"social emblem and exclusive vehice." thats a sad reality

except that closed beta used to be handed to a select number of users for free (+NDA) and now they want your money to beta test and most likely don't even care about your input until bad rep or money back requests start to flow in.

Sure, closed betas still exist but less so than payed beta and early alpha access things that are for sale... :/

Why is Ubisoft so backwards on their software development life cycle? A closed beta is exactly what a game like this needs for a successful launch. Anno has quite the following and I am sure there are more than a few diehard fans that would love to test their game for free. @Ubisoft, get with the times. Fix your development testing requirements (QA), and fix your post release support; both are horrible.

Who wants to do betas when people won't treat them like betas and cancel their pre-order due to their dislike of a beta? Seriously, this is a valid question. I'm not surprised and won't be surprised at all if companies start doing less and less betas for fear of people canceling their pre-orders because of a BETA.

there should be no payment involved in beta testing...that's the whole point. They should be the ones paying beta testers or just select from pool of people that applied to test specific parts of the game and give feedback and report bugs etc. It's a job after all. It's like I said earlier: closed beta testing, selected users (selection based on what developers want to test) + NDA This is actually how this worked 10 years ago and still works but very few companies do it. Nowdays they prefer to hire internal testers. But they pay them, because, like I said, it's a job 🙂

there should be no payment involved in beta testing...that's the whole point. They should be the ones paying beta testers or just select from pool of people that applied to test specific parts of the game and give feedback and report bugs etc. It's a job after all. It's like I said earlier: closed beta testing, selected users (selection based on what developers want to test) + NDA This is actually how this worked 10 years ago and still works but very few companies do it. Nowdays they prefer to hire internal testers. But they pay them, because, like I said, it's a job 🙂

There is not payment in regards to beta testing. There's payment for the game, of which as a bonus you have access to beta testing. No one "pays" to beta test.

You realize that's just a spin that companies make, right? That is exactly what leads to canceling pre-orders and it's their own fault. I don't mind. It's kinda 'try-before-buy' but that wont last for long I imagine. Also, in the case of this particular preorder, if I understand correctly, ubisoft took people's money, people will not receive the game but some junk instead. I hope I am reading that wrong. If not, that's bait and switch.

You realize that's just a spin that companies make, right? That is exactly what leads to canceling pre-orders and it's their own fault. I don't mind. It's kinda 'try-before-buy' but that wont last for long I imagine. Also, in the case of this particular preorder, if I understand correctly, ubisoft took people's money, people will not receive the game but some junk instead. I hope I am reading that wrong. If not, that's bait and switch.

So are you saying that it's a "spin" that people who pre-order a game and get DLC/Expansion packs for free or etc. that they paid for those DLC/Expansion packs? Again, no one pays for beta.

I could give you number of examples beside the obvious ones, but for instance GGG (path of exile) gives people the option to pay for beta testing. ...just...forget it. If you can't see the spin, I have nothing else to add. Or maybe I do, how about "early access"? What is that? You are paying for what? Yes, you will be alpha and beta testing and you are paying for it (if you bite the hook).

Didnt Hilbert have major problems with the last Anno? Something to so with activations being tied to gpus or something, thus making gpu benchmarking a painful process. I think that benchmark and the problems HH experienced even went out onto some major websites. That was one of my favorite things that happened that day (second only to the the upside down M i found in my alphabetty spaghetti).

Yes he did. Each copy of Anno had a limited number of activations based on HW id. So when he changed the GPU, HW id changes and after 5 cards he had to purchase a new copy. I don't know if he did, I think he made a complaint and they gave him a bunch of keys or something like that.