I was recently perusing my latest Gamestop email newsletter, seeing if any games of note were being released soon, when my eyes spied several games offered closed beta access if you pre-ordered.I made note and moved on before coming to a very odd conclusion.Closed beta access is why so many of our games now have Epic SUCK status.This is why so many games are released rife with bugs and graphical glitches, incorrect dialogue, all sorts of things.

Many moons ago, during the Stone Age, only the most elite sect of gamers got into a closed beta test of a game.You were either a game dev student or a fan that was very well known in the gaming community, not someone who had plunked down and extra 5 dollars to get into beta.Because just anyone can now get into closed beta and sometimes even the alpha stages of a game, bugs and errors in games are reaching epic proportions.Many gamers don’t understand the real reasons why they are allowed in a Closed Beta. It is NOT to pre-play the game before your friends. It is to catch all those little bugs and grammatical errors so that when the game is released they aren’t there.The players simply aren’t caring enough to do what they are allowed in to do.In the long run we have a game that’s filled with bugs, prompting massive returns and refunds to be issued, people losing jobs, companies folding, inevitably, the apocalypse.All joking aside, one has to wonder if companies are realizing the problems created by allowing someone who has no credentials or experience, to be in a closed beta.As usual things boil down to the almighty dollar, companies allowing players into the game before it is released, of course allows them to gauge interest in the game. They can do damn near spot on income projections, based on closed beta pre-orders.But in the end the product given to consumers is subpar and definitely not worth the absorbent amount of money we now have to spend on a game. While it’s believed allowing players into closed beta allows for better testing, it’s actually hurting the quality of our games and we’re still paying the price, good or bad game.This is worse for PC gamers who can’t return or trade in a bad game.

Many times you’ll hear players previously allowed in closed beta say, “I was in during beta and they had this bug then, why was it not fixed?”My return question is always; well did you report the bug?The answer is most usually no.This to me is not the player doing what they were allowed to do. It’s a gamer using Beta as status symbol and thusly not helping the developers release a really polished product to the masses.In my opinion one of two things needs to happen.Either companies start limiting who’s allowed into a closed beta (i.e. media and only experienced beta testers) or start charging less for sucky games.It’s really sad when free games on Facebook have fewer bugs than the latest release from game publishing giants like EA and Ubisoft.Note to game developers, some of us still care about what we play and we want to play only the best.

-Ferari