Gaming Beta-tests

Night0wl writes "With the recently ended beta of Earth and Beyond I'm left wondering where can one find beta test accepting applications? I heard of the EnB Beta from Tech TV, but not all beta's are publisizing on tv. Where do you geeks find your hopefull prospects? Are we really left to hovering over a game we love, or random picks from a google search?"

Comments

Ask EA?

[Anonymous Coward]

EA published E if you did a good job betaing it, EA may look favourably on you testing their next one.

ahem...

[ceejayoz]

http://www.betanews.com/
http://www.gamespot.com/betacenter/

Also useful: go to Blue's News and search for "beta".

Some advice...

[PhaseBurn]

I was in the Earth and Beyond beta test as well, from Phase 4, as well as being previously in the WarCraft 3 beta, the Diablo 2 LOD Exp beta, and many other betas in the past, so, I speak from experience here mostly...

Once you're in a beta, it's a lot easier to get into others. The first, on the other hand, is usually luck. I went to E3 (http://www.e3expo.com) several years ago, and met with a few people in the gaming industry... One of them was kind enough to give me a beta back then, and register me as a "press/site beta" which means I wasn't in the technical beta phase, but rather, was trying to get a preview of the product. After a few bug reports though, I was then asked to join their next beta project after this one was over. That built a rep for the company, and on subsequent beta apps to places, I now put down past experience (most places that don't choose at random ask for this - the ones that do choose at random is exactly that), and they take that into consideration.

Basically, it's just about being in the right place at the right time. You can e-mail betareq@microsoft.com reguarding all MS betas (they're always doing something - Office 11 should be in beta soon, for example), some of the links mentioned above are good - BetaNews is on my slashdot homepage as a side box, as is Blue's News - they post a lot about the gaming betas, usually a few days too late though... If you're looking specifically for gaming betas, getting affiliated with a gaming site and put on press contacts may be the best way to go... I run a small gaming site that has gotten me on the press-release mailing lists for most companies, and, that's the first place betas are announced...

Hope this helps...