New Tactics on the Alpha/Beta ?

[tigersfan]

A public beta is fine, just make sure you advertise  a release date.

Seems like lots of "Betas\Alphas" seem to be releasing on a "when its done" release schedule, and that makes people squeemish

We can do that sometimes, but, to be honest, a release date of "When it's done" is often best.

What happens if we plan to release the game on a date, and find out not long before that there is some serious problem with it? Then we might be forced with a question of "Do we push the date back? Or release a broken/unfinished game?" All other things being equal, when faced with that question, my answer will always be to push the date back.

Now, pushing dates back sucks, and we don't like doing it. The end result is that we typically don't announce a date until we're confident that we aren't going to run into any more major issues. AKA, when the game is done.

[Teal_Blue]

I think my mistake was not in seeing that there are many, many reasons for games to have the response in the market that they do. I was naïve in thinking that it was due to only one thing. But this has been helpful at least to me in seeing that there are a lot of things that go into seeing a game through to a success.

Maybe its like when a singer says, "some songs make it, some don't... I don't know why. I sing all of them with everything i've got."

Anyway, thank you for listening,
-Teal

[doctorfrog]

Here's one global viewpoint:http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2013/11/marketing-dumb-luck-and-popping-of.html

I'm dabbling still in BD, but it's already clear that there are is something missing from it for me. Can't put my finger on it yet, but even if I could, given the market forces at work, sometimes it may not really matter if your game is truly good or not.

[x4000]

Yep, I wrote about the role of luck in things as far back as 2009.  Times were a lot thinner thin, and I happened to get lucky and was right at the start of the fat times.  Ever since, I've been waiting for the bubble to burst.  That said, as an established indie, that's why I focus in certain directions: diversification, serving niches that can't easily be fulfilled by others, not spending 18 months on one project, etc.

[Teal_Blue]

Yep, I wrote about the role of luck in things as far back as 2009.  Times were a lot thinner thin, and I happened to get lucky and was right at the start of the fat times.  Ever since, I've been waiting for the bubble to burst.  That said, as an established indie, that's why I focus in certain directions: diversification, serving niches that can't easily be fulfilled by others, not spending 18 months on one project, etc.

Sounds like a good plan.