game is not free to play.

[HawkMan]

How is paying for a F2P game for early access or paying 60 instead of 40 euros amount to paying "less".

 

I'm a founder on Mechwarrior online for example, never has it amounted to me paying less... this is another direction I don't like in games, F2P games like MWO, WoT,WoP, War Thunder and so on. It used to be I paid 60 dollars for a Mechwarrior game and I got a full game with access to all the mechs, a single player campaign and multiplayer. 

 

Now a single mechs costs 60 or more.... and no you can't get them all by grinding a ridiculous amount of hours. 

 

Beta testign is a service we give the developers, without beta testign the games would be bug ridden on release and without players willign to beta test they would have to hire a much larger QnA group that would cost them a lot, now not only are we not getting to beta for free any more(if you where selected) but we get to pay for the "privilege"....

[HawkMan]

I don't see why everyone would agree with you.  If 'everyone' can't be arsed to boycott the 'worst company in America' why would they do that?

 

If anything, I think we should be able to pay to get early access to AAA games if we want to.

 

could be because a lot of people outside of the irrational EA haters don't agree that they're the worst company, I can come up with any number of worse companies. sticking to gaming, starting with Activision/Blizzard, not only do they treat their employees even worse than EA, they also treat their customers worse like milk cattle stuck in their cages hooked up to the pumps. "oh hey, We're going to increase the monthly cost of our 10 year old MMO(that's also losing customers and is at half it's peak), but if you sign up for a year or two, you'll get to keep paying your old "low" sum"....

 

Gamers are being taken advantage of left and right today, and EA isn't even close to the worst of them today, are they "good" certainly not.

[Luc2k]

but that seems unlikely to happen... especially since I myself don't think I'll be able to stop myself from buying a 20 euro overpriced access to help the developer beta test Elite Dangerous  :/

There you go. Most people see this as anti-consumer, but when it comes to actually doing something about it, they just go "I'm sure there are other people that will make a stand against this so it won't happen again". Fact is, the gamers that don't fund these exploitative practices are a very small minority so everything is only going to get worse. Enjoy that!

[HawkMan]

Wow, $75 and doesn't include the DLC or anything extra? I'm not even paying that for the release copy WITH all of the DLC.

The fact that it's already littered with microtransactions doesn't help any, either.

@blank: This game is not free to play.

 

It's even worse when you consider the fact the game is, according to reviewers, unplayable with a mouse and you pretty much need a good HOTAS stick. Granted the TM Hotas X isn't very expensive, but it still increases the cost of the beta game by over 50% again. then again I probably need something like the higher end TM or the Saitek X52 to properly play the game without switching between the stick and keyboard a lot anyway. 

[spaceelf]

are they "good" certainly not.

I disagree on that as well.

 

My point is simply that boycotting is not going to be a global phenomenon when everyone has different reasons for buying what/how they do.

 

I probably wasted my money on most of the early access games I've paid for, but some of them were definately worth it.  Don't like it?  Don't buy it.  Imaginary problem solved.

[Eric Veteran]

It's even worse when you consider the fact the game is, according to reviewers, unplayable with a mouse and you pretty much need a good HOTAS stick. Granted the TM Hotas X isn't very expensive, but it still increases the cost of the beta game by over 50% again. then again I probably need something like the higher end TM or the Saitek X52 to properly play the game without switching between the stick and keyboard a lot anyway.

That's pretty bad. I played the original Elite with a keyboard. There was no point in owning a mouse for the C64 until GEOS came out. :p

[123456789A]

Forget paying for betas... on Star Citizen you can pay to alpha test.

[HawkMan]

I disagree on that as well.

 

My point is simply that boycotting is not going to be a global phenomenon when everyone has different reasons for buying what/how they do.

 

I probably wasted my money on most of the early access games I've paid for, but some of them were definately worth it.  Don't like it?  Don't buy it.  Imaginary problem solved.

 

That isn't really the point though, you're still paying to be able to help the developer fix bugs.  You're free to do it. but is it right, heck if it was tested in court, I have my doubts wether it would survive there as well(with the age old case of the MMO guides/GM's in mind. it's basically the same thing).

 

also how was paying for a free game "worth" it, because you got to pay it a month or two earlier ? that's more of an instant gratification issue 

 

btw have you made up your mind, is EA good or bad ?

 

and no boycotting won't work for any number of reasons, primarily because even if everyone did boycott, the handful of people who don't still are giving them that tiny little bit of extra income. 

 

in this case I don't mind the price of 60 euro as it's a pretty standard price for a game, however when they reduce it to 40 at launch AND add in micro transactions... eh...   it's even worse when you look at what the price was to join the alpha and premium beta periods...   I do understand their reasons after reading them(they essentially equal the price the Kick starter backers had to pay to join the alpha, premium beta and regular beta periods) but as the creator said, their solution has made them seem overly capitalistic and as if they take advantage of the gamers.  and they should probably have solved it better by using limited number of testers chosen by a mix of criteria and random instead of using money to reduce the number of alpha and early beta players. 

Forget paying for betas... on Star Citizen you can pay to alpha test.

 

you could pay for alpha on this game as well.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-11-david-braben-explains-elite-dangerous-100-premium-beta

 

 

 

Frontier Developments raised eyebrows when it charged ?200 to get in on the alpha for space game Elite: Dangerous, and did so again when it launched the Elite: Dangerous premium beta for ?100.

[HawkMan]

That's pretty bad. I played the original Elite with a keyboard. There was no point in owning a mouse for the C64 until GEOS came out. :p

 

 

The problem is that you have full 6 axis(throttle, yaw, "elevator", "aileron", sideways, up & down)  control of the spaceship and you need it all, since when you dock with a space station there's no auto pilot(really. there's spaceships with guns and all this crap. but there isn't a docking auto pilot...) so you have to continually align the spin of your ship with the gate of the station to dock or you crash. In addition the apparently awesome in spaceship holographic GUI requires you to look around the cockpit so you need the joystick for that as well and the "hat" to actually navigate the gui.  There was video on Verge that showed some gameplay that focused a lot on the docking and cockpit GUI.

 

luckily my new monitor has a webcam so I can install TrackNoIR or something similar to use head tracking to look around the cockpit. 

[spaceelf]

btw have you made up your mind, is EA good or bad ?

Huh?  EA has been my favorite game company for years.  

 

Thought you all knew this, heh.

[GotBored]

You want us to boycott this practice yet you yourself say you are going to buy the beta trial?

 

I'm not sure where you are going with this thread..

[MikeChipshop Member]

The best solution would of course be if everyone at the very least boycotted buying into these beta and pre-release packages... but that seems unlikely to happen... especially since I myself don't think I'll be able to stop myself from buying a 20 euro overpriced access to help the developer beta test Elite Dangerous  :/

At least you're honest.

I agree though, paying to beta test something is beyond taking the pee. I wouldn't say i'd "Boycott" it, as i would never pay for beta access in the first place.

[Eric Veteran]

The problem is that you have full 6 axis(throttle, yaw, "elevator", "aileron", sideways, up & down)  control of the spaceship and you need it all, since when you dock with a space station there's no auto pilot(really. there's spaceships with guns and all this crap. but there isn't a docking auto pilot...) so you have to continually align the spin of your ship with the gate of the station to dock or you crash. In addition the apparently awesome in spaceship holographic GUI requires you to look around the cockpit so you need the joystick for that as well and the "hat" to actually navigate the gui.  There was video on Verge that showed some gameplay that focused a lot on the docking and cockpit GUI.

 

luckily my new monitor has a webcam so I can install TrackNoIR or something similar to use head tracking to look around the cockpit. 

 

 

You had to do that in the original game, too. It worked with the keyboard fine, you just tapped the appropriate rotation keys to fire your retros until you were rotating at the same speed.

 

I just looked up the game/developer on Wikipedia and it's apparently one of the two guys that made the original game. I'm even more disappointed now. :/

[HawkMan]

You had to do that in the original game, too. It worked with the keyboard fine, you just tapped the appropriate rotation keys to fire your retros until you were rotating at the same speed.

 

I just looked up the game/developer on Wikipedia and it's apparently one of the two guys that made the original game. I'm even more disappointed now. :/

 

You can turn off the assisted flying so you have newtonian/kinetic flight.   but that is kind of a mess, or rather not as fun. with assisted flying on, the computer fires the RCS thrusters to keep you stable.

 

but you'd think this computer would also be able to match rotation to a station :)

[HawkMan]

You want us to boycott this practice yet you yourself say you are going to buy the beta trial?

 

I'm not sure where you are going with this thread..

 

I didn't say anyone should boycott, I said the best would be if people did, or at least stood up to this practice. But again, there are several things against this, starting with modern times constant instant gratification to the fact it doesn't really affect the developer either way.

 

As such it's more of a rant against the practice of taking advantage of gamers from devs and publishers alike today, from pay to beta to "free" to play games, where you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get the same game you paid 60 dollars for 10 years ago. 

 

 

in my case, it's a matter of not having a job and hating every other game I have or have tried making me crazy while I'm at home. 

[Crisp]

I like what ARMA did, sell the game for a fraction of the price during alpha and then full price on release. You're not forced to buy in, if you know you'll play the finished game then buy it when it's cheap and in alpha.

[TPreston]

I never thought people would put with having to install extra software on their computer just to play a game, or make an online account, or pay for ingame content etc

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers got away with displaying in game advertisements for paid users next.

[GotBored]

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers got away with displaying in game advertisements for paid users next.

 

It has already been done, I remember BF2142 had billboards in-game where they posted ads for companies. So EA have been doing it for awhile even BF4 has in-game ads now.

 

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2014/03/13/gamers-not-pleased-with-in-game-ads-in-battlefield-4/

[Eric Veteran]

I never thought people would put with having to install extra software on their computer just to play a game, or make an online account, or pay for ingame content etc

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers got away with displaying in game advertisements for paid users next.

 

They've been doing that for a while. The billboards in Burnout Paradise had real ads on them. :/

[winrez]

If I'm correct Blizzard did this with there last two expansions of Wow and even threw in Diablo III for PC for free for those unlucky enough to be chosen early on in the beta.. At least for me it took a lot of the fun out of playing it since it was a boring grind by the time it was actually launched.

[HawkMan]

I never thought people would put with having to install extra software on their computer just to play a game, or make an online account, or pay for ingame content etc

I wouldn't be surprised if the developers got away with displaying in game advertisements for paid users next.

 

ummm.. they've been doing this for a long time, ever since the real commercials in the SWAT fps game that was criticized, and several MMO's using actual ads on billboards, like Anarchy Online.  So you're several years late on that, happened even before all this F2P gouging.