Beta Tester?

[crisscross]

I was just wondering about how you get to be a beta-tester for software firms like MS, etc. Do you have something like this for hardware companies too like say Intel or AMD? Can you tell me how the process works?

Thanx.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Most firms take a pre-specified number for a beta and for many of them you can apply online. Just do a search on the sites for beta testing and see what you come up with. You can get a lot of freebies through those programs.

 

[crisscross]

thanx for ur help Scarpozzi

 

[amnesiac]

Of course, if you know the right places to go, you can make yourself an "unofficial" beta tester....

 

[chizow]

well, there's open beta and closed beta. open beta, as the name suggests, opens it up to interested average joe candidates. each company has different selection methods, but most are by sign-up. closed betas are usually conducted by people (internal or outsourced) paid to test the games. its not as glamorous as it sounds, as these people deal with massively buggy builds and have to perform often robotic tasks while testing a game. they also have a lot of paper work to fill out, unlike open betas where you can usually post to a forum or submit a few lines and send it to the devs. these guys are similar to hardware Q&A testers. not much fun IMO. they just put new hardware through the rigors of daily applications and test compatibility with other hardware. if you are looking to get into the gaming business, try to get in on the product development side rather than the Q&A side.

Chiz