Are we ready for Open Beta?

I made this post on the forums, it sparked an interesting conversation, and I felt it would be useful to save this for posterity.


Here we are, at the cusp of open beta, and the community cry's out with one voice "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED". But is this actually true? Let us examine.

Many people say that open beta should not happen until we have more mechs, more maps, more modes, or community warfare. This is what we call in the industry "feature creep" as developers, and testers, want to squeeze in one more thing into a program before entering into the next phase. The problem is that no product is ever complete, no artist worth their salt has ever felt done with their art before stepping back and accepting what they have. At some point you have to draw a line in the sand. So where is that line drawn.

In order to be successful PGI must be financially viable. Servers do not run themselves, developers demand good pay for their effort, and QA/response teams must remain on call and on payroll at all times. The founders program provided a hefty capital to PGI, however at some point they must open up to others to bring in micro-transactions, and premium time payments.

Two things must exist before that can be done however, the game must be enticing enough to bring in, and retain players, and the economic model must be balanced to be both rewarding, and provide a cause for people to spend money for premium services.

PGI has had several months to balance the game enough to root our most of the truly game breaking balance issues, as well as most of the performance issues (this week should be entertaining with the new engine introduced bugs). They have made a game people can play, and be enticed by. It may not be "complete" but at least the plan is to not ever be complete. The time to balance the issues of the game occurred up to the new economy, then things changed.

After the new economy patch, the focus was about balancing the reward system of the game, which from a business perspective, is actually the most important part. Once that is balanced THE GAME IS READY FOR OPEN BETA. To be clear, no feature list makes a game ready then its economic model. With that in place, it is no wonder that PGI is ready to take the next step.

Trust me, they are keeping a close eye on all sorts of metrics, what people are and are not buying, how long people take to buy mechs, how many people give up on the game vs how many break down and buy MC. Adjustments will come. Money, and the future of this game and game company, are on the line.

My only hesitation is a lack of strong community support, even without the meta game added, the ability to be recognized for your group is important for developing strong communities, which in turn make strong backbones for game player bases. A tutorial wouldn't be amiss either, but hopefully with the influx of new players, will help us as a community establish more awesome things such as the public TS. Now that the NDA is lifted, we should begin to work in earnest to make useful tools for this game that we love.

I for one welcome our new mechanical overlords, and look forward to having my founders title be a rarity instead of a given.