There are times (especially as of late) that I feel game companies are just turning their beta tests into big publicity stunts and giving up beta spots to people that are lousy beta testers. You know the drill. Oh, lets let these people from this gaming mag be in the beta so they will say good things about it and get people hyped up so it will sell more copies! Those guys that run that gaming site that gets thousands of hits a day, let them in too! Oh oh, and I have to let my friend bob, tim, and paul (none of whom have the time to beta test a game, but hey! gotta do friends favors!) in our beta! HEY, I could be wrong, but.. it still baffles me some game companies can have a closed beta test with in house beta testers, then have an open beta test, and demos and STILL ship a game with a truckload of problems even a 5 year old could spot! Slackers I tell ya..
In my opinion they play the game to find out what can be improved/fixed, notify programmers about it and unless it's too much work to improve/fix something programmers will hear out their suggestions. Not all of them unfrotunately - slowdowns :evil: PS. I really don't want to start another slowdown debate. :smile: