I am talking to you, Blizzard (MWIII)
I hate this trend.
Attack from Tarkov
Star Citizen
The only one that I’ve played that has bucked that trend is Valheim. It’s relatively bug free and the gameplay is smooth as hell.
Pretty sure Baldurs Gate 3 was another example…
It used to be called early access. At least it wasn’t a misleading term.
Nah, ‘open beta’ was the term for a long time; early access is a newer thing.
I think you’re misunderstanding what I mean. Early Access is a newer term for getting paid access to a game early. Open beta is an older term but was used for free access to a game early for testing purposes. They used to have different meanings which is why early access was created as a new term to distinguish it from a beta. Calling paid early access a beta is intentionally misleading.
Alright, thanks for the clarification! Honestly, I think both terms are misused all the time and I have just stopped caring about it.
I remember when virtually every single game allowed you to play a ‘Demo’ for free, so you could find out exactly what the gameplay is like in any game before playing it. They often came in my cereal boxes as a kid, or free to pick up at the checkout. I still have a cool CD from the 2000s which has like five big studio name Demos in one.
Now that’s Pepperidge Farm Remembers. Or did I out myself as too old?
I still have the demo discs that used to come with PC Gaming Magazine. Haha. We’re old. :)
Steam Next Fest kind of breaks this comment apart.
Steam Next Fest
Demos still exist, sure. Just not anywhere to the scale and pervasiveness that they used to. Nor do they come in cereal boxes.
Preordering is in no way necessary.
To play MWIII on battlenet, you bet it is. I opted not to, but that’s the gimmick lately
endless dungeons?
edit: I see now you were referring to MWII
You mean the random selection signups? I think only WoW’s first stress test was a straight “anyone can download” open beta…
nah, used to be that was closed beta. Palia is currently in “open beta” but its actually just PC exclusive launch because there are no further wipes.
Used to be the terminology was strict and easily understood. Now its just whatever the dev wants to claim it is.
Open Beta used to be “game is free for a week then we will wipe, do any backend fixes we identified, and then launch”. Last MMO that did that that I can concretely remember was SWTOR.
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