When I first began covering MMORPGs professionally back in 2010, I was all about what I imagined were the grand prestige and perks of the job. OK, MMOs were a hotter thing back then, but I was still getting carried away. I couldn’t wait to be an “official” media representative at conventions and eagerly gobbled up any advance demos, betas, or previews of upcoming games.
Fifteen years later I’m still a big MMO fan — but I no longer care about betas or many early access releases. It’s a pretty big shift from how I used to be, and I have to say that as strange as it might sound, I’m definitely a happier gamer for it.
The good of betas
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate betas (and for the rest of this article, lump in early access, demos, previews, alphas, and the like under this one term). Probably their greatest asset to both a gamer and a games journalist is that they can give you an immediate hands-on feel and real understanding of a title in a way that a hundred articles can’t. Sometimes all it takes is a half-hour in a beta to know whether a game is for you or not, whether it has potential or is destined for the trash heap.
I also used betas to scratch that maddening itch of curiosity, especially for titles that I had been anticipating for a long time and needed to know if the hype was worth the wait. There have been more than a few occasions that spending a couple hours in a beta helped to adjust expectations to a much more reasonable level, allowing for a greater chance of future engagement instead of my bouncing off an MMO at launch because it didn’t match what was in my head.
All of us here at Massively OP have done The Beta Thing more times than we could easily count. We’re good at evaluating through those first impressions, looking for obvious warning signs, potential for growth, and true strengths.
All that said, I don’t want to do any more betas. I’m not saying I never will, but my desire to blast into a beta has waned significantly. How come?
The bad of betas
Whatever positives I get out of a beta, I’ve learned that there are more drawbacks than I’d like. I’ll go back to that phrase “first impressions” because there’s a saying that you can never have more than one of those. And when I go into a beta for a game, that’s the only first impression I’ll ever get, and chances are it will be buggy, incomplete, and disappointing.
Bad metaphor time, but it’s like you have a date with someone in three days, but instead of waiting until you both get ready, make plans, and dress up, you ambush that person at the front door of their house while they’re in their pajama pants and take them to a fast food place for lunch. It could turn out well in the end, but you could also be horrified at the sight of mussed-up hair and unbrushed teeth to never want to see them again.
In other words, I’ve learned that satisfying my curiosity and setting better expectations aren’t worth getting what could be a really poor first impression that makes me swear off the game for good (or at least until I hear any positive word-of-mouth after release).
There are a few other reasons for not liking betas, but the other big one I’d like to mention here involves time. Free gaming time is a limited and precious commodity for me. I have much less of it than I used to when I was a bachelor or when my kids were younger. I don’t mind giving others my time more, but when I do get some available free time to relax and play a game… I kind of want it to count, you know?
Betas are temporary. Time spent in them won’t benefit a future character, unless it’s a “soft launch” kind of beta (and thus not really a beta at all). It’s so hard for me to play a game that I know is going to be wiped and care about any of it. I don’t want to blow an entire weekend of gaming time for the ultimate feeling that nothing mattered in terms of character progress.
Ignorance is bliss?
So over time, I’ve risen to the opportunity to check out betas less and less. Again, I’m not saying “never” because I have partaken of the occasional early access or a beta of a title that I wasn’t going to play on launch anyway. I simply don’t care about them that much.
And that includes betas of MMO expansions. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid any potential spoilers, datamining, or in-depth previews of expansions of MMOs that I’m playing. World of Warcraft is doing its Midnight alpha right now with people lapping up every little shred of information, and I’m over here with my fingers in my ears going, “La la la I can’t hear you” in a very grown-up manner.
I don’t need to know everything about an expansion before I can play it. In fact, I see spoilers as just that: They spoil your future experience playing through the content for real for the first time. So why would you want to do that? Self-control and patience are key in holding off for the best thing possible, but of course, we live in an immediate gratification world.
The gravitational pull of betas is very weak on me because I’m pretty grounded in current games and happy with them. I suppose if I were drifting around without a home MMO or two, I’d feel that pull even more strongly out of desperation to find a new stomping ground.
If you like betas, early access, alphas, and the rest, that’s absolutely cool. It doesn’t bother me, and I’m not here to tell you that you have to agree with me. This is simply where my gaming journey has led over the past decade and a half, and I think I’m happier for it.
Everyone has opinions, and The Soapbox is how we indulge ours. Join the Massively OP writers as we take turns atop our very own soapbox to deliver unfettered editorials a bit outside our normal purviews (and not necessarily shared across the staff). Think we’re spot on — or out of our minds? Let us know in the comments!