Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Testing Q&A

Ten Ton Hammer is offering up a short Q&A with BioWare Austin co-vice president Richard Vogel about the approach they’ll be taking with beta testing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Ten Ton Hammer: After the release of Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriott alluded to the fact that the TR beta test actually hurt the game’s chances of success. On the other hand, there were a few instances in recent games where hardware factors kept players out of the game, but when the game released it sold very well. How do developers know if a beta will hurt their retail sales? When is it appropriate to let a lot of gamers see your upcoming game? Does it hurt a company to never have a truly public display before a game launches?

On the other hand, there were a few instances in recent games where hardware factors kept players out of the game, but when the game released it sold very well. How do developers know if a beta will hurt their retail sales?

Vogel: One thing to do is survey the users. If 75 percent or more tell us they will recommend the game to someone else, that is a very good sign. Another good sign is how much and how often people are playing the game. It they are playing a lot and they speak positively about their experience that is also a good sign. It is very important to ship a quality, fun product. You should know this by the number of open bugs, their severity, and survey data that is collected in the game. What happens most of the time is that decisions are made to ship the game before it is ready. You are only given one shot at this. If you have a bad player experience at launch and through the first few months, it sets the brand value forever. That is why games don’t usually recover from a bad launch.