Weekly Wednesday Beta Update #4 (posted 07/24/2002 10:08 am)
Kevin O'Hara:Today I'm going to talk a little about beta CDs. Again, this is a topic that may not be relevant to you now, but probably will someday.
Today we do our first burn test. Today and tomorrow we are making fixes based on that test. Friday we hope to burn the real deal Beta 1 disks (there will be two disks for beta 1). If that happens, we'll start duplicating them over the weekend and then send them to our warehouse so they are ready for the testers to order.
There will be a cost for the beta disks ($5.95 plus shipping). This cost is only to cover the creation, duplication, shipping and handling of the disk itself. We believe that for Beta we are responsible for the cost of product development, beta bandwidth, promotions, etc. We feel that it is acceptable to charge the tester for the cost of the disk itself. This will also allow us beta test our billing systems.
I'll address a couple of comments that are bound to come up.
"But it costs like pennies to make CDs, are you are you making a profit off the Beta Testers?" - If you can find a place that charges pennies for all the costs associated with mass cd duplication, please let me know. That is an industry myth. The raw material for quality cds, label printing, processing fees, shipping fees (to and from publishing house) and packaging add up quickly. We are not making any profit on this whatsoever.
"But in other beta programs for game X, there was no cost for CD." - Some companies choose to spend their limited budget on free beta disks. That is nice that they can afford to do that. Because of our contracts, we would need to take that money out of development budget. So the debate then becomes, what should we cut from the initial release of the game to cover the cost. It isn't quite that simple, but hopefully that will give you an idea of why decisions like these are made.
Okay, enough about the cost. Feel free to discuss it, but keep it civil.