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The Rigors of Beta Testing: The Past, Present, and Future - Page 7

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Posted April 16th, 2009 by Cody Bye

For those developers that have the money to do so, waiting until a game is ready to be viewed by the public eyes is essential. When asked about beta tests, Steve Perkins, the director of marketing for Mythic Entertainment and Warhammer Online, said this:
Ultimately, you need to believe in your product before you conduct any sort of open beta or release a demo. You can message to players all you want that the game is a “work in progress” and that many things will change before final release, but that won’t stop them from making judgments about the title based on their beta experiences.

There is no science or rule book to follow for conducting a beta. It’s really a judgment call by the development team as to when to let players into their game. They need to decide if the game is ready for “primetime”. Make the wrong decision, and it could adversely affect your sales. Make the right decision, as DICE did with the Battlefield 1942 demo, and it could turn a new title into the “must have” game of the year!

While a good demo or beta, can really put a game on the map, not every title needs one. With the right media coverage and select consumer showcases (demoing at PAX, etc.), you can generate an incredible amount of positive buzz for your game. There have been many massive hits that never let the public touch the game before release.

A game beta is like a little morsel of food – if you find it delicious, you are going to want more and go out of your way to get more. If it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you are not going back for seconds. Either way, you are likely to relate your experience to a friend and influence their decision as well.

So with the possibility of a beta test actually hurting the potential popularity of a game, is it even worth it for developers to stick their neck on the line and have beta tests? After hearing so much about the problems and issues developers face with beta, could they actually produce a game without any external testing? Is it even possible?

After we posed this question to our select group of developers, Hermann Peterscheck, producer for the "soon to be in beta" Jumpgate Evolution, was one of the first individuals to chime in. If you've read any of our previous interviews with Hermann, you know that his thoughts are clear and well-written, so his response to our inquiries wasn't a surprise at all.

Well. It's a harsh world. Whenever you put your baby out there, you risk that people say it's ugly.  I can't speak specifically to Tabula Rasa, but we've certainly experienced unfavorable feedback during testing periods. I think that it's impossible to know exactly how your game will be received but by doing increasingly large play tests you can get a pretty good idea of what people think. I'm amazed at how well the tests scale. If 10/40 people like or don't like something, generally 100/400 are about the same.

What does not scale are complex long term inter-relationships, but most games don't get bad beta results because of that. I think it's really a factor of being patient and waiting until you are ready before you test. There are all kinds of pressures that work against that and many of them are very real. I think the right time to test something is when you need the information from the test. If you do an internal test and it's not giving you useful data, you need to do external tests. When 300 people aren't enough to get useful data you need 1000, and so on. If you can manage to make an MMO that is awesomely fun without doing any testing, then I think that not showing the game won't hurt the success at all... that being said, I have no idea how you would make a good MMO without lots of testing: internal, external, and public.

According to Cryptic Studio's chief creative officer, Jack Emmert, there’s an enormous benefit to the developer that’s adaptable and can actually change things in their game during the beta phase. “In Champions Online, our beta has been great for identifying things that are not fun,  and what the game is missing,” Emmert told Ten Ton Hammer. “We’ve even gone to our beta community for suggestions on how to solve certain issues. Now if the developer doesn’t have the time or the tools to make changes, then it’s impossible to adjust on the fly. Thankfully, Cryptic doesn’t fall into this category. I think closed beta has made a huge difference in our direction.”

But Jack also expanded on these questions in his next comment. "If a game is good, then beta or no, it’ll sell," he said. "If a team is a little unsure of how the public will react to something, then probably a beta can hurt. Someone might try the game and say, 'nah, not worth it.' That’s the real danger of beta; that potential customers will be able to decide before the purchase whether or not to buy. That’s why I think beta is vital to make changes to the game – to show the customers that you DO listen and that you want the game to succeed."

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