I asked a few people about this, the responses? All the same.
"Of course I want to beta test AoM!, Who doesn't? I'll get a free copy of the game months before its released, What could be better?"
While you do have a very, very good point ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beta testers—"average" people who kick the tires on new software before it is released to the general public—are the unsung heroes of the computer gaming industry. They help developers fine-tune their game engines and control interfaces. They provide vital feedback that helps publishers decide how much marketing muscle to put behind a title. And they suffer through and help to fix last-minute bugs. The payoff? Beta testers get to play the games the rest of us only dream about. Once software was issued and lasted for months or even years without change. (The word “patch” was a sewing term Enter the marketing people who want to sell more products. They urged the programmers to issue more programs to sell. So the programming and testing departments grew larger and larger as new programs and fancy additions to existing programs were made. Sales grew but it was an expensive operation. Profits barely increased. Consultants were hired. They noticed over-worked testers routinely took extra copies of new products for their relatives and friends to try out and report back on any problems. This little unpaid army of testers were thrilled to have the latest programs that no one else could get even if they had to put up with defects. What a money saver this would be: Fire the employee testers and give the programs away for free testing. Amazingly, thousands of computer users volunteered (literally begged) to be testers. Many of them had nothing to do on their computers anyway ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ I don’t consider myself an exterminator, but I’ve been battling computer bugs for years. So Far, I've been involved in four projects, Netstorm: Islands at War, Conquest: Frontier Wars, Mech Commander 2 and most recently Arcanum. I don’t particularly go out of the way to try and beta test games, just the ones I'm really looking forward to So, where do we get started? Well, long before AoM hits the store shelves, it goes through a series of testing procedures to make sure the game works right. When the game is first created, it goes through preliminary tests, which are usually done in-house or by companies that specialize in testing games. This is often called the ‘‘alpha’’ testing phase. Once the game is stable enough for wider distribution, it’s released to beta testers. This is a key part of the testing process that precedes the release of a game for sale to the public. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you become a beta tester for a game, you are held under variety of different NDAs ( As a beta tester, you are required to send in bug reports weekly if not by-daily (Every other day). Although these requirements do change with other companies/producers, they are As a tester, you also ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ From: Tester #659 “Obviously tester #882 that’s a hardware problem and has nothing to do with the program. Contact the manufacturer From: Tester #477 “Tester #882 must be deaf and colour blind. Try putting some ink in your printer!” From: Beta Test Manager ∙ ~~~~~~~~ Beta tests mostly start with an eager group of users and ends with a decimated group of shell-shocked people brow beaten and deflated from the ordeal. Sounds harsh? Well, imagine the people who HAVE to do this more than 12 hours a day. You can slack off If you’re genuinely interested in testing all types of games, I’d recommend you checkout gamespots beta test centre right **Phew, that’s it for the moment, as always, comments and suggestions are welcome, just remember this is just my opinion, I’m not saying its correct, and if any of ye have experiences in this field, I’d love to hear them Thanks for reading this! [This message has been edited by Stone_Giant (edited 01-06-2002 @ 12:31 PM).]
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Stone_Giant