MMO Gaming

Rhyming not intentional but awesome regardless.

All this talk about the NDA on PotBS being lifted got me thinking. NDAs are annoying with the way they are currently handled. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind the NDA and having testers agree to it is solid. Of course, those who actually care about the NDA aren’t the ones who would bash a game still in a testing phase anyway, but that’s another topic entirely.

Tobold, in a comment on his post (linked above) gave a quick and easy rundown of the purpose of the NDA which I think is one worth repeating.

The purpose of an NDA is to prevent people from reporting details on the game that could either be stolen by the competition, or be substantially changed and thus not true any more by the time the NDA is lifted.

Assuming you agree with that statement, and I find nothing disagreeable about the statement, but perhaps I am wrong, that covers basically two things.

1. Competitors stealing ideas
2. Changes to features

Assuming you agree with that premise let’s tackle those issues one at a time.

Competitors

During the beta testing stage of your game you are probably within one year of your games release. Probably within six months, but we’ll go on the heavy side and assume one full year. An MMO takes about three to five years to come to market, let’s go with the median, a nice, clean four years.

If your competition is going to steal from you (and defining stealing is very difficult as so much has already been done in one way or another that having something completely new and unheard of is unlikely) they are going to need to do it before the beta test begins to make sure they have time to implement it in their game, at least if they want to get their game out before yours. If the idea they steal from you is implemented in your game before their game comes out, well, it really isn’t a unique selling point for their game anymore, it is just another rehashed idea, and people will know this.

Essentially your competition should play no role in the NDA unless your game has only one unique thing about it. If that is the case you need to re-examine the game as you have much bigger problems.

Moving on then, right?

Changes

Here’s the big reason the NDA is so important. People, collectively, are a sniveling bunch of asshats who can and will always find something to complain about, even if…no, especially if you tell them not to worry about “X” because it isn’t ready yet/isn’t in it’s final implementation.

In this instance the NDA is very important and acts as a useful tool in keeping at bay those who would just bash the game because it isn’t enough like “A” or “B” game. That’s useful and important. You can’t accurately review a game if you only play for ten minutes or if you are working with a game that is only half done. This is where the NDA shines, it protects you, to some degree, from people who are just trying to cause trouble.

Unfortunately there is an evil side to this as well. Some developers (and testers) seem to absolve themselves of any blame if a problem occurs in the beta test, falling back on the ever popular “That’s because the game is still in beta” excuse. There are times when such an excuse is a legitimate point, and other times where it simply is not.

Anyone who has been in a beta test can usually tell the difference well enough.

If that is the case, then what is to be done about changes to the game and the way the NDA is handled. The real trick here is to refocus your beta test. By the admittance of some fairly important people using your beta test incorrectly can cause problems.

A beta test for a highly hyped game is even a bit different than a smaller beta test may be. In a game which does not have the mass hype of a AAA title from one of the big studios you can probably get away with really working your beta test as a form of actual testing. Given that you will have smaller numbers who are trying to get into the beta test allowing in a larger percentage of those people, who are excited about your game anyway, is probably not going to cause too much damage.

Of course, on the other hand, there is the massively hyped AAA games. You can’t invite a large percentage of those who want in the beta. Most of the people who want in the beta don’t want to test the game, or try to track down bugs so once the game releases they can enjoy it. They want to see if the game is worth their time. And, if you are lucky, they will make that decision over a few days instead of a few minutes.

EA Mythic, and the Warhammer beta in general, I think, has done a pretty good job of this. Regardless of how I feel about stopping a beta test in the middle of things to make changes they have done a very good job of inviting a relatively small amount of people to the game. Those people that were invited likely knew the game was entirely unfinished and are okay with that. Those people are the ones who are going to stick with your game later on through the tough times.

But, all this is pretty much common sense stuff, so what does this have to do with changing the NDA and the beta test?

First, let people know what you want tested. If you don’t know what you are looking to get tested (aside from general bug reporting) then you need to find out so your testers, the real ones, not the ones there for a free game, can look at and come up with solutions to problems that you may not even know about.

Then, stop telling people not to worry about features that aren’t completed, just tell them they aren’t allowed to talk about incomplete features. “Drop” the NDA for features as you finish them though. If you tell people you are looking to get testing done on “X” part of your PvP implementation, after it has been thoroughly tested and you have taken the proper feedback (and implemented it for a period for a bit further testing and (dare I say it) polishing) then let people go out and tell everyone about how good the feature is. If it still isn’t good, well, that is quite plainly a flaw in your design, and you’ll know this from the extra testing you are doing.

Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing and it has expanded to an even greater reach with the power of the web. This means that, more than ever, letting people talk early and often, about specific information relating to the game, can greatly expand your reachable market. Well, at least assuming the game doesn’t suck.

beta tests, nda, mmorpg, mmog, mmo gaming, mmo