If I purchase the beta copy for 30 dollars does that get me a copy of the Retail release when it is released?

If it does fantastic but if not then you are asking me to pay 30 bucks to help you out…

Hi:

(Ahem)

As always, seems George wants your credits first.

L

Nothing I've seen says that you'll get the retail release later. It looks like $30 ($41 once you add minimum shipping) for the beta release, on the premise that it is, by definition, a limited edition release that will vanish when the finished version is released to retail.

Personally, that got my interest, but, then again, I'm also a guy who clings to his Advance Reader Copies like a Toydarian to a buck. Still, it *is* pretty steep for an "unfinished" item that you'd figure they are expecting you to eventually purchase as a finished-version retail consumer.

The book looks like it's worth the thirty bucks, no issues there, but $11.75 as the cheapest shipping option? That's crazy.

Picked mine up at Gen Con and it's 220 pages of full color content. While it's missing any full/partial page artwork inside it has everything needed to play a game. I'll be reading this up soon as Gen Con is completed so I can give it a go.

While it is a lot of money for a Beta it's a pretty complete game book. It is not like the beta another game company is doing where it's more like the Alpha stage of game design. I'd think more like Piazo did with Pathfinder before it hit release. A pretty **** complete book that can be made better by players finding all the little problems in the book before it is ready for publication.

I dunno, I think it's pretty poor form to charge that much (Full retail price for many many other games) for a beta that is admittedly incomplete and unfinished, no matter how well-made. Now, I'm not at all saying they should make pre-printed books available for free. But I think PDFs for a much lower price could be feasable. And if the game isn't complete or entirely finished Piracy isn't a huge issue, nor does it really cost a whole lot more to release a PDF that you already have made.

I will more than likely buy a copy of the game when it's finished, but there's no way that $60+(Beta plus final game) is worth the honor of doing the job that other games have playtesters do for free. I could also see new gamers being put off when the full game does come out if they bought the beta not fully understanding.

Tensen01 said:

I actually think that piracy could be a problem, especially with a full color book. Once the final product is released you'd just need to print out a few pages of errata and be done with it especially if you don't care about the fluff / art in the game.
It might have been smarter to handle this as a pdf release for $X and later give a discount of $X for the released product as they did with Only War just recently

No way they could've done a PDF, at least it sounds like the contracts forbids it. Daddystabz on Youtube taped the announcement, and this point was brought up. So no PDF, just softback and shipping. And I don't recall any mention of a discount, just that the full release would be "early 2013."

jordiver2 said:

Aye, from what I've heard online and from people who went to Gencon, as well as previous experience with Star Wars RPGs, PDFs don't seem to be allowed by the contract - it's a LucasArts thing, apparently.

Speaking as someone that works at my FLGS, I'm glad they've gone the printing route. Not only that, but they've made it retailer friendly. That's something else that I like about this game so far.

Also, is it $30 for each "installment," i.e., 30 for Edge of the Empire, 30 for Age of Rebellion, and 30 for Force & Destiny?

I would hope it's around $30 for each installment.

I'd imagine it's $30 for the beta, and about $45-50 for the full book with the fluff, etc, since that seems to be the going price of an RPG core book at present.

MILLANDSON said:

Manchu said:

It's possible it could be $60 then - I'm in the UK, so I normally get corebooks for about £30.

Yeah, it's important to keep in mind that "Beta" here is not equal to "Playtest." Playtesting in this sense is what has been done before the actual "Beta" version was released. So it makes sense and is reasonable that they'd charge for the Beta Copy. It costs money to print, and it's gonna cost staffing hours to revise and re-purpose rules once the beta testing is finished. And since they can't legally produce any electronic copies, I'm glad they're at least giving people the opportunity to pick it up and play it.

awayputurwpn said:

Well, if they've already done all the playtesting why do they need to release a "beta"? Let alone go through the process of printing an admittedly unfinished book and then charging for it? They don't do that with software. And the entire description of why they're doing this is the exact definition of playtest.

The fact that they ARE going to have to completely reprint, possibly reformat and pay for man hours makes this entire Beta thing even more inexplicable from a business route.

It's so people who don't want to wait several months until the official release can play it now if they chose to. They are labeling it as a "beta" because rules may change between now and then, and so people know exactly what they're getting.

Pathfinder started this a fair few years ago - running this sort of 'beta' release isn't an entirely new concept.

Plus, given that it's unlikely that there'll be changes that'll completely invalidate the book, you then have a handy copy of the book, sans fluff, for your players to use to check things, whilst you use the main rulebook.

Tensen01 said:

Actually they do this all the time with software.

Few companies, and I mean 2-3 tops, can hold a video game past it's distribution date. Day 1 patches that fix major, game killing bugs are common place, you just don't notice them with auto updates or slightly longer load times. Then you have the bugs that don't get found until after launch, that the companies and their playtesters missed or knew about and shipped anyway. These can be catastrophic bugs that happen only when ten to twenty thousand users or more start hammering at the product in ways that the testers wouldn't think of.

Playtests are usually closed, small groups whose purpose is to hammer out game play and major issues. Small subtle things can easily go unnoticed and lead to problems when more eyes are brought on a product. Beta test are usually more open and allow for more eyes on a final product. Beta tests are about beating up the material in a way playtests can't.

Tensen01 said:

there are examples where you have closed betas that you get access to through purchasing another product. i believe the halo reach multiplayer beta required you to purchase ODST.

a paid beta saves having Non Disclosure Agreements, only the most interested and die hards will get involved - they will have a really critical eye and are more likely to submit feedback. as an international (new zealand) and having limited time to commit to gaming i'm not going to be involved in the beta, but i'm sure glad that there are people going through the game so that when the final product is released there will be less jank.

Tensen01 said:

To quote Rodney Thompson, "No game survives contact with its player base."

Quite simply, by letting the prospective audience get an early go at the game, they get the benefit of having a whole mess of extra sets of eyes going through the rules and seeing where the system breaks. it also curtails a lot of possibly negative rumor and gossip based around half-informed speculation by having a playable version of the final product out there for anyone's that interested in checking it out. Even in the initial few days when information was light on the floor after FFG announced Edge of Empire at GenCon, there was some definite negativity, to the complaints about "needing special dice" to worries about a complete lack of Force-using PCs. Now imagine if there had been several months instead of just a few days between the announcement of the product and anyone outside of FFG and the writers seeing the actual material. We saw it with D&D and 4th edition, in which there was a huge negative backlash before anyone saw the first few official bits of the rules, and that's not counting the "they changed it, it sucks" comments.

Also, while it may not be the "finished" version, as GM Chris noted on the most recent episode of the Order 66 podcast (featuring long-time SW RPG writer Sterling Hershey as well as Lead Designer Jay Little), for 30 bucks you get a complete game; while the scope might be limited, you could run a slew of campaigns for years with just this one book. So it's not like you're paying $30+S/H for something like the D&DNext playtest materials (which in no way comes close to resembling a finished product).

^ Well said!