[MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Amanda Walker

> I realize that the "open beta" is a useful way for game companies
> to build buzz and do some scalability testing before release (both
> of which I think are quite valid motivations), but it means it's
> now possible to get your gaming fixes for free as long as you're
> willing to hop from beta to beta as games get released.  This is,
> understandably, quite popular with the college-age and
> twentysomething crowd, who have more free time and fewer dollars
> to spend than the 30+ crowd who seem to make up the bulk of paying
> customers.  Certainly since release, AC2 has had fewer d00ds and
> more adults playing, as far as I've been able to tell...

The problem isn't open beta, its foisting partially developed ideas
and boring content on the public and then being shocked when no one
wants to pay for it.

Then again beta selection processes tend to favor the people who
fawn on message boards rather than the far harder target of those
who need to have the game sold to them. Its far easier to sell SWG
to 'darthbozo' who lives on their forum, then it will be to anyone
else. (sorry for picking on SWG, its just an example).

I have to confess to never having been in a beta process for long
enough to get bored of the game as I'm normally let in for the open
stage at the end.  Beginning to suspect that ticking the 'I am a
programmer' box is getting me filtered out - possibly because they
don't have proper encryption on their data stream yet and don't want
people getting a head start hacking it? (lost battle that it is)

Dan

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