Why would a developer horde an alpha/beta?

I was a little bored and I started reading through the unreleased games thread to kill some time.

Quite often someone will say in an understandably bitter tone "X company has Y locked in a safe somewhere and will never release it"

It got me thinking...why do developers and software houses keep a hold of beta and alpha releases and kick up a fuss if they get leaked?

Is it piracy concerns? A duty of care (someone mistaking it for the real thing and complaining to them about an unfinished dodgy product?) Or am I missing something?

The movie industry stuffs our DVD's and Blu-Rays with making of trailers, documentaries, deleted scenes and countless other features. Some of these features really break the integrity of the stories of the film feature but we can still watch them if we want to. So why doesn't the games industry follow suit? and I don't just mean with a few stills of concept art or an interview with a marketing exec.

We presume that Mother 3, Ura Zelda, Sonic Xtreme (E3 version) and countless other highly sought after canned and unreleased games are locked up in huge vaults within their developers HQ. If they are actually there, what do these companies have to gain in keeping them there forever, and to counter, what do they have to lose in releasing them?

I can understand certain games that never made it to market might want to be contained due to potential embarrassment for the developer if it was a really bad effort. However if a game has been on the shelves for 10 years, sold a few hundred thousand to a million copies and established a reputation or franchise which is unlikely to be knocked from it's perch by a leak of what it looked like it's it's infancy, then why not let the fans take a look?

 

They spent money developing that they will not recoup. As a business, why would they give it away for free?

 

They won't make money from it when it's sitting in a vault either.

I mean take Halo for example.

They could have released two editions, Halo standard and Halo special edition with earlier code so fans could see what it was like early in development. It's not costing them extra to do that really is it?

Now that the original Halo has been around for 10 years and unit sales profit must be close to 0. What harm could it do Bungie to put a link on their website to a beta/alpha version for the fans to see. They won't lose or gain anything.

Of course they don't HAVE to do anything, if they want to keep a alpha/beta locked away in a cupboard until bit rot sets in then they can but I would just love to know the reasons why they do this. Has there ever been a case of a developer officially releasing early code after a commercial release?

Or how about Capcom. Biohazard 2 has been and gone and no doubt they get a few emails/letters now and again from a few die-hard fans asking about BH 1.5. It's out there somewhere, would fetch a huge amount of cash if it ever went for sale again, lot's of people want to play it (although in comparison to the general consumer market, "lots" is very few) would it really bring the company to it's knees if they stuck 1.5 on a "best of" disc or just distributed it to the community?

So many beta's and alpha's are surrounded in hush hush, blanketed by NDA's, raped by eBay if they ever go up for sale. This website has received e-mails threatening law suits and people like Chris Senn act like a cross between 007 and Jesus just because they dump a few files from an old sun microsystems hard drive.

I understand the protection of source code to due potential leaks in secrets, unofficial ports etc. I also get the need to prevent leaks prior to a games release, nobody wants their masterpiece all over P-Net a week before release, but a game made 10-15 years ago?? Who gives a shit, just get it out there.

 

I've said this a few times. As long as they can sell it in the future for a bit more cash they will never give anything away for free. In cases such as 1.5 it has such a legacy they wouldn't even need to complete it.

 

It is not that simple.

Games needs funds. Funds are provided by investors. Investors get some rights. When a project dies some investors or rights holders refuse to play ball, or do so but want unrealistic terms. The same goes for licensing all forms of bullshit used in games. If the game gets out somone somewhere will want money and will fuck the developer over to get it so they have to remain tight lipped or get severely penetrated.

Then there is the other issue. Pride. If a game is shit, you know it is shit and so will everyone else, would you release it? It is cheaper to scrap a project and take the lessons learned into a new project than spending an eternity polishing a turd. Releasing a lemon would give them more trouble than it is worth not to mention bad rep but keeping it can show your staff a reminder of what NOT to do!

Releasing a deleted scene is no big deal. Releasing a canned game is something else altogether as they would have to be fit for purpose. You can't even release a demo without having to do a fuckload of work. Look at the new Fall Out for example. Most people don't want to pay for an incomplete barely playable sack of shit and unless it was a limited run at $1 million bucks a pop or the company took a huge financial hit it is not going to happen.

This doesn't even take into account some games may be coded to the metal or for prototype versions of hardware which would prove a ballache to either rewrite or emulate. Even doing so would give rise to the possiblity to reverse engineering features which were locked down for moral, political or financial reasons which would cause the companies yet more hassle.

To be honest if a game is unreleased so be it. When they do pop up they are a privilege to play and not a right. Sadly many people seem to think they are owed something =/

/me smeagles Geist away... my... precious!

EDIT: Crazy where did your post #6 go?

 

Money you gain from bullshitting around with alpha/betas: $0

Money you gain from spending that time on your current project: > $0

 

It's pretty simple. Any game for commercial release has to go through testing in every region that it's to be released in. Every aspect of the game must be examined for age ratings, epilepsy checks, the lot. Any unreleased/beta version is unlikely to be worth putting through those kinds of tests, and even if it was, the financial gain for the developer is minimal, so you'll never see them added as a simple bonus to games.

To developers, early alphas/betas are just broken games, nothing more. Pre-release versions of games have the potential to wreak all kinds of havoc, they could contain buggy code that could form the basis for an exploit, or point hackers in the direction of online cheating or similar. With the amount of money at stake, you wouldn't risk it either.

 

whats that test like?how can I make sure for example that my game conforms?

 

Hire a person who has seizures at the very low amounts and game them to playthrough/watch?

 

It's done by running the video through a special application which checks for flickering. There's a demonstration in the Nintendo episode of a BBC documentary series called "Outrageous Fortunes", which is about as trashy as it sounds, but has some interesting footage nonetheless.

I heard Wipeout HD failed the test so badly originally that it had to be redesigned. I'd love to play the original.

 

This is the sort of answer I was looking for. Thanks.

I've never felt I was owed anything by anyone.

 

Big game companies could hire a guy on a $50k/yr salary to run a blog with "trivia" such as the development of games, etc. and other stuff that might "woo" a potential employee. I'm talking companies that spend $50m yearly on development.

Some people would rather work at a company that cares about its games and doesn't treat them purely as toys -- this could even save some cash doing headhunting.

Then again there aren't many companies that really care about attracting good talent. The video game industry is quite weird in that regard. Besides it would require some foresight that is more than just 'maximize next quarter $$$'.

Think of it this way -- would you rather work at Company #51243 or a cool company?

There's probably a void in the market for a rockstar game company. Think the Google (or whatever your favorite "great" company is) of video games in terms of attractive employment. Especially with Blizzard at danger from Activision.

 

You mean like Sony's Kevin Butler?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Butler_(character)

 

What doesn't help is that the videogaming industry is still quite primitive in comparison with other fields of entertainment, such as the music or film worlds. For example, record labels started countering the threat of bootleggers decades ago by opening their vaults. This didn't happen because all artists wanted to release every scrap of material they could find (though some do think in this way), but because there was untapped potential in the market. A lot of money could be made quite easily by tacking on a few bonus tracks to an old album, and in most cases this was stuff that had already been circulating in low quality before in collectors circles. Similarly, movie studios have found that your average consumer will be more than likely to repurchase old titles - often in a new format - if there's additional content to be found over previously released versions.

By contrast, few games ever contain worthy extras, though in more recent times with the rise in download features it seems there's at least now a possible way of getting such material into a lot of homes without the need for costly disc and cartridge mass production. I didn't want to specify any particular examples, but can you imagine if Capcom was to reissue Resident Evil 2 with the last known build of the "1.5" prototype on a separate disc, possibly with some kind of written background (preferably with design illustrations, where possible) charting the game's development?

This may seem unlikely, though at the same time it's long overdue for someone to set the example by putting out a package to prove some gamers care for this kind of thing. Maybe it would be released in strictly limited numbers, or perhaps even made available online somehow? Either way, Capcom's excuse that 1.5 now contradicts the main canon storyline is simply inexcusable when there's so much effort still being made to track down a playable copy of this non-game within die-hard fan circles. Such a package would be unlikely to shatter the latest Call Of Duty's first week sales or appeal to every gamer out there, yet surely we deserve at least the choice to play such outtakes before they rot into nothing forever?

Besides, I've got plenty of films that have alternate scenes or even vastly different cuts and the inclusion of such material doesn't compromise what is considered the definitive version to me. Also, I can have several takes on the same song and appreciate them for what they are - not as something to threaten the integrity of whatever the artist decided was their final treatment. I guess a lot of the problem with games in general is that in most cases an old piece of code takes a lot more work to reinstate, perhaps requiring an emulator or extensive reprogramming. For example, how many of you would buy a deluxe edition of Shenmue with the early prototype on a separate disc and play it on the original hardware, this being the Dreamcast and Saturn?

As I said before, the music industry has been giving fans new reasons to buy old products in new packages for years now, and similarly film studios were jumping on board with this idea long before it became commonplace with the change from VHS to DVD. Publishers could easily charge a small amount to allow those interested to download any additional content they want, yet in recent times most are happy to just continue churning out map packs, bug fixes and costumes rather than anything more significant historically... my ultimate fear is that one day they won't have a choice once all the really good stuff has been misplaced for good or become unreadable on whatever format it was originally stored on!

 

Do you play modern games? Most of the big titles have a collector's edition with a DVD of video charting development etc. Also pointless plastic crap and tacky inserts, but hey.

As has been pointed out several times in this thread already, the main reason such prototypes aren't bundled with games is because they are broken and unfinished. You compare it to the music industry, but the correct comparison in that instance would be to a music company releasing a CD that had disc errors all over the place, or a DVD that would skip regularly. It's just not professional and won't happen unless there's a sound potential for commercial gain.

 

I realise there's a growing number of special edition games with "making of" documentaries, soundtracks and production materials, but the fact remains that such packages are still the exception and not something generally considered financially viable by most developers or publishers within the industry. Also, comparing incomplete software to jumping discs is slightly misguided as various record labels are quite happy to release low quality tracks as bonus content if there's enough demand for it - some artists will even go back and finish such outtakes, and in the case of films I've seen plenty where inferior source footage is used where no alternative is available.

As I said before, the gaming world needs to do something with all this archived data before it decays and ruins any plans forever. Instead of putting out yet another 16-bit compilation remastered in HD (which any interested fans have probably been doing through emulation for years, anyway!), how about if the likes of Sonic Xtreme was finished and released as a budget download if the cost of a physical version may render such a project otherwise difficult to realise in today's financial climate? The advantage with this is fans get something "new" to play without having to invest massive amounts in developing an all-new game, with much of the design work already done years back. Most importantly, in return there's a small amount money to be made from such ventures if someone was only to make the first move and set an example to other companies prepared to cater for their more demanding followers who know about such things as cancelled titles or lost content by putting together something really special...

P.S. If Duke Nukem Forever came in a deluxe package containing every known build of this game from over the years then I reckon it would need someone with the physical frame of Duke himself to personally deliver each copy! Is it too late to pitch this as a marketing opportunity?

 

DNF: 9001 Disc Edition?

 

You're missing my point. The difference is that those bonus tracks don't crash your CD player. Prototypes are broken games. I don't know how else to explain this.

The best you can hope for is a video, e.g. Shenmue. Even if Sega still have the source code for Saturn Shnmue there's no way they'd ever try and complete it - what would be the point? So a few fans could "ooh" at it? Be realistic. Assuming they wanted to there's almost certainly nobody at Sega capable of working through the source code and making it workable.

Because such a project would be expensive and almost nobody outside of communities like this would care. Retro ports and remakes make money because the masses remember playing them when they were young. Nobody played Sonic Xtreme when they were a kid.

 

To give one example, Metropolis has been restored at great expense many times over the years, yet various studios keep putting out new versions every time more long-lost footage is discovered and you don't see that topping movie charts every time someone dusts off another another split second of previously missing frames from it! Sure, nobody played Sonic Xtreme or the Shenmue Saturn prototype, but what would games developers lose in giving established fans a chance to finally play titles they'd only read about or seen in video form before if they still exist somewhere?

I understand that few would care and that an even smaller number would be able to appreciate an incomplete product (outside the context of being a bonus curio), yet for enthusiasts such as myself there's a window of opportunity here that won't last forever. Besides, would the likes of Sega want to put together a small team to finish Shenmue on the Saturn or face bankruptcy yet again by realising the whole series on a more contemporary system with the record-shattering budget that would surely require?

Capcom may not exactly be sitting on a goldmine with Biohazard 1.5, though it's possible its inclusion with a future title may spur on many new people to develop an interest in this cancelled sequel - along with the various known early builds of Biohazard 4 that were left on the cutting room floor. This one's probably a bit unfair to mention at length as video footage may not prove sufficient anymore now there's evidence of near-complete copies out in the open. However, there's still no doubt that companies need to do something sooner rather than later because one day the files for all of these holy grails will be in such a state that it will be impossible to restore them because unlike old nitrate film or audio tapes in need of a careful hand, ones and zeros surely can't be as easy to retrieve from a source that's eroded to nothing through neglect...

 

Ok, so rather than the companies going to all of the effort of making them playable, why not kick them out exactly the way they are in a non-commercial release and leave it up to the small group of die-hard fans to mess with? Then there's no cost spent on re-assigning a team to do anything with it, simply upload to an FTP and make small banner on a website, and include a huge disclaimer.

We keep mentioning profit and loss but in some cases it's simply not an issue.

Biohazard 1.5 won't be kept locked away due to pride as it wasn't good enough for a final release. It's not being kept away in the hopes that it will one day make a huge profit because they would have released it by now for fear of people forgetting about it all together. Licensing can't really be an issue as Capcom still holds all of the rights (I would imagine). If somebody rips the fuck out of it and reverse engineers it to discover a few trade secrets...who cares? it's from the PS1 generation!

I think we can agree on modern content being kept back due to technical issues and testing, but older stuff really shouldn't matter.

As you can probably tell I'm not an expert on any of this but I do believe Nintendo are one of the biggest complainers when an alpha/beta goes into the wild. Theft aside, why do they care so much if a rom image of an unreleased game made in 1993 suddenly gets distributed?

If Mother 3 appeared on a 64DD disk tomorrow, I bet there'd be a few people scared shitless about an e-mail from Nintendo appearing, threatening to take them to court and come around to their house and break their cats legs.

Ura Zelda apparently popped up a few years ago but the ex-employee who had info about it eventually bottled the leak/sale due to fear or repercussions. Fair enough he would have lost his job....but why would he have lost his job? What is the big deal? What possible detrimental impact would the leak of some dodgy code from 98-99 have on Nintendo as a huge corporation? Especially seeing as less than 1% of the consumer market would have seen/played it.

Has it just become a standard that we've learned to expect and accept?

This of course is a really good reason but I can't imagine this will apply to absolutely everything especially after so much time.