Testing- Closed vs Open

There are a lot of thoughts out there on testing beta projects, and I am trying to decide which one would work in our case.

I was talking to Mr. Gary Gorski about this subject, and before I forget, he has a new game going into testing in the next 30 days or so, called Total College Basketball from Grey Dog Software (www.greydogsoftware.com) . Visit the main page to see some nice screenshots of the game and make sure to post questions at their forums!

Good Luck Gary! Couldn't find a better guy. Support his products, they deserve it.


So now back to the testing process. Some folks, and companies have gone to the open process where everyone is a beta tester, and post bugs and ideas about the game freely and publically. The problem there is that most of the games are farther along in their development, and can survive the close scrutiny that their games have.

I also find the paid beta process as problematic. Maybe allowing a tester a discount toward the game is good for some, but what about the time spent and working on the game? Does that mean anything to the programmer and the company?

It takes years to find a good solid testing team, and one of the best is Markus Heinsohn's Out of the Park Baseball Team. I find that their dedication to the game and the process is the best I have ever seen. They know their roles, and they hit the ground running. After the game is released they prowl the forums for bugs and problems and try to fix them or put them in the bug database for Markus to work on.

I am sure version one of OOTP was a learning process, and so will be SCR. But that doesn't mean that I can't try to plan ahead.

I have a group of testers that I really enjoy. The process is not what you call a normal development process. They have been there from the beginning and have given input and ideas, along with kudos and criticisms in this whole journey, and I value their efforts!

I probably will think over this process for a bit, but I see maybe a little of both in Medley's future. What do you guys think? Tell me about it over at the forums! http://www.medleygames.com/forums/index.php?

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