100% against the idea, both on general principle and on implementation specifics:
1) How do you verify that three people have actually tested the game? It's easy enough for me to imagine somebody getting three friends to say 'yeah, I played it - worked for me.'
2) Playtesting a game is _hard work_. I'm not about to commit to playtest any games in the completed games section, because frankly, I'm putting all that time into testing and writing my own. I doubt I'm the only person here with that mindset. I don't mind giving a quick look-see or providing feedback on design ideas or things like that, but playing a game start to finish? That's a tall order.
3) Ten people can play a game and it works fine, and to the eleventh it's unplayable or unfinished or whatever because that player didn't 'think' the way the game designer and first ten players did. Think I'm joking? One of the first places I got feedback for my project was from a forum for a game of another genre entirely. A couple posters ran through my game and to them it was completely FUBAR'd because they approached the game from an entirely different POV than I had anticipated. It was great and much needed feedback, btw
What we have now works. If you play a game and to you it seems unfinished, post your concerns. If it seems really bad, message a mod. A stream of negative posts should be enough to turn most people off from even trying the game, which puts pressure on the game's author to not let it get to that point.
I think with 1) I may be a bit spoiled since I have a large group of people who are willing to test for me outside of this site. So I can approach a co-worker and ask them to play the game and tell me what they think all same day. It really isn't difficult to do with asking forum members either if I warn them in advance and let them know how much time is involved.
Getting 3 people for me, even before I had a full game was not that hard to do. I didn't think in a community of people using the software and making a game it would be that hard to get people to actually play it before reaching the completed game section.
With 2) I haven't thought much on that since I am constantly there myself trying games and giving people feedback, or having pms sent to me to try people's games off the cuff. For most of the games before development is complete it never seemed like that much work to me, and most people who come to have a game play tested usually provide a document of a speed walk through to me. So any extra bugs, erroneous events I find on my own are a plus to them aside from completing the actual intended path.
I understand what you mean though, but if I didn't stop to look into other people's methods I'd seriously lose some ground myself in trying to make my own. That is my perspective at least. I value my time and the time of others, but I never see it as wasted investing that into game testing.
I do admit it can be tiresome at times, but I see non commercial work as a fun activity.
With 3, that is exactly why I choose a low arbitrary number. I'm not expecting perfection, just functioning as intended. I believe I started out saying that bugs do happen and that wasn't the reason for this post. I've caught bugs in finished games that have been out almost two years no others who vigorously play tested it and played it numerous times have not. I do understand that happens. It isn't the reasoning of what I am suggesting.
Yes it is great feedback, and that's what I am trying to touch on. By that time in your game's development you had people play not as you intended. It didn't take large group of testers to see that.
Yes what we have works now, but it can be improved. I'm not saying to grind what we have to halt so long as we consider a community driven effort for the "complete" section as a small restriction. If you are in early concept and project development you have people, at least three, willing to look at your game and try it to give you the sort of feedback you mentioned in your third point.
Unfortunately that last bit is what I am trying to avoid because it discourages people. For a person who wants to make a complete game, that can kill motivation. They do not understand the process to make a game as well as you do. That is why I am against people starting in the completed game section who haven't gone through early concept, and project development first.
@Tsukhime I don't see that as a good idea personally. Using that kind of money takes away from sales. You'd be investing money in people randomly who will take to giving quick feedback to help themselves rather than actually providing what's needed. People would abuse something like that.
@Amerk I had not considered user error, but you are absolutely right as it has happened to me with someone on my alpha before. Something like that though is easily resolved, and cannot be faulted to the game itself. Again I may have a different perspective since I had multiple rigs on which I can test a game and often take to the laptop\keyboard if I don't have a proper feeling from the desktop/controller set up.
