Beta weekends and pre-order incentives

Last week, I was reading Funcom's latest press release. It was the pre-order announcement for the highly anticipated MMO "The Secret World". They offer access to the "Exclusive" Beta Weekends if you pre-order today. I remember the pre-order incentives to be real-life items but today it's more about the access to the Beta Weekends. What is a Beta Weekend and who is it really for?

To pre-order and not to pre-order

Why would you pre-order a game? The answer is simple if you are a hardcore fan of the title and that's something you have been looking forward to playing for the last twenty four months. I can say that Diablo 3 and Max Payne 3 are that sort of games. It's not a coincidence that both games are the third of a series. Once you are a fan of a game series, you end up waiting for the next one to come out. It's usually painful if it's a game like Diablo 3. Expect the delays and everything to ruin your plans....

MMO's too?

With the MMO's, it used to be about, nothing actually. We didn't really look forward to playing MMOs months before release. However, with the rise of the giant productions like Star Wars The Old Republic and The Secret World, it has completely changed. They have fancy trailers, shows at gaming conventions and the hype created months and even years before the actual release dates. Today, we pre-order MMOs and the publishers know about it. They show their games at two or three gaming conventions, and sometimes for years, release back to back teasers and gameplay videos just to tease us. Today they have a Pre-Order Trailer too.

Beta weekends for who?

Then comes the pre-order. Now that I have pre-ordered TERA, I know how valuable it is to gain access to the Beta Weekends. You get to see the content being added to the game by the developers week by week and you get to give them feedback on their message boards while they hunt down bugs and make it a better and as flawless as possible of a game before the official release.

I can't help but think that it's also a strategy for publishers and marketing guys to create the whole idea of Beta Weekends. Think about it for a second. You are the publisher of the game. What is the best way to boost the number of pre-orders? Offer a real-life item? Maybe a sweatshirt that's about the secret societies in The Secret World? I really don't think so. Your best option is to offer "Beta Access".

Not a new formula - People love early access

This formula has worked forever. Don't we just to love to get access to any sort of product before its release date? And in the case of MMO's, there is also the chance that you can actually make a difference to your beloved MMO by playing the BETA and posting your thoughts on the message boards.

Closed Beta vs Beta Weekends

I really don't think the developers care much about the feedback during Beta Weekends when there is only like a couple months of time left to the official release but it means something if the game's release is more than six months away. At the end of the day, they have a development roadmap and the development would be in progress for a long time before players start talking about (during the Beta Weekends only weeks before release) the lacking features in the game. That's why I believe that Closed Beta's make much more sense than the Beta Weekends. Closed Beta is purely for the developers. They want to address the issues with the game as they allow a group of people to test their game in development. On the other hand, Beta Weekends in my eyes are nothing but pre-order incentives. Are they still valuable? Sure they are! I personally would be more inclined to pre-order a game for the Beta Access than I would -for just a few in-game items.

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