How to setup a Beta

I want to get beta testers for my game, but that means I have to give them the game somehow, which feels like I'm giving it out for free. There's also the fear or piracy if the beta is available for anyone.

How do you guys handle beta testing?

 

Authentication! Somehow.

 

You could also add code to only let the game run if a certain date has not past yet. That would allow each beta build to expire automatically. What ever you choose to do, be transparent with beta testers about what you did. If a beta build of your game automatically expires on a certain date, let beta testers know that when they download it.

 

This.

And definitely this.

If you are doing mobile, you can use a similar approach with android, or you can use TestFlight for iOS.

 

But could people doing beta testing be potential customers lost because they've already played the game enough before its released?

I don't have a huge game, its just 6 short levels. So once they are through with the game, why should they purchase it once its released if nothing has really changed?

 

Well, are you doing Beta for marketing or to get feedback and find bugs? If you are doing it for feedback/bugs, it can be worth it to lose a few sales in exchange for solid feedback. If it is for marketing, then cut it down to 1 level for the beta.

 

Sounds like a good idea.

However, on my steam greenlight page I made the beta version available for download, but I have not gotten a single feedback message yet. It's been up for a few days.

 

Well did you run any analytics? Do you know how many installs you got?
How many levels did the people play? How long did they play for?
What was their average game time? If they died did they restart?

 

I don't have any analytics on the link, I just know that at least several people installed it because dropbox sent me a email saying im getting to much traffic on the link because I did not have a business version.

I also don't have any program that monitors what they are doing in the game, I'm just relying on feedback.

 

Maybe you should fix that...

 

Not analytics on the link. Analytics in your game. If you're going to give stuff out for testing you should measure everything you possibly can.

The thing is, you don't know that "several people installed it". All you know is that several people downloaded it. Or maybe even just that bandwidth was used - maybe it was one guy who's connection kept dropping out?

Relying on human feedback isn't particularly useful. Think of the funnel.

Find link -> download -> install -> open -> play -> go back to website -> fill in form. Every step along the way you're going to lose a huge fraction of people.

Then, what people tell you is great and all, but a lot of the time it's nowhere near as useful or informative as what you can observe. If someone says "I stopped playing after 5 minutes because the game was frustrating", what have you learned? How do you fix "frustrating"? Why was it "frustrating"?

On the other hand, if you have some stats that tell you the player died 8 times in the same room performing the same action before quitting... you might have enough information to figure out exactly what the issue was. Why was he dying? Why was he always trying the same thing? You can probably answer those questions easily, maybe without even having to do more investigation. And because they're concrete questions with specific answers, once you have the answers you can take direct action. And once you've taken action you know what to measure to see if it worked.

Now you're measurably improving your game. Where when you relied on direct feedback, all you could really work on vague impressions and warm fuzzies, and couldn't know the specific outcomes of small changes.

 

What type of game do you have? If you have FPS you may add one map only or create a particular multiplayer for beta testers. When the game will be out, shutdown the beta multiplayer. This will prevent piracy and encourage beta testers to buy the game.

Hope this gives you an idea!