3 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:Early adopters of released games becoming beta testers is one of the terrible things that has become common in the industry.
Terrible or not it is common and has been common for years now. And despite all the online chatter that decries the behavior and calls it the worst failing of the industry, that sentiment is not reflected when you look at sales and play time numbers. I think it's about time to stop focusing on how "terrible" it is and accept that it is the industry normal now. We don't play games on cartridges, floppy discs or CDs either anymore. We've turned this corner in the industry and there is no reason to hold up this studio or that studio for operating within the same standards as everyone else.
It is obvious to the industry that the greatest concern and care of the consumer is to get their hands on new content as soon as possible. The desire to get content faster trumps the desire to get that content in a perfect form. Game studios know this and so they cater to the ASAP demand and let the quality demand slide in its favor-- and the fact that nothing has changed for years but instead settled even further into this model is a testament to how right they were in discerning the number one priority in their customers: sooner over better.