Your boss example is out of context and doesn’t make any sense. Coming back to the situation at hand, in what world is it not granting them access early in a competitive game boosting their chances massively on winning this tourney? Do we really need to explain this? In Starcraft 2 at launch people who were allowed early were not allowed in tournaments for months. We can’t reach those standards even 10 years later it seems. So the tournament organisers (if it’s independent from MS), if they have any integrity, they should ban those players from joining or cancel it altogether.
And an internal MS/Relic tester playing in a prize money tournament at launch? How is that even ethical in a company?! Such a thing is strictly prohibited by any company out there.
And granting them access so they can help with balancing? What, they now balance the game a few days before launch? Hahaha. No, they had testers throughout the entire time for that and further balancing is going to be done as the game goes. And for example ACCM was playing the game yesterday, being one of the players with early access, he doesn’t even speak English. I can assure you he’s going to provide 0 feedback whatsoever.
Yes, granting them access to hype the game on launch, the cheapest and most unfair practise for a game at launch, aka the shill practice. It should be criticised heavily by everyone. You want your game to succeed? Just make sure it’s a good one and don’t relly on articifial tricks to inflate it at launch. That’s where my standards are.
Me and others have also paid for the game, why do others with their friends and families get to play it earlier?
Like I said, it’s about principles. Try to see the bigger image.
Are you arguing against the closed beta, Technical Stress Test, and other pre-release forms of access to the game here? Or is it only one specific instance of playing the game that’s suddenly unfair?
Seems to me that you are, as usual, finding any excuse to be critical of the game and the people who make it. Which is fine in of itself, everyone has an opinion. It’s just funny that you try to paint yourself as someone who’s supportive of the game and people who make it, when it doesn’t hold up to literally any of your posts. Also:
Yikes.
Assuming that people aren’t going to give feedback because they (allegedly) don’t speak English (written English is a different skill, but okay) is full of not good connotations. You should probably avoid these kinds of assumptions.
I’d say there’s only an ethical concern w.r.t. conflict of interest if:
playtesters are allowed to compete in the tournament and
the tournament were organised by Microsoft
In this case Microsoft just answered EGCTV’s question if they wanted to sponsor a bit, while they are not the tourney organisers nor do they influence the tournament rules on player qualifications. And still, it’s an exhibition tourney. The 20.000$ prize pool is only there to kickstart a competitive scene, raise interest. If things go well this allows for higher prize tourneys in the future, thereby decreasing significance of winnings of this one.
If this was a MS organised “official” tourney I agree they should not allow testers or council members to participate for at least a month after launch.
Don’t agree on this one either. While as mentioned in my first comment, I feel that a 2 week secretive early access is not necessary for a 3 day promo streams stunt, it is not necessarily a bad thing. An alternative would be the Valorant-style drop system where players get access by watching streams, however this is not feasible in a monetised game situation. Some sort of hype ramp-up is necessary leading up to the game release.
This is the only point I agree on minus understanding the 3 day promo period.
Yes, I’m arguing that some people receiving favourable treatment in playing the game earlier now, when the rest do not have this chance, is unfair. Is it not unfair to you?
I have stopped being supportive of this game now that I have not only seen how it turned out, but devs not listening to feedback and not interacting here at all. So I do NOT “paint” myself as someone who is supportive anymore.
You should probably stop the patronising attitude towards me.
My understanding is that MS also provided part of the prize money. So how can an internal tester, employed and paid by MS or Relic, join such a tournament?
Where does this notion come from? Have you been living under a rock? You understand the positive implications of filling such an event with people who have some reach (an audience, or a name in the RTS scene) since that helps your product the most. It’s pure marketing and fun for whatever audiences come with the participants.
The price money and differences in playtime are irritating, but how is that your problem as part of the audience? Did you plan on participating and paying off the car/house/gambling-debt by winning an AOE4 tournament? ^^
I think you have been living under a rock if you haven’t heard of such notion and what big game companies are doing at launch these days. I’m not going to sit here and explain this wide topic, I’m just going to tell you that the shills practice is arguably the 2nd reason after MTX on why the gaming industry is in the state it is today.
And no, I did not plan on participating in this tourney, I have a full time job and family, my problem is principles and not accepting my favourite franchise and game genre being plagued by greedy and unfair practices as well.
This doesn’t even qualify as shilling out. They just play the game for your entertainment…
You could smell that such an event was coming from miles away. Probably should have happened before release for maximum hype.
Why would you think pre-ordering and participating in whatever this forum is, gives you a privilege to join such events? You don’t even get early access as some other games did in the past.
You get what was written on the tin from day one. So I don’t understand what suddenly fuels your energy for this drama.
If the game lives on, there surely will be more inclusive tournaments with more balanced skill levels.
You’re not hearing me. I am not saying it doesn’t boost their chances of winning, it does, it might also boost their chances of getting laid. The point is that the developers are not granting them access so they can win the tournament. Even if there was no tournament, they would still be granted access to help the devs with whatever it is they need help with, so you can’t accuse them of corruption.
You can’t compare this to Starcraft, this isn’t GSL being hosted by Blizzard. It’s a silly little tournament hosted by a Twitch channel with 2.5K viewers (not throwing shade at them, thanks guys for organizing something fun for us to watch) and maybe Microsoft threw them a bone by sponsoring it a bit. Who cares?
If they wanted to give their internal testers some money they could just give it to them, they don’t need to do it by sponsoring a tournament their internal testers might have a slightly better chance of winning. Either way, they are not guilty of corruption since they are not gaining anything from it, read your own definition - “misuse of power for private gain”. What is the developers private gain?
Yes, balance is still going on now and will still go on after the game is released. I am sorry to break it to you but these people also get access to early AoE2 balance patches to help with balance and that game came out 20 years ago. Similarly the people who have early access now will have early access to builds you wont have access to after release.
Do you get as emotionally invested with your principles when you see a pretty woman on a billboard advertising whatever it is she is advertising, instead of you? Influencers and their friends and families will be playing the game instead of you because they sell the game and you don’t. Maybe ford just needs to make a good Mustang and then they wouldn’t need the NFL to “shill” for them during the Superbowl. Grow up, this is just how advertising is these days and as far as advertising goes this is probably the best kind for the consumers.
Allowing influential players to post videos and hype the game leading up to launch puts AoE4 in a better position to have a successful launch.
Similarly, having a large tournament immediately following launch also puts AoE4 in a better position to have a successful launch.
Perhaps those two are irreconcilable, and reasonable minds can disagree. But it’s also reasonable for MS to do its absolute damnedest to have a successful launch. I’m surprised to see people who claim to want the best for AoE4 to bristle at any of this.
I don’t think anyone seriously thinks that whoever wins the first tournament would ever be the greatest AoE4 player of all time. Soon enough there will be many more tournaments, and the best players of all time will reveal themselves. Spoiler: if AoE4 actually does have a successful launch, the future greatest player of all time hasn’t played AoE4 yet.
Yeah, and I believe that first place will win about $7000? So nobody is coming into the tournament rich and nobody is leaving it rich, either. (Though $7k would change your month and probably your year but certainly won’t change your life.)
It’s a content creator’s job (and most of the time income), I don’t think it’s unfair to allow them access. It can boost the game’s image and market it well if people see all this cool gameplay going around on their twitch or YouTube app. Marketing is extremely important to a successful game, and it can be easily done by paying content creators to play it.
you astonish me that the world is getting worse and worse with people who have a paper ethic each time it’s the same, it defends indefensible stuff, with that it did not go very far
I get that it’s not fair and could be wildly unfair to many people. I guess the fairness of the tournament just doesn’t move the needle all that much for me. It’s a video game tournament, not a declaration of civil rights. Life often stumbles around and is rarely clean. I weigh the benefits of granting early access and hosting an immediate tournament more than the benefits of trying to make sure every single contestant is given a more equal set of circumstances.
I don’t intend to disparage anyone else’s sincere and good faith assertions to the contrary. It’d be certainly different for me if I were competing in this thing.
1-week post release is exactly when it should be allowed. Half the people will lose due to bugs and the other half will lose to balance issues. This is a completely meaningless and lighthearted launch tournament and you need to pay nothing to view or participate in it.
If an early access user ends up actually winning it, which I doubt, just call them out on it on twitter if you care about it so much and move on.
I’m not patronising you. If you want to keep on making negative assumptions about players based solely on their presumed ability to speak English, go for it. I just don’t think it’s a great idea.
I’m starting to think of the council group as the antagonists of this sad story… let’s mention that they are the ones responsible for the bad decisions made by relic regarding most of our complaints. Now to top it off they have a huge advantage over the others for this tournament. If they are going to be like that then let’s not buy the game, let the council be the only buyers as they are the only ones that matter…