Agreed, open beta and closed beta are different. I think that you're prescribing a definition to open-beta that never existed, in the formal sense.
Companies never once said, "Please join our open-beta as a chance to evaluate a finished product." That's what you're saying, right Dadown? I think that's ridiculous. Demos are one thing, like the Trial of the Isle demo that Sony had for EQ 2. While it wasn't much, it lets you get a small feel for the game.
While I understand the committment that comes with MMORPGs and playing them, and the players' wishes to fully feelout a game before they take up citizenship in a new world, I don't think that beta is the place to do it.
I don't think that developers owe it to me to let me play their games for a month to try it out myself. If they do, as EQ 2 did with their short-lived download on Fileplanet, then all the better. And I bought EQ 2, coincidentally. I still think that they should only do betas for the sake of testing and gathering information about a game.
If they want to do free trials after that, I wholly encourage them to. I don't think that players, especially considering how the effects of anonymity degrade the moral fiber of many on-line participants, should be allowed to control the direction of video game development though. They aren't smart enough and they aren't disciplined enough. That's why I think they should end this current trend of open-beta testing.
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Companies never once said, "Please join our open-beta as a chance to evaluate a finished product." That's what you're saying, right Dadown? I think that's ridiculous. Demos are one thing, like the Trial of the Isle demo that Sony had for EQ 2. While it wasn't much, it lets you get a small feel for the game.
While I understand the committment that comes with MMORPGs and playing them, and the players' wishes to fully feelout a game before they take up citizenship in a new world, I don't think that beta is the place to do it.
I don't think that developers owe it to me to let me play their games for a month to try it out myself. If they do, as EQ 2 did with their short-lived download on Fileplanet, then all the better. And I bought EQ 2, coincidentally. I still think that they should only do betas for the sake of testing and gathering information about a game.
If they want to do free trials after that, I wholly encourage them to. I don't think that players, especially considering how the effects of anonymity degrade the moral fiber of many on-line participants, should be allowed to control the direction of video game development though. They aren't smart enough and they aren't disciplined enough. That's why I think they should end this current trend of open-beta testing.