Want to play Marathon early? Bungie will literally pay gamers to give them feedback. And the rate isn’t bad – $500 for an hour a day for 30 days; a bit below $17 an hour.
Select players have already been invited to this early version of Marathon, and presented with this almost-suspiciously-good offer. It’s not uncommon for gamer-playtesters to fill a strictly volunteer role, but Bungie’s doing a solid payout anyway.
Is Marathon really so bad that Bungie needs to pay people to get more than a few hours of playtime out of them? That’s something we’d need the benefits of post-release hindsight to really learn, but I will concede that the idea is very funny.
It could also be that they’re really desperate to see positive player feedback to any changes they’ve made. Considering the poor reception of previous playtests, and the disastrous plagiarism controversy, that might not be too far off the mark.
What Are The Specifics Of Bungie’s $500 Marathon Playtest Reward?
Information about the program comes to us through Bungie’s internal network of playtesters (thanks, TheGamePost), who received an email inviting them to Bungie’s biggest Marathon playtest yet. Those who hit the hourly goal each day, and submit the required feedback surveys, will get the payout.
As for those who can’t hit all the marks, they’ll still get a “portion of the reward based on the number of days that you have completed.”
The $500 won’t come in the form of raw cash – rather, it’ll be a gift card to a store of your choosing. This is likely because sending gift card codes is just way easier to do over the internet than a cash transfer.
“This user research study is a playtest that will run for 30 consecutive days from Monday 9/8 to Tuesday 10/7, including weekends,” the email reportedly reads. “You will be required to play for a minimum of 1 hour daily during the playtest window of 3–7pm PST on weekdays and 2–8pm PST on weekends. The study is 100% remote, so you can participate from wherever you are located. There will be a short daily survey and a weekly survey to gather your feedback.”
There is, as expected, an NDA that invited players will have to sign up front. So despite its size, don’t expect this playtest to leak much new content into the wider internet.
It’s also not known how the results of this playtest will contribute to narrowing – or widening – the gap between the game’s final release, and its many current controversies.
We already know there’s been some shakeups behind the scenes at Bungie following Marathon’s repeated incidents. And positive playtest feedback here wouldn’t be an isolated incident. Morale is still pretty low for the continued success of Marathon, but Bungie won’t drop out of this race halfway.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
