Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Beta Up Buttercup

by Chris Holmes August 20th 2008 5:30 PM CDT1 Comments

Back in my day, developers paid intense attention to detail, doing all their own work in getting their title out. Then, betas started to become prevalent in the PC area, with developers using them as a tool to both test elements of their games and as a marketing device to help drum up support from future punters. This process continues to this very day, but for the first time, we are seeing them become very successful and useful in the console department. Now the 360 has been getting quite a few betas since its release due to the increasing accessibility and userbase of Live.

This has helped to push the word “beta” to one of the latest buzzwords in gaming, something all the cool kids are doing to show off in their own little playground. In essence, they are the new form of demos.

The first public beta on the 360 was for Final Fantasy XI, which required a CD from an issue of Official Xbox Magazine and a stupid amount of updates to be downloaded from Square Enix’s poor PlayOnline service. However, I was captivated by it and the whole process. It might not have been the best game or easiest to play, but this beta was essentially a free MMO, something not commonly prevalent on the 360.

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Betas might help developers get some elements tested before their games' release, but they might be pushing some potential customers away from the final product. For example, I recently played the new Red Faction: Guerilla open beta, and I was less than impressed with it. The controls were weird, the shooting felt loose, and the very thing the beta was supposed to test, the multiplayer server, wasn’t very helpful.

This brings me onto the next thing about betas; some developers are using them instead of demonstrations due to use the scapegoat that the beta itself “is not indicative of the final product”. There is no telling if it’s because the full game is going to be a mess too or if the beta itself was dumbed down to just test a server, Live elements or popularity of a game.

Moving on, why aren’t we paid to take part in betas? Developers pay testers to make sure a game is up to scratch, so surely people who take part in betas should be paid or given something for their hard work. Free, exclusive amerpics or themes would be a start. Don't see that anywhere as of yet.


Disappointingly, it seems us gamers are the architect of our own demise again: unknowingly giving up our hard-earned free time to do a job a bunch of pizza-stuffed interns should do, then in some cases being told not to tell anyone about what we experienced. This is a bizarre situation, as demos have made us really receptive to trying new games early, and devs have managed to tap into this mindset and exploit us to the point where the word “submissive” would be deemed too light.

The future is looking mixed for betas. More and more are coming out, and Live is slowly becoming a game testers network. How long will we put up with being made someone else’s bitch? You shouldn;t put up with it in a relationship or just in general society, so why should we put up with it from a load of squares who manipulate their own userbase?