Beta Costs vs. Payouts

Okay just here me out. Since Closed Beta will have definately started due Tribal-Wars, open beta will last some of summer and the whole season of fall. That means there has to be a download server, a master server, and some support open. Does it cost much to run a Beta, or is it a free giant test for the devs that the consumer enjoy?

considering they have to pay for a server to people to dl the beta from and keep devs working on support and fixing bugs, etc PLUS havinbg all the network stuff, master servers blah blah blah up that would be when the game is completed im assuming a beta costs a crapload more to run than it will when the game is released.
but then again all the people they will entice to buy the game through the beta will probably make up the loss.

so im thinking running the game after release would cost 3 dollars and the beta more around 6 dollars

Average cost for a closed beta is around $5,000 to $10,000 counting bandwidth, servers, and staff. For a bigger beta (think Blizard) it could be 10 times that much, or much much more for something like the WoW beta.

Average cost for a closed beta is around $5,000 to $10,000 counting bandwidth, servers, and staff. For a bigger beta (think Blizard) it could be 10 times that much, or much much more for something like the WoW beta.

Wow I never realized it cost that much.

Well that explains why so many beta downloads are on fileplanet and fileshack.

Yeah, bandwidth is expensive. I pay about 8 bucks for my webspace. I've got one gig of space and, (I think) a 5 gig per day bandwidth limit. Lets just assume that 8 bucks buys 5 gig of transfer.
Now say T:V beta is about 2.5 gig.
Thats $8 for two people to download at that rate.
500 people in beta $2000 in bandwidth from downloads alone (and that assumes no additional downloads for patches).
Staff, say 1 person at $10 an hour to read and catagorize bug reports etc. $400. For a week. Every week. at 5 weeks, it's $1000.
Beta website, (small cost, but necessary) for beta forums and other stuff.

Extreme example, but stuff like that adds up quick.

And Thrax's example doesn't take into account stuff like ongoing development costs (Programmers, etc, fixing the bugs...). You can see why Beta "playing" isn't a good thing for the game. Beta "testing," on the other hand, is what should be going on.

5 to 10 thousand is cheap to work out bugs and get some feedback on gameplay. Probably less then Thrax's weekly paycheck. :)

2.5 gig isnt that a bit large? i would be more than happy to play the beta with worse textures than waste half a month's download cap to get it.

How about a huge open beta where the company sends out a 2 gig game to thousands of people using it's own bandwidth? The Lineage 2 US OB was sent that way. It's scary to think of the bandwidth bill they received when it was all said and done.

Average cost for a closed beta is around $5,000 to $10,000 counting bandwidth, servers, and staff. For a bigger beta (think Blizard) it could be 10 times that much, or much much more for something like the WoW beta.

lol beta are at most 300-500MB. Else it would be a full game...
Unless they use full bmps for texture, wav for sound and music and uncompressed scripts

The bandwidth also include running the beta game servers.
Btw anyone reckkon sending CDs might be cheaper?

What? The WoW beta is about 2 gigs, and so was the Lineage 2 beta, CB and OB. Betas can get extremely hefty in size in todays day and age. The sizes are generally higher in MMO games because MMO games test most/all of the content within the game. It's generally less in FPS games because you don't need every map and model for a beta in an FPS game.

lol beta are at most 300-500MB. Else it would be a full game...
Unless they use full bmps for texture, wav for sound and music and uncompressed scripts

The bandwidth also include running the beta game servers.
Btw anyone reckkon sending CDs might be cheaper?

Yeah, bandwidth is expensive. I pay about 8 bucks for my webspace. I've got one gig of space and, (I think) a 5 gig per day bandwidth limit. Lets just assume that 8 bucks buys 5 gig of transfer.
Now say T:V beta is about 2.5 gig.
Thats $8 for two people to download at that rate.
500 people in beta $2000 in bandwidth from downloads alone (and that assumes no additional downloads for patches).
Staff, say 1 person at $10 an hour to read and catagorize bug reports etc. $400. For a week. Every week. at 5 weeks, it's $1000.
Beta website, (small cost, but necessary) for beta forums and other stuff.
Staff is already getting paid. And you're making some pretty big assumptions on bandwidth cost, using a 5gb webspace as a reference point. ;)

Just post the open beta version to the newsgroups, problem solved. Most everyone downloads it from there and it'll get reposted, and reposted.

Unless there's a catch and everyone who will want to be in the open beta will have to have a paid fileplanet account or not get a login key number, which I'm guessing will probably be the case.

torrent the open beta and start the seed. When it shows up on suprnova the distro. problem would likely be solved. Of course, I doubt fileplanet/shack would appreciate that, as it would somewhat reduce the exposure of their advertising.

5 to 10 thousand is cheap to work out bugs and get some feedback on gameplay. Probably less then Thrax's weekly paycheck. :)Yes. I make $10,000 a week. :rolleyes: All producers make $520,000 a year. That's why we care so little about gamers, we're flush with money all the time.

What about subliminal messaging/advertising to pay for the beta. But really I wouldn't mind seeing an ad in the beta like on a base or something if its gonna mean more tech support, etc...money being used in other places

Here's a picture I took of you just last week.

http://www.americanroyalarts.com/library/DL62.jpg

Yes. I make $10,000 a week. :rolleyes: All producers make $520,000 a year. That's why we care so little about gamers, we're flush with money all the time.

What about subliminal messaging/advertising to pay for the beta. But really I wouldn't mind seeing an ad in the beta like on a base or something if its gonna mean more tech support, etc...money being used in other places


Children of the Pepsi vs Diamondsprite. You no longer get to choose your player name either, one is assigned to you based on some random product.

>Doritos ma’s Burger King
>Burger King has dropped the flag.

Here's a picture I took of you just last week.

http://www.americanroyalarts.com/library/DL62.jpg

:lol:

Yeah, bandwidth is expensive. I pay about 8 bucks for my webspace. I've got one gig of space and, (I think) a 5 gig per day bandwidth limit. Lets just assume that 8 bucks buys 5 gig of transfer.
Now say T:V beta is about 2.5 gig.
Thats $8 for two people to download at that rate.
500 people in beta $2000 in bandwidth from downloads alone (and that assumes no additional downloads for patches).
Staff, say 1 person at $10 an hour to read and catagorize bug reports etc. $400. For a week. Every week. at 5 weeks, it's $1000.
Beta website, (small cost, but necessary) for beta forums and other stuff.

Extreme example, but stuff like that adds up quick.

And Thrax's example doesn't take into account stuff like ongoing development costs (Programmers, etc, fixing the bugs...). You can see why Beta "playing" isn't a good thing for the game. Beta "testing," on the other hand, is what should be going on.

Note Bandwidth is fairly cheap compared to what you mentioned above.....when you are looking at big companys who buy in bulk.

$1 buck for 1gig