Before beta nobody knew and nobody cared about Rift.

Now its one of rare sucessful MMOs

You be the judge how much beta hurt it

I think the open beta helped it. It let the people who were on the fence try the game, it let the people who were gung-ho about rift try the game as well. Both got to try it, test it out, and figure out if they liked it or not before the head start. Now we got a population in rift that we know enjoys the game, it will see a much smaller fallout after the first month because of this.

well open beta gave it the publicity since trion could not afford to spam it on tv and in uk is nit even in all retail shops .

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Now its one of rare sucessful MMOs

Conclusions- let's jump to them ;D

Maybe they would be higher but in that case many of those new players would spend a week trolling the chat and months on the forum. You don't want people that don't like the game to buy it in hopes it is something else.

The more people that like the game the better, it will make a community that is happy instead of upset and a game is as fun as the people you play it with,  if most people have a boring time it will be boring for you as well.

Anyone remember the first month of AoC? It wasn't worth the extra income from box sales, too many people left becuae they though the community sucked and it did.

It is in all MMO devs interest to sell the game to people that like it, advertising something you don't have only leads to problems. MMOs earns most of it's money on monthly fees.

Rift did right, if the game will be one of the big ones or not is still early to say but they did handle the OB excellent, with the exception of the beta key handout in the beginning.

It depends on the individual but I got the feeling it was great for the consumer bad for RIFTs inital box sales.  Good for the consumer because they could try before they buyed and could make an informed decision.  Bad for sales because there's always some people who buy on impulse and instead they had a chance to, 'scratch that itch',without making a financial commitment.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Before beta nobody knew and nobody cared about Rift.

Now its one of rare sucessful MMOs

You be the judge how much beta hurt it

Yes it's very successful.....but then most MMOs are within their free month...:P

Originally posted by Hyperbeam

It depends on the individual but I got the feeling it was great for the consumer bad for RIFTs inital box sales.  Good for the consumer because they could try before they buyed and could make an informed decision.  Bad for sales because there's always some people who buy on impulse and instead they had a chance to, 'scratch that itch',without making a financial commitment.

It was bad for impulse sales, but on the other hand it was good for the overall game reputation. Those who bought it knew what they were getting themselves into, while the voices in these forums crying about same old same old haven't invested any money into the game.

In theory it should help retention after the first month is over.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Hyperbeam

It depends on the individual but I got the feeling it was great for the consumer bad for RIFTs inital box sales.  Good for the consumer because they could try before they buyed and could make an informed decision.  Bad for sales because there's always some people who buy on impulse and instead they had a chance to, 'scratch that itch',without making a financial commitment.

It was bad for impulse sales, but on the other hand it was good for the overall game reputation. Those who bought it knew what they were getting themselves into, while the voices in these forums crying about same old same old haven't invested any money into the game.

In theory it should help retention after the first month is over.

That's true, I do think Trion did a good job of delivering a customer friendly, stable product, they were proud of.  That was my impressions of all stages of the beta actually.

It's just a shame I wasn't really a fan of the game in the end :)

Maybe I missed this, but  it was my assumption that the vast majority of open beta testing was not so we could form opinions early about the game. I understood it to be a tool used to test the stability of software and hardware under various conditions?? The fact that you get to play does allow players to form opinions early, but over all has little to do with the need for open beta for any MMO's. 

I will NEVER buy an MMO that I don't get to try, first.

That said, Rift did their beta just right.  I remember Tabula Rasa's open beta went on for almost a month, and I think that cost them initial sales.  Meanwhile, Rift OB went for... 7 days?  A good length of time for testing, and a good amount of time for me to decide if it's a game I'd want to commit to.  If I hadn't had that time, I'd have err'd on the side of "nope".

Playing the beta influenced my decision not to buy the game.   It just wasn't different enough, new enough or had more content than the other games.

So in my case it cost them a sale.

I played in 2 of the betas and felt I had played enough to form my opinion. I got to level 20. My intial thoughts were that it was smooth, beautiful and fun. It felt VERY similar to Warhammer but with a WoW polish that Warhammer was missing. By level 20 it felt redundant. The Rifts were just like PQ's and for the most part less challenging. The quests felt like go kill 20 of x. Which are in all games, but at this point if youre not going to give me something different in progression why would I play it? For graphics? Eh? In the end, the BG's felt like Warhammer, the game felt static (which is funny given the "dynamic" sales pitch). So I did not buy the game, but given the 1st beta (getting to level 10) and the performance of the game, I would have bought it. After playing in the 2nd (and not the final 2) I chose not to buy it because it felt no different than any MMO out there that I hadnt tried or play already. What companies need to realize about a new MMO is that you need to bring me and my friends in at the same time. I had someone ask me about Rift the other day and I told him it was eh. And he didnt buy it based upon my feedback. Had we gotten in together and had more of us tied in. I think we may have stuck with it. Its an idea you see EA doing with SWTOR and their guild registration system. Its very smart to get a whole guild over. More sales, more staying power if all my buddies are there. Just a thought.

I bought the game BECAUSE of open beta.

Originally posted by gainesvilleg

 

For instance, I probably would have bought the game based on the positive buzz and initial reviews if I didn't actually get to play the open beta first.  Maybe I would have waited a few days to see the reviews, but once the buzz was clearly positive I would have pulled the trigger and bought it (because I'm bored with my current MMOs).  But instead I got to play the beta for free myself and formed my own opinion, which was less positive than the buzz and initial reviews.

But if I was forced to pay to test it out, I probably would have.  And who knows it may have eventually grown on me, or I may have simply kept playing because I might have gotten hooked on the advancement/achievement system.

Just my 2 cents.  Like mothers used to say to their daughters in the old days:  if you give them the goods for free why would they marry you?  lol

So you prefer to be deceived rather than know the truth....perhaps you should look into that.

Without open beta, I wouldn't have given this game a second glance.

I would not be playing RIFT if it was not for the open beta, and those that would have picked it up would be dropping off the servers like made.

The server pop is still very high, and Trion has been extremely responsive to the players, without just bowing down to unreasonable domains.

I believe their sales would be lower...much lower.  Most gamers I know didn't know or care about this game until all the hype started because of how they handled their beta process. 

Originally posted by Qazz

I bought the game BECAUSE of open beta.

Same^^ I tried the game at beta and loved it.

Now I´m enjoying it more and more everyday :)

The game might have had better sales if it had LESS betas, but still had one or two. I got sick of the grind after the fourth beta, and I didn't even bother logging in on the last. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game that's been fairly successful so far, but if trion cut the number of betas  to about 5, perhaps that would've meant another 50k subscribers (an educated guess, mind you). 

..and then I remember that  this topic is about the OPEN beta, and my opinion is irrelevant. Well, almost irrelevant. Relevant enough for me to not hit the delete key!

I might have actually bought the game had I not played in the beta, but I would not have stayed longer than my free month I don't think. I used the beta as a free trial - granted I did send in a lot of bug reports and feedback (as every responsible beta tester should), but I just didn't enjoy the game.

So I can't make broad generalizations, but the beta saved me the box fee on the title.