CoG Requirements for Hosted Beta

[EclecticEccentric]

One of the requirements for Hosted Games publishing is to run a beta test of the complete game on the CoG forums. The page for Hosted Games writing specifies that it has to be a public beta. However, there have been a couple of WIPs that underwent private or closed beta.

So, my question is can the game be tested on the forums privately or is a public demo for the entire game required for publishing?

[Harroc]

Privately works, I think. I saw lots of games being published without a public beta.

[Eiwynn]

This is my understanding:

During the WiP phase, testing is handled however the author/developer desires.

Once the game is submitted to Hosted Games it undergoes review and it is at that point a full public demo may be required.

[Havenstone]

Have a look at this thread, in which I link to a bunch of earlier ones and there’s clarification that “public” doesn’t mean “open”:

@Havenstone

Quoting @jasonstevanhill here, the open beta COG requires for Hosted Games does not mean “you have to post it so any rando can play without contacting the author.” It means at a minimum that the beta has to be publicly announced on the forum, and forum members who express interest are allowed to join a private message thread where they’re given access to your draft.

@jasonstevanhill

To follow up to Havenstone, if you say “I did a beta!” but you mean, “my three best friends and my mom played it and they all told me it was awesome!” that doesn’t mean it was given a beta test. We want to see the community given a real opportunity to engage an author in a dialogue.

In particular, when we at Hosted Games are trying to decide if we should expend money/capital on a game (putting it on Steam, putting it in a mailer, tweeting about it), Rachel gives her input, and then we look at the beta thread to see how the community has responded. Thus, whether the game is freely accessible or not, letting us see the feedback of the beta testers helps us decide how we market it.

[EclecticEccentric]

Thanks, @Havenstone. That thread was actually what I was poring over trying to find an answer to the question, but I guess I didn’t squint at it hard enough.

So, just to get this straight (I’m having a little trouble parsing ), you don’t have to run a fully-open-to-the-general-public beta of the game? Since it’s also mentioned that CoG looks at the beta thread to see how the game was received?

[malinryden]

What I did, was run a public beta during the early stages, to have people help me with input and the like. Once that was done, I rewrote parts of the game, and then had a closed beta announced on the forum, and run through DMs where people went over the final product with a comb. That seemed to be okay.

[Havenstone]

@EclecticEccentric

CoG looks at the beta thread

Which can be a Private Message thread on the forum.

[jasonstevanhill]

Yeah, you don’t have to make it open—no safeguards about who plays it—but it’s important that you announce it publicly and accept testers who aren’t your friends. It’s about having people with different experiences and viewpoints give it a shot, so the game isn’t made in an echo chamber.