Gears of War Producer Says Consoles Make Betas Difficult

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Gears of War Producer Says Consoles Make Betas Difficult

According to Epic's Rod Fergusson, console gamers often don't have the same level of technical knowledge as their PC counterparts.

Fergusson, executive producer on the Gears of War games, says that closed nature of consoles makes beta testing rather difficult. He feels that console gamers have a certain expectation of how good a game will be during its beta, and that can make it hard to get any useful data.

Fergusson said that PC gamers tended to be more hands on with their hardware and have a greater degree of technical knowledge. He thought that they also understood that a beta wasn't a representation of the game's final quality, and actually enjoyed being part of the design process. As betas spread to consoles however, the amount of technical knowledge declined, because where PC gamers were used to installing their own components, consoles were closed boxes. He added that console gamers often didn't get the idea that the purpose of a beta was to test an unfinished product.

Getting useful data is going to be especially important to Epic in a few weeks, as it plans to hold a beta for Gears of War 3 in April, and will use players' comments to refine and improve the game's multiplayer before it comes out in the fall. Epic's Cliff Bleszinski said [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108340-Bad-Multiplayer-in-Gears-of-War-3-Will-Kill-the-Series-Says-CliffyB] that getting good feedback from the test was vital, as bad multiplayer in Gears 3 would kill the series.

Unfortunately, part of this misconception about betas among console gamers is down to the developers themselves. It's not uncommon for access to a beta to be doled out as a reward for purchases or pre-orders. Access to the Gears 3 beta, for example, was granted by either purchasing the special edition of Bulletstorm, or pre-ordering Gears 3 at GameStop. With that arrangement, where players have effectively bought their way into the beta, it's hardly surprising that they should be expecting something pretty polished.

Source: Strategy Informer [http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/11460/fergusson---you-cant-do-technical-betas-anymore]


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RA92

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Like I always said, absolute standardization will lead to an idiocracy.
 

mad825

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So after years of studying technology and taking part first hand in the industry, this is news to him?
 

Dorkmaster Flek

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That's an excellent point about "buying" your way into a console beta, actually. Certainly you can dole out limited access keys or something just like they do for PC games, right? It's true that console gamers as a whole probably do have less technical knowledge than PC gamers, especially when you consider the target audience for consoles.
 

GonzoGamer

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Logan Westbrook said:
Unfortunately, part of this misconception about betas among console gamers is down to the developers themselves. It's not uncommon for access to a beta to be doled out as a reward for purchases or pre-orders. Access to the Gears 3 beta, for example, was granted by either purchasing the special edition of Bulletstorm, or pre-ordering Gears 3 at GameStop. With that arrangement, where players have effectively bought their way into the beta, it's hardly surprising that they should be expecting something pretty polished.
I've been saying this for years: if these devs started treating it like a job again and not some prize, bonus, or product, they might get some better testing done.

No wonder so many games look/work like crap, some 11 year old with a new PSPlus subscription counts as a tester.

Maybe devs should go back to selling finished products like they (usually) did last gen.

These publishers always make me feel like Red:
 

TilMorrow

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Jul 7, 2010
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With Gears 3 which isn't coming out until later in the year I would expect an unpolished, unfinished piece of work for their MP Beta. But a game like Crysis 2 that releases its MP Demo/beta at least 2 months from the release I would expect something a little better than what I downloaded from XBL.
 

Cursed Frogurt

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I understand that betas are works in progress, but with that said I had MUCH more fun with CoD4 and Halo:Reach in their beta forms rather than the retail releases.

I think it's the fact that the fewer selections means that I more quickly get accustomed to the gameplay mechanincs and level layouts and feel like I can perform well.
Hell, I had a total BLAST playing Generator Defense on that sole map in the Reach beta, while I couldn't get into the competitive multiplayer in the retail release and ended up trading the game in.
 

ccesarano

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I think Epic isn't quite aware of just who their new market is. The sort of people whose only method of expressing displeasure is "that shit be whack dawg".

You can't expect real help from those people.
 

mjc0961

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Nov 30, 2009
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Oh, you noticed that Rod? Yeah, it annoys me too. You always see people going "YAY BETA!" like they're getting an early copy of the finished retail product. And then when it's not polished and not balanced quite yet, they got tell everyone that the game sucks and that they shouldn't buy it.

But yeah. Maybe... Just maybe! If console betas weren't handed out like candy to anyone who wanted some, you might get better results. I shouldn't just be surfing the web one day and randomly get an e-mail telling me that I've been invited to play the LittleBigPlanet 2 beta. What? I didn't sign up for this. I don't really want this. Why did you send this to me? And then there's PS+... $50 a year and one of the "perks" is access to unfinished games that I'm supposed to be trying to break so bugs can be found? Really, you just stood there at E3 and announced that like it's the most awesome thing ever, WTF are you thinking Sony? And then you Rod... Maybe you didn't do this personally, but giving away beta access to people who bought Bulletstorm: Epic Edition and preordered Gears 3 at GameStop? Not the way you should be picking participants.

When exactly did it become standard to buy your way into betas, anyway? If you participate in a beta correctly, you're already doing the job of a game tester for free. Now they want you to pay to join the testing experience? So backwards.

HankMan said:
Yes because being able to click "install" puts PC gamers leaps ahead of those poor console tards doesn't it. And only one us genius PC gamers has any idea what Beta means.
And that's not what he said at all. Thanks for reading the article before commenting!
 

beema

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If they think PC users are so much smarter and more helpful, how about releasing an f'ing new Gears game for PC then, you jerks?

It's pretty sad that people don't know what "beta" means and actually expect it to be a fully finished polished product. You reap what you sew Epic. Stop bitching about a situation that you created yourselves.
 

archvile93

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How much technical knowledge do you need to say, "This gun is overpowered?" or is it for those time they really want you to rack your brain with the specifics and say, "This overpowered gun could stand to either do less damage or have a lower rate of fire?"
 

DonJavo

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Sep 22, 2009
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I agree with the views presented in the article: PC gamers tend to have more technical knowledge than console gamers, console gamers think the word beta means demo, which is in part the fault of the developers in their way of handing out betas on the console.

I am a console gamer myself, who dabbles into the PC gaming scene and have found that there are some technical roadblocks that I need to wrap my head around when getting into the guts of a PC game. I don't mean trying to make my own maps or levels, but downloading and adding maps and levels built by the modding community. It is always a little bit of an adventure trying to navigate all the different terms used for this particular game on this particular site and then trying to add everything without breaking the game. In a console setting, everything is pretty much professionally made and put right into the game for you, and adding maps just means waiting for the developers to make a map pack and then buying it and downloading it. The console scene is just not exposed to the guts of the game they play.

This leads to an under-appreciation of the amount of things that can go wrong in a game when trying to make a map or levels, or an entire multi-player experience in the console scene, but like the end of the article says, that may be in part to the presentation of betas and the closed box nature of consoles. For trying to fix the closed box of consoles, I cannot offer any suggestions. That is up to Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, but they see this closed box way of doing business as a form of protecting their interests from piracy and the like. As for the presentation of the beta for console gamers, I kind of like the way it is done. For the Reach beta, I was pleasantly surprised that I got it for owning ODST (yes I bought it before actually knowing full well about when the beta was going to be out. I actually wanted to play the game.) I think that works--making it a little of a nice gift of loyalty, and/or buying a game that the developer made that is different from their main franchise machine. The key is to remind the player that what they are about to play is a work in progress. Bungie did this over and over again throughout the beta. Messages as it loaded, messages in the multi-player lobby, and they even had a playlist dedicated to stressing the hell out of the networks (Generator Defense), in which they clearly stated in the play list description.

All in all, yes consoles are closed boxes compared to PCs limiting the technical exposure console gamers have. Betas still are a mixed bag of interpretations on the console, so long as developers keep selling it as a early access demo. They need to keep telling the player that what they are playing is a very rough build and that they playing the beta will help make the final product so much better.
 

JourneyThroughHell

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mjc0961 said:
HankMan said:
Yes because being able to click "install" puts PC gamers leaps ahead of those poor console tards doesn't it. And only one us genius PC gamers has any idea what Beta means.
And that's not what he said at all. Thanks for reading the article before commenting!
Yes, it fucking is.

Article said:
Fergusson said that PC gamers ... understood that a beta wasn't a representation of the game's final quality.

...

He added that console gamers often didn't get the idea that the purpose of a beta was to test an unfinished product.
OT: If you don't like us, Rod, make PC games or something. Or, you know, actually have really tightly closed betas for your fanbase.
 

koroem

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Sigh Epic turns their backs on the PC platform after years of dedicated fans kept them in business, now they have the balls to complain about their new audience? I remember growing up playing Jazz Jackrabbit and One Must Fall way back when they were Epic MegaGames.

Used to love the stuff they put out. Nowadays, meh. Seems like they turned into loudmouths (Cliffy B), assholes (Mark Rien) and babies (Rod Fergusson).
 

KeyMaster45

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Jun 16, 2008
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I'd agree with his statement, but not just about console gamers but about people beta testing games today in general. I find that when I end up in a beta the forums are clogged with constant whining to the tune of; "OMFG THIS IS BROKEN FIX IT NAUGH!!" or "This game is shit and riddled with errors shouldn't you have gotten this all fixed in alpha?" Really if you've spent any amount of time in any beta you'll know the stuff I'm talking about and how it causes any actual feedback to be buried under this constant stream of ignorant bitching.

He's right that by giving access to betas through pre-orders and subscriptions the people you're going to get are people expecting a finished product and will not give the quality of feedback you're looking for. Oh sure there's always exceptions to this rule but the point is that you can have bad testers on both PC and consoles.

It's not that one audience is dumber than the other one it's that developers shouldn't be using their betas as a marketing ploy to increase sales.