Not a fan of the insider alpha testing scheme

[nickhod 425]

Possibly unpopular opinion, and of course completely biased by me not being an alpha tester...

I don't think the way the alpha testing scheme is set up makes commercial or marketing sense. It massively rewards people who have done nothing to earn that reward, which feels different to pretty much every other commercial enterprise I transact with.

If I want that gadget before anyone else I sign up for the high price, pre-release bundle.
If I use a credit card a lot, I get a reward
If I want to see the rock star after the show, I need to buy higher priced tickets
If I want to have premium seats at the first showing of the new film, I pay for the privilege.

For every other (non flight sim) game I've know, either it was released when it was done, with no public beta. (That's fine, everyone is treated the same). Or they released it as early access, often at an inflated price, with the caveat that things might be broken, incomplete or buggy. (Again, no problem, everyone is treated the same; you pay your money and make your choice).

Of course, you might say "but if it was $60 on early access, everyone would buy it and they would be swamped". Good point, but there are ways to manage that.
For instance, to get early access maybe you first need to be a 12 month XBox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber.
Maybe the early access bundle this month is $500 with some "merch".
Maybe you can only play one day a week.
Maybe you first have to enrol in the MSFS Developer program, and this is a "developer preview".

With any of those options, it's obvious why people are testing it early. They have more "skin in the game".

You could make the argument that this would favour people with more cash, and therefore high end systems, but that seems to be what has happened anyway. The vast majority of testers so far appear to have 32gb and 2080s.

The recent dev roadmap hints that this will be a Q4 2020 release. So until then the insider program has killed off much of the discussion here due to the NDA. Even if "everyone gets a chance to test", everyone is under NDA, so public discussion approaches zero at that point.

The NDA (or rather recent NDA breach) has meant that the only video we've seen someone flying from airport A to B looked terrible. 720p, lowest graphics settings on a junk PC, by someone controlling the plane with a mouse or something.
I assume the whole point of the NDA is to avoid "nonoptimal" screenshots and videos being shared before the big marketing push. It failed, and now the only complete flight videos available are bad ones.

Anyway ... yeah, I'm not a fan. Give me Steam Early Access any day, or just release the thing when it's done.

Edited February 24, 2020 by nickhod

[b737800 470]

12 minutes ago, nickhod said:

If I want that gadget before anyone else I sign up for the high price, pre-release bundle.
If I use a credit card a lot, I get a reward
If I want to see the rock star after the show, I need to buy higher priced tickets
If I want to have premium seats at the first showing of the new film, I pay for the privilege.

You could make the argument that this would favour people with more cash, and therefore high end systems, but that seems to be what has happened anyway. The vast majority of testers so far appear to have 32gb and 2080s.

I think you answered your own question. In all the examples you gave, you spent more cash than those that didn't get the extra. So far, those with better systems, which cost more cash, seem to have been more likely to get access.

12 minutes ago, nickhod said:

or just release the thing when it's done.

How would that be better for anyone, let alone everyone? On the plus, nobody could say they received preferential treatment, but on the other hand everyone might be hit with a sim that didn't take much user feedback.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Edited February 24, 2020 by b737800

[Nigge 20]

My thoughts on the insider alpha thing is that many people has gotten this all wrong. 
This is not something that you should pay to participate in. Its not something that you are rewarded with. 
You are helping the developers create a piece of software that matches to a higher degree what the future users want. 
To me this is a great idea! 

The way they invite users based on their systems is always a good idea. It will help them focus on the right things at the right time. At this time, its most likely not about optimizing resource usage, its more about getting the correct pieces into the software. If they let everybody in, the focus will be "Hey its not running smoothly enough on my system",

So see it more as if the people invited into the Alpha is helping the developers instead of they being rewarded something.
We all will be given the oportunity to get our hands on the software sooner or later and lets hope that the Alpha testers comes up with great ideas and great feedback so that the simulator will be all it can be!

/Niklas Eriksson


 

[MUC1 27]

You realy want a "Duke Nukem" - in development for 20 years???

As a programmer you can test Ego Shooter, Sport Games and so on by your self, becuse everyone knows how it should work (and it often fails), but a projekt like this is too big. You need many information in a coordinated way. I think it is the best way they do. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by MUC1

[marty2756 65]

But this is not about rewarding you or anybody, but helping them.

[nickhod 425]

1 minute ago, marty2756 said:

But this is not about rewarding you or anybody, but helping them.

Before 100 people say the exact same thing, it's both, it's a mutual transaction:

The developer wants to release something on early access to get feedback and improve the game / app / device
The end user wants to get a chance to use something before everyone else.

I'm reasonably sure every alpha tester was naturally excited at the prospect of playing MSFS, rather than thinking "oh good, now I get to do unpaid work for Asobo".

[nickhod 425]

15 minutes ago, b737800 said:

I think you answered your own question. In all the examples you gave, you spent more cash than those that didn't get the extra. So far, those with better systems, which cost more cash, seem to have been more likely to get access.

Fair point. So my argument is that I like it when companies are honest and open with me. "Spend more cash with us and get early access if you have a high end system".

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

18 minutes ago, nickhod said:

Before 100 people say the exact same thing, it's both, it's a mutual transaction:

The developer wants to release something on early access to get feedback and improve the game / app / device
The end user wants to get a chance to use something before everyone else.

I'm reasonably sure every alpha tester was naturally excited at the prospect of playing MSFS, rather than thinking "oh good, now I get to do unpaid work for Asobo".

Your post made it sound like Microsoft is doing this to reward people. They don't. They do this because they have to. No other way to get a decent sample of real-life issues and performance in a controlled fashion. Releasing an early access product to the public would only generate an uncertain amount of effort to handle feedback of all kinds. A controlled "friendly user test" is predictable and can be taylored to the size that befits the development project and budget. In this case I would expect that there are between 1000 and 2000 alpha testers. 

Best regards

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[b737800 470]

4 minutes ago, nickhod said:

"Spend more cash with us and get early access if you have a high end system".

I would probably have preferred that too, but just imagine what the response would have been from those that can't or wont pay for a higher end system. There have already been posts by a number of people expecting to get next gen graphics on a system that was only mid range at best when they bought it 5 years ago.

Forgot to mention - the number of things that need testing in a sim like this is far far far far (did I make the point yet?) greater than for a more traditional game. It was only when I started with the Alpha that I realised just how detailed my own test plan needed to be, let alone Asobo's own which also needs to take into account everyone else's hardware / controllers, way of flying etc.

Edited February 24, 2020 by b737800

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

7 minutes ago, nickhod said:

I like it when companies are honest and open with me

What is dishonest about "The product isn't ready yet and we are not going to release an early access version. But we would like a limited number of people to help with our friendly user tests."?

Best regards

Edited February 24, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[nickhod 425]

9 minutes ago, b737800 said:

Forgot to mention - the number of things that need testing in a sim like this is far far far far (did I make the point yet?) greater than for a more traditional game.

Based on which metrics? I really don't subscribe to the "flight sim exceptionalism" on here.

Think about the kind of testing that's required for a massive open-world story and mission based game like GTA. One slight change can ripple though the whole player journey. It all needs testing again.
The worlds in games like GTA are huge in that they are modelled down to street level, litter on the ground detail.
It's a different testing challenge and not one that's easy.

The biggest AAA games have bigger budgets and teams Asobo have for MSFS. For instance Asobo quoted around 100 people on MSFS. GTA V took a team of 1000. Yes .. one thousands people.

When people say "oh flight sims are so much more complicated than other games", I tend to tune out tbh.

[nickhod 425]

21 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Your post made it sound like Microsoft is doing this to reward people. They don't. They do this because they have to. No other way to get a decent sample....

Pretty much every other big budget game being made today doesn't do "chosen few" alpha testers and NDAs. It's either early access or released when it's done.

No one is convincing me that a flight simulator is in a category of its own in terms of game development and testing complexity. Especially given the budgets and teams on AAA games.

[b737800 470]

5 minutes ago, nickhod said:

When people say "oh flight sims are so much more complicated than other games", I tend to tune out tbh.

Then there is no point discussing. Your mind is made up.

[nickhod 425]

Just now, b737800 said:

Then there is no point discussing. Your mind is made up.

My mind is made up based on the objective fact that AAA games can have 10x bigger teams than Asobo have. If someone can articulate why you'd need x10 more people to do something simpler I'll listen.

[ca_metal 2,021]

2 minutes ago, nickhod said:

My mind is made up based on the objective fact that AAA games can have 10x bigger teams than Asobo have. If someone can articulate why you'd need x10 more people to do something simpler I'll listen.

They choose to follow this path (open alpha program) and in my point of view, makes no sense to sell an alpha preview on early-access. The only way to do it is by selecting each of the testers based on their own metrics.

Sure they could be more transparent about what metrics they would be using, but still is up to them how much open they want to be about the product at this stage. We are not entitled to anything, we just have to accept their terms. 

If you are not a fan of their methods (and have the right to be), just forget they are doing an insider program and wait the final release (as you said you would prefer to just wait).