this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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Beta testers should get a discount, or even get paid, in exchange for writing good bug reports. These people are fools for paying extra for earlier access to a bug fest.
I would never pre-order a game. That just makes it harder to refund it if it sucks.
The original Minecraft had the right idea in my eyes. Cheap in alpha, because there is less stuff. A bit more when it reached beta state and another increase when it reached full release state.
Because you played an inferior version with less content and supported the development, you got a discount. No idea why people would pay extra to be the beta tester though.
But then someone will see a spreadsheet and calculate the "missed" revenue, and whoever made that decision either gets replaced or given strict orders next time
Even if they manage to dig their heels in, it will come up again and again. It looks like a money shaped hole, and so organizationally they'll keep coming back to it
It is a great way to make games, many indie games do this. A team can do this, but a corporation can't - subtlety doesn't fit on a spreadsheet
Oh for sure, I don't blame the companies for doing it. I'm blaming the customers for being stupid enough to fall for it. Again. And again. And again.
I'm not sure customers are falling for it - this is why voting with your wallet doesn't work. People rage against games that launch in an unfinished state, particularly when they're full price. Steam reviews often incorporate price point - statements like "don't buy this at full price" or "this might have been worth it at $20, but this is not a $70 game" come up a lot
Sales for AAA games are way down, we just saw the biggest failure in gaming history. Casual reading of steam reviews show people clearly have different expectations based on price, Twitter sometimes explodes with anger at specific moves (like Helldivers requiring PSN) and they back off (temporarily), but they always go back to the bullshit
The feedback mechanism of "voting with your wallet" doesn't communicate this message. Metrics show purchases, refunds, and active users... That's what fits on a spreadsheet. They see a game failing, but that doesn't mean they've understood why
AAA studios don't want to understand what makes a game succeed or fail - they just want a formula to min-max ROI. They want strong numbers at launch, but they also want to minimize production costs, and they treat costs (like developers) as line items - they learn the wrong lessons, because they aren't concerned with the creative part of game design. They want to be the next Madden or assassin's creed, they want to figure out how to get players to pay $70 + micro transactions (or better yet a subscription too), but they also want their employees to be interchangeable cogs they can push to burn out then replace
AAA gaming is dying from this, but it's an oligarchy at this point - large corporations are unable to understand nuance or truly innovate - these are things people do when they have autonomy. They don't do team building or R&D anymore - that's a gamble that sometimes pays off big, but not in a quarter or two. They aquire then kill off what made the team work in the first place - any individual can tell you that's a recipe for failure, but by nature they keep the decision making far removed from the people actually doing the work
I was going to pipe in that I paid for Minecraft in infdev, so pre-alpha. But now that you mention it, it was dirt cheap, and they had already had several free access weekends in indev, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into