Do You Feel Like You’re Buying Beta Software?

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

What exactly do I mean by that? I don’t mean the common practice, especially with MMORPG games, of pre-ordering the game and then being allowed into the beta test program. No, what I mean is buying a product that has been released, only to find that you are suddenly swamped by a series of patches to the product, in a very short time after release.

I’ve found this to be much more common nowadays than previously. It’s particularly an issue with games, where I’ve noticed quite a few companies announce “game X” is shipping to stores and will arrive on “date Y”, only to read a day or so later (before “date Y”) that there is already a patch available.

For non-gaming examples, I have purchased two software utilities since October (both were upgrades, not going to mention the exact programs). One of them released 7 patches in the first month and just released patch 8.

The other one uses a lettering system. Version x.0c was the one I received when upgrading … and it didn’t work … Windows Explorer would hang every time I opened it. Uninstalling the program fixed the problem (so it was obvious who the culprit was). Version x.0d was released the next day. Nope. Version x.0e the day after … finally it worked. Since then there have been numerous releases, and version x.0p was released a couple of days ago. It’s also pretty irritating to note that neither company, despite my registering the software, has informed me of the patches. It’s only because I use BetaNews’ monitoring service that checks for updates that I even knew of these fixes. It’s also interesting that I immediately sent an email to tech support after x.0c hung Windows Explorer; they got back to me three days later, after x.0e had been available for a day to tell me to update. How about sending me an email telling me it was a common bug and they were looking into it? That would have been nice.

What about you readers? Have you noticed the same thing? Or perhaps it’s only because I monitor for patches that I’ve noticed this trend? As I said, I feel like when I buy programs nowadays, I’m often paying for the beta, and get the “real” release many patches later.