Gatheryn has sent out a wave of beta invites, as Ysharros notes over at her place. I commented there that I’ve received an invite to the beta… but had to turn it down. See, there’s this little clause in the Terms of Service when setting up an account that prohibits anyone working for a different game company from playing in the beta.
…the beta that ostensibly is about finding and fixing bugs.
…bugs that industry insiders may well know a thing or two about, diagnosing them and even suggesting fixes.
*sigh*
I can understand not wanting competitors getting wind of things, but it’s exactly this sort of insular mentality that has MMO design in a rut, with everyone making DIKU flavors of the month, as Chris notes over at his place.
Of course, that’s assuming that beta is actually about making the game better. If it’s a glorified PR release with some minor back end stress testing, then the nature of the beast is a bit different. Also, there are those who aren’t currently employed in the industry who can contribute as well, so it’s not like they really *need* game insiders like me. It just seems a touch paranoid and insular to me. As I’ve noted before, game testing is a very different animal from game playing, so I can only hope that the Gatheryn guys have some internal testing going on with those who know what they are doing.
Still, it seems to me that having experienced eyes would be valuable. Then again, this industry does reinvent the wheel the vast majority of the time, so it’s no surprise. It doesn’t put me off of the game either; I’ll check it out when it goes live.
If you’re wondering why the state of the art of game design doesn’t progress very rapidly, this is one reason. In a world where IP is protected fiercely, to the point of whining about secondary sales on the market, a paranoid design sensibility fits quite naturally. It’s not exactly healthy, but it’s understandable.
I’ve always thought there is a lot of excessive secrecy in the game industry. People seem to think they have the silver bullet and if anyone catches wind they’ll be ruined.
Of course, someone else has probably already had the idea the people are protecting so rabidly.
As you point out, there’s a lot to be lost by trying to be too protective. By rejecting developers from other companies, they’re also rejecting people who know a lot about online games and the bugs that might pop up. It can also kill some of the interest we might have in a game. I figure you’re probably not going to be waiting in line to get the game since they told you to piss off from playing the Beta.
Perhaps the funniest story I have related to secrecy is based on my work as a consultant. I was talking to someone who said they had a microtransaction system they had developed. I asked if they had some info about the system that I could pass along to the indie developers I interact with fairly frequently.
My contact then asked me to sign an NDA. I explained that an NDA kinda defeats the purpose of me telling other people about their system. I didn’t hear back from them after that. Their loss, since I am currently working with someone who might have been interested in using their system, but I can’t recommend it if I don’t know what it is!
Unfortunately, this often carries over to the “indies” as well. There’s very little reason for us not to share information between ourselves; each of us has more ideas than we have time to implement them, so we’re unlikely to steal ideas. The upside is getting unexpected help from others that just might have the perfect solution to a situation we’ve encountered.
Ah, well. Hooray isolation.
Aye, and one of the cooler things I’ve seen is the local “indie night” that comes by quarterly. People who love making games come together and bounce ideas off of each other. It’s literally greater than the sum of its parts a lot of the time, and it’s baffling to me that the industry at large doesn’t tap into that.
I’m actually not too fussed over the Gatheryn thing. Honestly, I disqualified myself because I saw the clause, they didn’t use a preemptive banhammer or anything. I even sent them an email to tell them that I’m still interested in the game, and that I wish them well, but that I thought that clause was a bit unnecessary. I *could* take offense at it, but I don’t. I mention it just to point out that insular design isn’t necessarily the healthiest thing.
Look at you Tesh, disqualifying yourself. You could have at least lied and then sold it on Ebay or something! (Silly Morals)
I think when the little indie companies make something “special” they probably secretly hope it is what a bigger company will buy them out for – making that the true value of their company. I am sure not all Indie programmers celebrate the Indie-ness. We all just want a big fat payout afterall, right? =)
[...] the same time, EA/Bioware is giving me the cold shoulder, much as the Gatheryn people did. See, they opened up the floodgates for applications to beta test Star Wars: The Old [...]