I imagine you're referring to the Magid's survey that went out and included invites? Cause the article you linked to is quite old
John Funk said:
I can't be the only one who finds it funny how eager some people (including yours truly) are to get into closed beta tests for upcoming online games. By their very definition, betas are unfinished and rough versions of games - there will be bugs, there will be clunky gameplay, and there will be missing content. Why are we always so excited about getting a chance to play a worse version of whatever game it is we're looking forward to?
Ya it is a bit, but there's a lot of reasons. First off, there's the bragging rights - "I've played this game since beta" (or possibly even alpha, considering this stage is something in between). Hell, just look at the bunch of posters all flexing the date of their forum join on the official forums (we even got the same thing here on Escapist).
Then there's the "I just wanna see if the gameplay is up to my expectations, even if it's not finished" group - you can find me right here along with most people interested in the game. You know how everyone is happy when they get news about the game, get an answer to that question that's been bugging them for ages, like how big do worlds feel, how static/dynamic PvP combat is etc.? Well this is pretty much a golden ticket for those as they get to see most/all their answers first hand.
And of course there's the actual intended reason, people who want to make the game better for when it launches by playing the hell out of the betas, considering they're pretty much the intended and also the best way to spot any and all bugs and report them early, when there's a large team right there just waiting for you to find stuff for them to fix.
Most people are of course the mix of the groups/reasons, to one point or another, but ya, as you see, despite the unfinished status of the game, there's plenty of reasons to wanna get into beta
