What’s the big deal about open betas, anyway?
Posted by Tipa in Age of Conan, MMOs, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, World of WarcraftToday, the Age of Conan open beta opens. And people are fibrillating over it, slavering, EAGER to download a game most of them will have forgotten about in six months. But not today. Today, it brings meaning to their lives. Today the sun is shining right on them and the birds are singing because, today, they can play a new video game.
People are not only accepting of marketing, they willingly dive right in. Even though each and every one of them knows that if they really wanted a quality game experience, they’d pick up the game a month or two after it launches, when the rush is off, the game is stable, and it’s clear if the game is really awesome or just meh. Something you can’t really tell when ten thousand people are lagging the beta servers.
We computer fans have a long history of falling prey to hype. Remember the “Midnight Madness” spectacle Microsoft orchestrated around the release of Windows 95? Nothing was going to stop those people from buying an OPERATING SYSTEM at midnight. So they could be first to… what, exactly? Nobody really knew. They got over it pretty fast, waking up, wondering what all the fuss was about.
There was no fuss. Just hype. Software marketers have become masters at building hype. Age of Conan, Warhammer Online… If you can somehow get a player to make an emotional connection that can entirely bypass the rational part of their brains… well, you’ve made a SALE.
Because, you know what you’re going to do in AoC, and Warhammer Online? That’s right. You’re going to make a character, kill stuff, level, loot corpse, repeat. The same grind you see in every other MMO you ever played. It’s the *same game*.
If you were buying a car, you wouldn’t trade in your perfecly serviceable car for another just because it looked shiny and new.
Oh wait. Yeah, people do that all the time. Because Marketing WORKS. Marketing’s entire purpose is to make you WANT something. Build that emotional connection. You see that SUV rampaging through the mountains and fields and say — yeah, I’d like to be able to just drive around in mountains and fields and stuff instead of driving to work every day. And then drive their shiny new SUV into work every day. Dream realized. No change.
You won’t become an axe-swinging barbarian by playing Conan. We’re all just geeks behind keyboards, performing repetitive actions for no rewards, wasting time likely better spent doing something that would make a positive difference in our lives.
But hey, I guess if marketing can bring meaning to our lives and convince us that sitting for hours behind keyboards performing repetitive actions for no reward is actually something pretty fantastic, then who am I to say different?
Rock on, Conan dudes. You have six months to do it all over again for Warhammer and Wrath of the Lich King.
Marketers everywhere rejoice.
(Full disclosure: I waited two months after EQ launched in 1999 to buy it, a year after WoW launched to buy it, and I bought EQ2 the first day it was out. And I didn’t wait in line for Win95. That would have been silly.)
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Let me see…
Waited in line for GTA IV, WoW, and Burning Crusade. And of course my Wii. That’s about it.
Conan I won’t be simply because I’ll have been playing since the 17th anyway… and eons before that in the beta.
I like hype… gives me something to look forward to in gaming. Do it with movies too. :P
I just resent marketers having so much control over our lives. Most of the time it doesn’t even work — people get caught up in the hype, then get crushed by the reality. WoW was actually a good game, so its hype paid off. But for the vast majority of overhyped games, people got burned.
I don’t mind the hype for WAR in the slightest, because I believe that for once “where there is smoke there is fire.” As opposed to like normal, when it’s just a fog machine.
I agree that marketing, especially for MMO’s, is something that frustrates me. I can’t say that I’m immune to it, but I certainly haven’t been drooling over an of the new titles headed our way. Most of us are jaded and we a) are trying to avoid thinking so by once again getting hyped about a new game or b) sitting back indifferently watching and waiting to see what everyone says (the gamers that is, not the companies.) The only things that I’ve read about AoC and WAR have come directly from bloggers, and that’s the way I’m going to keep it. I’m not saying that all of our (bloggers) opinions are flawless and should be taken without question, however, we learn which bloggers have the same basic opinions and thoughts about MMO’s and we see what they have to say so we can make a more informed decision on whether to buy/get excited about a new or existing game. I am having fun just reading and writing right now with a bit of gaming, but I don’t really have the desire to go crazy about anything that’s a month to a year from release right now.
On another note, you basically made it seem as if there was no reason to try another MMO ever again, since we’ll just “make a character, kill stuff, level, loot corpse, repeat.” I realize you were just trying to make the point that we shouldn’t get overly excited by an effective marketing team (which I’ve stated that I basically agree with,) but I think that makes it seem as though nothing will ever improve in future MMO’s and that we should move on. I’m not all too sure where I’m going with this, but I just thought I’d point it out.
No, I explicitly meant to point out that most MMOs require little thought, certainly no physical motion, and are probably bad for you to play for any extended period of time. 1v1 PvP likely does require thought, but in both AoC and WAR, it looks like it will likely be about using force of numbers over force of strategy.
If a product is *genuinely* good, maybe lifechanging in a hugely beneficial ‘you literally won’t be able to live without this’ way, yeah, I might do line up for it. But a game? That’s going to be on the pre-owned shelf in a week? For a third of the price?
Nah. Certainly not for a bit of software and generally not for hardware either.
If I even get the slightest feeling that some twonk in marketing is yanking my strings to make me dance, I can get irrationally ‘anti’ their product. Which is why we don’t own any iProducts. Macs marketting set my teeth on edge and now there’s now way I’d willingly buy an iPod, iMac, iPhone, iDunno. Regardless of how good they are, or not.
I dunno… Apple is slowly wearing me down. Luckily, no iPod has an FM radio so I’m safe (for now) (iAUDIO X5 ftw). If they come out with EQ2 running natively on the Mac, well… that could do it for me.
Good news, Tipa. They are lifting the NDA on AoC, so if it sucks (or if it’s awesome,) everyone is going to know about it from players and bloggers, not from the marketing department. :)
If I get it, it will definitely be about a month after release, and after bloggers I trust to be not financially interested in its success have had their say. Like a blogger I work with. He and a bunch of friends from other games are thinking about starting a guild and doing some serious PvP in AoC. He’ll let me know what it is really like.
Working at Massively lets me be equally cynical about all games :)
The whole “doing something more productive” part threw me off a bit. Last I checked, gaming was a hobby (for most anyway), and a hobby is designed to be a way to relax and just enjoy yourself. Unless you are actively saving the world at all times, generally you can always be doing ‘something more productive’, but where is the fun in that?
That small grip aside, open beta can be a big deal because for many its
A: the first time they can play something they have been following for a long time (like seeing a movie you have been waiting for on the first night) and
B: a chance to test something for free before committing money on something that might suck.
Plus generally a lot of cool stuff happens in a beta that won’t happen live, like GM’s spawning rare mobs in random places and stuff like that.
Not saying I buy into all the hype, but there are plenty of reasons to be excited about beta, open or closed.
Actually, that’s not true. They said “There is no NDA for the Open Beta. Feel free to make screenshots, videos, or post comments on anything that you see in the Open Beta.”
your attitude, Tipa, mirrors my own. I refused to play wow until half a year had gone by, City of Heroes until a year had gone by, and SWG ever :P I don’t understand how players can expect a game fresh out the door to be better than something thats been in gestation and in the testing hands of players for a year or two. I guess we have too much of that “if its in my hands its done” mentality. Now in WoW’s case that may have been partly true since they dont change it much with time, but most MMO’s change over time and so it is appropriate to review them at birth, at one year, and every year after that, provided they change quickly. Instead of taking a screenshot in your mind of it and making an opinion we should come back to them from time to time. Eventually though we can see where they are heading. Most are heading slowly down the toilet :P. But a few get better with time.
People are passionate about different things.
Be it a Harry Potter book (or any book), a video game, a movie – everyone has their passions.
I don’t think any less of people who listen to the hype and find it in a video game then I do those who stood outside for a book. They’re certainly not a lesser person for having their own passions, even if I don’t particularly see eye to eye on their choices. It’s not up to me to look down on them for it or to talk about them in a condescending manor.
Does it mirror my own? No, but if we all were passionate about the same things, how boring would that be.
They’re not hurting anyone (and if they are hurting themselves from their choices then hopefully someone in their life cares enough to tell them to make some changes) and if that’s how they’d like to spend their spare time, more power to them.
Yes, marketing works. I think everyone is pretty much aware of that though.
Regarding Open Betas, it’s because it’s New and it’s Free. People will always line up for a new game they don’t have to pay to play (so long as there’s been enough marketing to make them think they want it at all).
As far as silly things like waiting in line for games . . . I don’t really know. I’m not a big fan of waiting in line to BUY something. That means you’re essentially paying someone else for your time, and I don’t know about you, but my time is a rare and precious commodity.
“I just resent marketers having so much control over our lives. Most of the time it doesn’t even work — people get caught up in the hype, then get crushed by the reality. WoW was actually a good game, so its hype paid off. But for the vast majority of overhyped games, people got burned.”
I hear you Tipa. But I think the difference would then be that some people KNOW when they’re getting hyped and are prepared to be suck-punched but still enjoy the momentum just the same (me). Then there are the poor bastards who buy a Wii expecting it to change their life… only to find out Wii Sports doesn’t make you an athlete.
Well, let’s look at the Lord of the Rings Online open beta. It was level-capped at 15, there was almost no information about the higher level areas; all you really had to look at was the starter areas. So a thousand blogs (mine included) go ga-ga over the starter areas. We all pile in, buy the box, level up into our thirties and… waaah! … the starter areas had obviously been highly tuned and polished, but as you got on in the game, the content became cookie-cutter and repetitive. Interest wanes. But I still paid for the box! Some people even paid for *lifetime subscriptions* without finding out how superior the low level content was compared to the high level content. Now, I know they have added a ton of stuff, and probably it was the non-critical enthusiasm of the early adopters (like me!) that gave them the revenue to fill in with more content over time.
But it still left a bad taste in my mouth.
I haven’t played AoC at all, so I’m not going to say Funcom is doing what Turbine did, because I absolutely don’t know. I may play AoC in a few months, I am far too busy at the moment to pick up another MMO so maybe I’ll look back at this and say, Funcom did it right. Their open beta gave people a really good idea of what the game would be like. Who knows? Time will tell.
From where I sit NOW, though, I see loads of people that have wildly differing visions of AoC, based largely on the kind of playstyle they prefer. Oh, it will be a PvE game with optional PvP. Or, it will be an all-out, FFA PvP game where nobody is safe. Or, it will be like WoW, with people PvEing and raiding and doing battlefields. They can’t ALL be right. And yet, somehow, they have gotten the idea from the hype that AoC is exactly their type of game. Warhammer — SAME THING. Which is scary. How could Warhammer and AoC be AT ALL alike? And yet I hear these exact sorts of things about both games.
And so I have just been forced to conclude that marketing and hype are lies, and their promises have little to do with the actual game.
Video games have never been one of those things I’vvee evver been ZOMG! ZOMG! about. I didn’t upgrade from my Atari 2600 until I got a Genesis… and I picked up a genesis and Sonic 3 on the same day.
I bought my Playstation when Final Fantasy VII came out. A friend of mine bought into the hype, bought the game, hated it, and gavve it to me. I bought a PSX a few weeks later.
PS2, I was another late adopter. It was after one of the massive price drops, though… i think when it hit $199, but it might have been $249. I forget.
I got a Wii last summer. Paid full price, but didn’t stand in line for it.
PC games? I’ve always hunted in the bargain bin, and not the shiny and new shelves. I mean, I bought WoW in January of 2008.
So, yeah, the whole videogame marketing thing sorta slides right off my back. I have played videogames for the past 30 years, but they’ve never been something I’ve felt the need to let dominate my rationality.
Then again, I’m old and have a family. When I was younger, here was never any need to ‘wait in line’ or get hyped up about things, because… well, other than blockbuster movies or sure-to-be-sold-out concerts, there weren’t lines for *anything*. Since my formative years never had any compelling reason to stand in line for videogames, I find the concept of doing it now abhorrent. Every time the Gamestop employee tries to force a pre-sale on me and I say no, they add ‘you won’t get it for weeks if you don’t pre-order!’
Dude, I’m not getting it for weeks anyway. There’s every chance this ultra-hyped game is crap, broken, buggy, or just not my thing. Why pay $50-60 for that, when I can wait a couple months, pick it up a few bucks cheaper if it’s a good game, or pick it up for next to nothing if it’s crap that happens to hit a niche I enjoy?
Marketers hate me, I’m guessing. But I work with them daily, so I see the marketing machine from the business side, and it innoculates you a bit.
In other news, I really need to get my ‘V’ key looked at.
In high school I never had a good PC, so it didn’t matter what game was coming out, I couldn’t play it. As years went by my PC upgraded slowly, and eventually I was able to play games. By the time I was able to play all the games that were hyped over 3 or 4 years prior, they were all in the 10 dollar bins. It was like a magical candy store everywhere I went. Ignoring the hype not only gives you a better idea about what games are like, it makes them dirt cheap. =)
Waiting until a game gets really cheap (unless it’s one I have been following a while) has been my philosophy ever since.
OK, OK, I’ll admit it. I’ve been following AoC since 2005 and before that I was a reader of the comics and subsequently the original novels and short stories, so I was pretty juiced up when I finally got a chance to take a look–even if I DID have to fork over $15 to do it. Let the hype mongering begin!
I don’t blame you for opting to ‘catch the next bandwagon.’ After a late night of playing, I too am cautiously optimistic. The situation does smell a bit like the LOTRO beta with the level cap. here is my 15 sec review: The characters look pretty good despite their unibody convention but not amazing by any means. I also had no trouble quickly getting used to the intuitive hacknslash/mmo hybrid gameplay, and the questing system is wow-rifficly simple and delighfully hand-holding. With its great visuals, brutal combat and lots of NPC spoken dialogue crafting the storyline, the title makes a great first impression by the end of the solo-instanced tutorial. (this is the perceived payoff promised by the hype)
The magic wears off a bit tho when you first come into the ‘real world’ and there are 30-40 other players standing around waiting for the zone to load, but it still has its merits. Unfortunately I know that I am likely to reach the ceiling in 1 more night of playing, and the content might suck beyond the startup city, so the jury is still out, and I don’t blame you for waiting. I think I’ll probably still buy it when it comes out, but I won’t preorder it or spend extra money on a special edition or anything.