Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's an interesting thing with good points and bad. It'd be similar to Early Access on Steam where a title that has been greenlit for Steam can basically sell access to the Alpha or Beta stages of their game in development.
That can be good in allowing players to experience and influence how the game develops. Giving the developer some exposure to players and potentially getting some early hype going.
It isn't all good, however, as the game can change drastically during development leaving many players feeling disillusioned as the game is no longer similar to what they originally purchased. And there's also a chance that the game never actually gets finished leaving buyers with an unfinished game that they purchased. This happens.
From the developers side, of course, there's the chance for a lot of negative hype due to the Beta nature of the game if it isn't at a state where the ideas can shine forth.
I'm of mixed thoughts on this. I've seen a lot of people get burned by it. Sometimes it is their fault and other times it isn't. With the developer blatantly advertising something that doesn't exist and likely never will exist, but promising that it will exist in the future. In extreme cases, Steam will actually offer refunds. But generally only in extreme cases. Otherwise, it's buyer beware. Only here it's buyer beware with an unfinished product with promised features you just have to cross your fingers and hope the developer delivers on.
For the storefront owner, it's a perilous edge to walk. If you issue refunds, you're losing money (likeliness of getting that money back from the developer is slim to none) but if you don't you risk alienating your customer base.
Also it should be noted that there is one prominent BETA being sold on PS4. Warframe. But that isn't much of a risk as it was already a well polished and proven game on the PC. Although right now we're seeing a lot of backlash in the latest PC version of the game which has done some radical rebalancing of weapons (remember, it's still in BETA). Weapons that people have invested a LOT of time and in some cases money into.
Regards,
SB
