The inclusion of a dedicated button for potential beta testers means that the whole clunky process of filling out forms on a website may soon be dead.
Closed betas can be a pain to access. Developers who focus on a smaller group of players over a wider open beta do so for a number of reasons, yet I have to imagine that it’s much easier to ignore all the nonsense criticism when you keep the group small and dedicated. It’s a good thing that those players are dedicated because the process for signing up for closed betas has usually been an absolute ball-ache of filling out forms and silly Google Docs; honestly, just the extra bit of admin was enough to usually turn me away. Praise be to the new “playtest” button that Steam has sneakily added to the store because removing all that middle-man garbage should make life easier for players and developers.
First discovered by Steam users on Total War: Elysium’s page, a new “Request Access” button has been added that seemingly allows players to gain entry into the closed better which began running May of this year. No other games have been seen to have this feature, and we’re not even entirely sure how the process works. All we know at this point is that users who select the option will be notified when the developers are able to take in more testers, presumably placing early adopters first in the queue.
It’s actually a really smart idea from Steam, especially given how popular beta and alpha tests are these days. I mean, whether that’s more for the publicity than actual testing is beyond me but the process can at least be a whole lot easier with an opt-in button directly integrated into Steam.
Last Updated: July 28, 2020
