‘Free’ with your pre-order
Written by Erik Nusselder op
If there’s one thing we’re not very good at in the gaming industry, it’s setting definitions for our gaming jargon. If Metroid Prime is a remaster, why is The Last of Us: Part 1 a remake? We are now – thanks in part to Diablo 4 – another terminological confusion richer: beta versus demo.
Last weekend, a beta allowed players to get their hands on the first few hours of the much-anticipated Diablo 4, and this weekend fans are also in the digital queue to enter the gritty Sanctuary. It’s a nice preview of the game, which will finally be released on June 6.
Unfortunately, the beta did not go smoothly in the first weekend. Players lined up for hours on Friday night before they could begin their demonic mission. The servers appeared to succumb to the great interest. Social media was flooded with complaints: Why can’t I play?
It seems like people have kind of forgotten what exactly a beta means. The beta is a way for developers to test their game, to see if everything is on track and what technical wrinkles still need to be ironed out. But also: can the servers handle the pressure?
Developers also benefit greatly from feedback from players after such a trial session. Are the skills and classes a bit balanced? Which features do you really turn off? And finally, a developer learns a lot from the player data, for example which class is chosen most often and which almost never.
Playing a beta is therefore a bit like volunteering. You put your hours into an unfinished product, where your progress is often not even saved. The developer gains valuable knowledge from that, and you only get a nice taste of a game that hasn’t been released yet. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as all parties know exactly what they are getting into.
However, by complaining about the poor technical performance of the Diablo beta, players are showing that they no longer understand the meaning of the word. Technical issues are part of a beta. In fact, that is exactly what a beta is held for, to be able to deal with those problems upon release.
Blizzard’s general manager Rod Fergusson also noticed this week. “The word beta is misinterpreted these days. People call things a beta which is more like a “marketing beta” which is another term for a demo. That is not the case with us at all. Our beta is really meant to test the technology, especially in terms of servers. So we had a difficult start last Friday.” He points out that several updates have already been released, which will only make the release of Diablo 4 better.
That’s all well and good, but whose fault is it that we’ve come to see these kinds of previews more as a demo? Did angry players think they were ‘entitled’ to a working product last weekend, or was that perhaps prompted by the marketing push companies like Activision Blizzard deploy? Last weekend was not just a beta, but one that was only available to people who had pre-ordered the game. In other words: you had to pay money for the luxury to be able to play the beta.
As soon as money is paid for something, I think the situation changes. Of course you pay the same amount for a pre-order as for the final game, but with the beta as a root you will be tempted to open your wallet now. Publishers have been trying to boost pre-order numbers for years so they can sell more copies to retailers. Fine, if you also get what you are promised as soon as you put down your money. But if such a beta does not work, it will be a different story. The beta is part of the package you pay for, so you’ll obviously be disappointed if it doesn’t work.
Of course, nowadays we are used to online games not really working flawlessly on release day, but this is a different case. After all, the closed beta was only available for one (long) weekend. If it doesn’t work for a whole day, a quarter of your promised playing time has been cut.
Moreover, Activision Blizzard has not missed an opportunity to position the beta in this way. On Instagram I received one advertisement after another asking if I didn’t want to pre-order the game, so that I could ‘try’ it for free this weekend. That actually sounds more like a demo than a beta. It is logical that this creates expectations among players.
So if developers like Blizzard want players to get the hang of the definition of “beta” again, they should stop pre-ordering it as a reward or advertising it as a free trial. Just state clearly what it is: an unfinished version of the game, helping to make the game better in the end. It’s in the fine print somewhere now, but that should be the main message. Especially if you are going to charge money for the privilege of doing this volunteer work.
On the other hand: you already know that when Diablo 4 comes out, the servers will catch fire on the first day anyway. It’s the same with all online games: publishers just don’t want to shell out the money for enough servers to handle that initial, unique peak of players. That would not be very smart from an economic point of view, because that huge peak will not return after the first few days. But of course it is not really customer-friendly.
Last weekend’s beta was an excellent demo in that respect. It was a perfect preview of what to expect upon release.
