If I purchase the beta copy for 30 dollars does that get me a copy of the Retail release when it is released?

If it does fantastic but if not then you are asking me to pay 30 bucks to help you out…

Hi:

(Ahem)

As always, seems George wants your credits first.

L

Nothing I've seen says that you'll get the retail release later. It looks like $30 ($41 once you add minimum shipping) for the beta release, on the premise that it is, by definition, a limited edition release that will vanish when the finished version is released to retail.

Personally, that got my interest, but, then again, I'm also a guy who clings to his Advance Reader Copies like a Toydarian to a buck. Still, it *is* pretty steep for an "unfinished" item that you'd figure they are expecting you to eventually purchase as a finished-version retail consumer.

 The book looks like it's worth the thirty bucks, no issues there, but $11.75 as the cheapest shipping option?  That's crazy.

Picked mine up at Gen Con and it's 220 pages of full color content. While it's missing any full/partial page artwork inside it has everything needed to play a game. I'll be reading this up soon as Gen Con is completed so I can give it a go.

While it is a lot of money for a Beta it's a pretty complete game book. It is not like the beta another game company is doing where it's more like the Alpha stage of game design. I'd think more like Piazo did with Pathfinder before it hit release. A pretty damn complete book that can be made better by players finding all the little problems in the book before it is ready for publication.

I dunno, I think it's pretty poor form to charge that much (Full retail price for many many other games) for a beta that is admittedly incomplete and unfinished, no matter how well-made. Now, I'm not at all saying they should make pre-printed books available for free. But I think PDFs for a much lower price could be feasable. And if the game isn't complete or entirely finished Piracy isn't a huge issue, nor does it really cost a whole lot more to release a PDF that you already have made.

I will more than likely buy a copy of the game when it's finished, but there's no way that $60+(Beta plus final game) is worth the honor of doing the job that other games have playtesters do for free. I could also see new gamers being put off when the full game does come out if they bought the beta not fully understanding.

Tensen01 said:

I actually think that piracy could be a problem, especially with a full color book. Once the final product is released you'd just need to print out a few pages of errata and be done with it especially if you don't care about the fluff / art in the game.
It might have been smarter to handle this as a pdf release for $X and later give a discount of $X for the released product as they did with Only War just recently

 No way they could've done a PDF, at least it sounds like the contracts forbids it. Daddystabz on Youtube taped the announcement, and this point was brought up. So no PDF, just softback and shipping. And I don't recall any mention of a discount, just that the full release would be "early 2013."

jordiver2 said:

Aye, from what I've heard online and from people who went to Gencon, as well as previous experience with Star Wars RPGs, PDFs don't seem to be allowed by the contract - it's a LucasArts thing, apparently.

Speaking as someone that works at my FLGS, I'm glad they've gone the printing route. Not only that, but they've made it retailer friendly. That's something else that I like about this game so far.

Also, is it $30 for each "installment," i.e., 30 for Edge of the Empire, 30 for Age of Rebellion, and 30 for Force & Destiny? 

I would hope it's around $30 for each installment.

I'd imagine it's $30 for the beta, and about $45-50 for the full book with the fluff, etc, since that seems to be the going price of an RPG core book at present.

MILLANDSON said:

Manchu said:

It's possible it could be $60 then - I'm in the UK, so I normally get corebooks for about £30.

 Yeah, it's important to keep in mind that "Beta" here is not equal to "Playtest." Playtesting in this sense is what has been done before the actual "Beta" version was released. So it makes sense and is reasonable that they'd charge for the Beta Copy. It costs money to print, and it's gonna cost staffing hours to revise and re-purpose rules once the beta testing is finished. And since they can't legally produce any electronic copies, I'm glad they're at least giving people the opportunity to pick it up and play it.