If its ready to play, just release it, what’s the point of a playtest if not to test it. Yeah there’s the publicity too, but are we going to pretend that it can’t do both.
Employees do testing, already covered by an NDA. Content creators do publicity. If they are restricted to no negative publicity, then they are not reliable and it’s dishonest.
While I agree in principle you will never catch 100% of the bugs pre-launch, has there ever been a game that didnt need at least a few patches in the last 20 years?
Id be keen to read the exact wording of the clause “Dont say anything negative” and “dont say anything negative without talking to us first” are very different statements. I can understand the devs wanting a chance to say “Yep, we know about that and it will be fixed pre-launch” or “Ill put in a ticket to get that looked at ASAP” to the playtesters before they trash the game publicly.
So, even at full release, there could be bugs. That makes the suppression of actual opinions worse. If people didn’t call out unfinished projects, they would not get fixed. If they want preorders, stop making buggy mess games.
If it’s not ready to play, don’t do a playtest. They want to have their cake and eat it. The playtest is for publicity, not testing.
If its ready to play, just release it, what’s the point of a playtest if not to test it. Yeah there’s the publicity too, but are we going to pretend that it can’t do both.
Employees do testing, already covered by an NDA. Content creators do publicity. If they are restricted to no negative publicity, then they are not reliable and it’s dishonest.
Doesn’t really matter. They seem to have back tracked on the negative publicity stuff
Because the community response was negative. It didn’t end up there by mistake. It was put there.
While I agree in principle you will never catch 100% of the bugs pre-launch, has there ever been a game that didnt need at least a few patches in the last 20 years?
Id be keen to read the exact wording of the clause “Dont say anything negative” and “dont say anything negative without talking to us first” are very different statements. I can understand the devs wanting a chance to say “Yep, we know about that and it will be fixed pre-launch” or “Ill put in a ticket to get that looked at ASAP” to the playtesters before they trash the game publicly.
So, even at full release, there could be bugs. That makes the suppression of actual opinions worse. If people didn’t call out unfinished projects, they would not get fixed. If they want preorders, stop making buggy mess games.