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Hello, my name is Sibcoe, welcome to another episode of "General Chat," the show where
we cover everything from the color of Sylvanas Windrunner's underwear to the private lives
of Marvel Heroes.
The game in the background is Guild Wars 2, from Arena Net. let's dive into today's topic
- do beta events hurt or help games today?
I was recently watching the DICE 2013 presentation from CEO of Puzzle Clubhouse, Jesse Schell,
who cited XBox 360 stats for his case that game demos actually hurt game sales. This
got me to wondering, do public beta's hurt PC game sales, or boost them?
I am thinking of just about every major game that has had a public beta in recent years,
Warhammer Online, Aion, DayZ, Firefall, Star Wars the Old Republic, Path of Exile, Diablo
3 and many, many more.
I don't have hard numbers for all of those games, but Path of Exile and Diablo 3 certainly
did extremely well by their own standards, in terms of post closed beta sales or player
adoption. The case of Star Wars the Old Republic is more interesting, in that it was the fastest
selling PC MMO in history, but only for the first three days, then crashed and burned
in the first month.
Diablo 3 sold 12 million copies, but has faced some of the harshest post launch criticism
of any Blizzard title to date.
It begs the question of the impact on a game's post beta performance, by having one that
is public.
I think the problem is further complicated by a beta that shows off game elements that
end up not making it into the final production game. Such was the case with Diablo 3, removing
many key features right before launch.
Would Diablo 3 have been better received if it had not held a somewhat public beta? Would
games in general do better without the general population of gamers making decisions and
judgements about an unfinished product?
It is not hard to see that certain games that have a bad beta, or one that is in a state
of flux, can send gamers into a state of disatisfaction with a game, even before it comes out. I know
of many times I have seen both cases, gamers cancelling pre-orders based on beta and gamers
actually placing a pre-order based on beta. However, in the case of the latter, does it
pump up expectations that if not fulfilled later when the game launches, kill the hype
and hurt the future sales?
There are clear cases of public beta events hurting a game after it goes gold, and clear
cases of it helping. I think it is a huge risk to take in having an open beta, or widely
available closed beta. It allows the general gaming population to publish videos, reports,
talk to friends, and generally pass judgement on an unfinished product. This can cause a
developer to move into crisis mode, or to spend time putting out the fires of misconception,
and rushing a game to address beta features.
I don't see a negative correlation too often between a beta and lack of initial game sales,
but if the production game does not deliver on beta promises, I see this as a strong case
for player backlash and future expansion hits.
I have also found that these days, many veteran players no longer want to participate in beta,
for fear of being burned out, and this can also leave a bad impression of a game - being
burned out on a short beta.
What do you think, are beta events good for a game post launch, do they drive box sales,
and do you like to participate in them? Let us know in the comments below.
This has been Sibcoe chatting abut beta events, until next time, stay drama free "General
Chat." Cheers 0/