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[StreetsofBeige]

Wouldn't the $500 cause a bias in the survey answers? People will likely say they like the game to be sure they get the money.

No doubt.

Any time there's perks on the line, people will always skew more positive than they would if there was nothing at stake.

Look at all the times any of us have got a free sample from a demo kiosk. Half the time it's meh or you toss in the garbage 10 ft away, but you put on a friendly face to the old lady serving it to be polite. And that doesnt even involve getting money or a gift card. Just a free cookie or some random crap.

If the old lady gave you $5 for every sample eaten, you bet everyone would line up with the biggest smiles on their face.

 

[rm082e]

I am 100% guilty of this. It's gotten me in trouble several times. I have to be on guard against myself now.

Try to be objective folks. Sony and Bungie are trying _not_ to have a repeat of Concord. That's more admirable than just steam rolling ahead with another bad game people don't want because their egos are too big to admit they're wrong.

 

[Fake]

I wonder if they still try to sell their gaas games. I guess they didn't learn anything from concord.

As Hermen said in the last interview, cancelations are good learning process. They learn a lot.

 

[Loomy]

Wouldn't the $500 cause a bias in the survey answers? People will likely say they like the game to be sure they get the money.

The money is not based on positive feedback. They're paying you to be an active tester that can provide feedback. Any feedback.

In Software design we provide beta testers with a few extra months on their subscription, or swag all the time. And the feedback is not always positive. It's just that it's hard to get a large group of people together to properly test something, so an incentive to join usually works.

 

[Fake]

Wouldn't the $500 cause a bias in the survey answers? People will likely say they like the game to be sure they get the money.

Probably. I for example, if they ever think of sending me an invite for a game like this, I would take their money without objection and troll their feedback.

I mean, they are really asking for this. There is no middle ground. Consoles are getting expensive, games are getting expensive, for what? Using AI in the process? Expecting 100% of them is bare minimum.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Probably. I for example, if they ever think of sending me an invite for a game like this, I would take their money without objection and troll their feedback.

I mean, they are really asking for this. There is no middle ground. Consoles are getting expensive, games are getting expensive, for what? Using AI in the process? Expecting 100% of them is bare minimum.

Market research/surveys/testing is full of biased opinions.

Just look at all the times a game (or any product) bombs, but.... "according to their internal and external tests, the results said it got great feedback though". Well, the general public and reviewers think it's actually dog shit. So it goes to show whatever pretesting they do can be totally off. And those are the people who you'd think have the best insights since they are the ones directly involved with testing.

Receiving money will get you one opinion. Paying money to buy something will get you another perspective.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Market research/surveys/testing is full of biased opinions.

Just look at all the times a game (or any product) bombs, but.... "according to their internal and external tests, the results said it got great feedback though". Well, the general public and reviewers think it's actually dog shit. So it goes to show whatever pretesting they do can be totally off. And those are the people who you'd think have the best insights since they are the ones directly involved with testing.

Receiving money will get you one opinion. Paying money to buy something will get you another perspective.

The reason why your opinion here is basically wrong is because everyone (with enough money) in the industry has been doing this for 30+ years. Paying people to playtest games in development is universal.

If playtesters gave unreliable feedback, the practice would have stopped long ago.

Also, the players aren't incentivized to give positive feedback. They're inventivized to give effective feedback. Effective feedback leads to being invited back.

 

[rkofan87]

Only "Select Players" received invite.

keyword Shills who will suck them off and call it the greatest game ever.

 

[Alan Silvestro]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The reason why your opinion here is basically wrong is because everyone (with enough money) in the industry has been doing this for 30+ years. Paying people to playtest games in development is universal.

If playtesters gave unreliable feedback, the practice would have stopped long ago.

Also, the players aren't incentivized to give positive feedback. They're inventivized to give effective feedback. Effective feedback leads to being invited back.

And if feedback was reliable, you wouldn't have junky products released to the masses even though supposedly testing had great reviews.

Ya no doubt "effective testing" gets invites back. So they get another gig testing and another $500 or whatever the perk is.

No different than almost every game preview being all roses. Almost every site or streamer will say on their site or YT channel it was pretty good. That's because they got some free info, will get a free game and maybe some ad revenue too.

Then the game comes out and it's way crappier than all the previews made it out to be.

Now put in reverse like an early access purchase. A gamer now pays money to try to game which is WIP. If it sucks it'll get bashed to high heaven in Steam reviews.

It's always different when someone gets paid vs pay themselves when it comes to evaluating a product.

 

[adamsapple]

keyword Shills who will suck them off and call it the greatest game ever.

Soo ... Men_in_Boxes then.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

And if feedback was reliable, you wouldn't have junky products released to the masses even though supposedly testing had great reviews.

That's like saying the hammer is useless because there are lots of poorly constructed houses. Tools don't guarantee quality.

No different than almost every game preview being all roses. Almost every site or streamer will say on their site or YT channel it was pretty good. That's because they got some free info, will get a free game and maybe some ad revenue too.

You're conflating two very different things here.

The purpose of a preview event is to sell a game. It's marketing. Those people are incentivized to stay in the good graces of the publisher who held the event, so they're more likely focus on the positive aspects of the game.

This is "Sell our product and you'll be invited to sell our next product."

This is an NDA playtest used to measure feedback from players who are testing the long form progression of Marathon. It's not marketing. Bungie is actively looking for actionable problems to solve here before Marathon releases.

This is "Give us honest feedback, constructive criticism and you'll stay in our good graces."

 

[xrnzaaas]

Wow, you get to become QA and for your work instead of real cash you'll be getting a gift card.

 

[Forth]

Even after the bad news, I'm still really excited about this game.
I honestly don't know why but I'm genuinely excited about Bungies take on this and I'm still hopeful that the artstyle gets back to that original trailer.

 

[Black_Stride]

 

[Pedro Motta]

No one can ever make fun of Xbox ambassadors ever again. All they got is socks, not $500 a month lol.

Nice try Gaslighter Pro.

 

[Negotiator101]

Even after the bad news, I'm still really excited about this game.
I honestly don't know why but I'm genuinely excited about Bungies take on this and I'm still hopeful that the artstyle gets back to that original trailer.

God knows why? You know it's bad when the developers have to pay you to play it.