It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
One of the last planning discussions I was involved with as I was making my transition to a new set of responbilities involved releasing a beta version of FSX on
fileplanet.com. Not being a PC game "enthusiast" myself I admit I hadn't heard of them but I've since learned they are a mainstay among gaming sites. Lots of folks, including many here, subscribe to get the latest in gaming downloads, including beta versions of new games. They have a very robust infrastructure with the ability to administer a much larger beta that we can, suprising as that may sound. So we made plans for them to make available a late-term beta. More people get to sample the product and we get more feedback. Sounds great--what could go wrong?
As it turns out several things, in fact, as
numerous forum posts can attest. First off the invitation to sign up for the beta caught people off guard. As I
blogged a couple weeks ago, this whole notion of a more open, communicative Microsoft is freaking people out and it stands to reason that the first time we do anything new it will come as a surprise. Many people were skeptical about the whole fileplanet beta since we'd never done it before even though it is standard practice with other games. This led to numerous conspriacy theories and allegations (untrue, of course) that we were taking a cut of fileplanet's subscription fees. Regardless, people kept asking, "Did I get selected for the beta and, if so, when am I going to get it--heck, when am I going to hear anything else about it?!"
The next stumble in the long series of events came with the release of the FSX demo. While independent from each other the demo and the beta were planned to be released at roughly the same time. Unfortunately after we released the demo we decided to hold off on the beta since the code was actually somewhat older than the demo. (And despite the fileplanet NDA we were sure someone would complain about bugs in the beta that weren't in the demo.) It wasn't that we were afraid of bad press from the bugs, it's that many of them were obviously already fixed in the demo. This decision let to a delay in getting a build ready for posting to fileplanet.
We finally decided to release a build that was even newer than the demo but then we had problems with that, too. First the setup program (for DVDs) wasn't working quite right and that took a couple of days to iron out. Now we have to take the DVD setup and convert it to a web download. That's turning out to be tricky because of the sizes involved (9GB). As a result, we're still working on getting a build to fileplanet so the beta can begin. Originally I thought that might happen before last weekend but it didn't.
So with explanation out of the way let me apologize on behalf of the team for the confusion and delays. This is a first for us and we obviously didn't plan for all the contingencies. I also want to apologize for the lack of communication surrounding the fileplanet beta. I've been a bit out of the loop on it and those in the loop are frantically busy trying to get it to those of you who signed up. And, since fileplanet actually owns the sign-up and distribution process we can't really offer any insight into how that works. For those who did sign up and are still waiting, thanks for your patience. Rest assured you haven't missed the boat--it's just that the boat is stuck at the dock while the crew tries to free to mooring lines!
