Update: I got an invite. If you need an invite let me know in the comments.
Deadlock is Valve's new hotness(mess?) available for testing, but only if you can get an invite from a current playtester. For some players the invites happen almost instantaneously. For others, like me, the invite never arrives. The entire invite system is a bad idea and getting worse.
At face value the invite system for Deadlock appears to be a way to limit how many testers are playing the game. This makes sense and is not uncommon in testing phases of games. The difference here is that other play testers have control of the invites and that, along with other issues, is where problems are starting.
The first obvious issue that arises is "pay for invite" and the even more obvious "scammers will scam" that comes with it. While many of the communities across Discord and Reddit for invites are banning anyone trying to pay for invites; inevitably someone was bound to get scammed.
Next comes the behavior of "creating alt / second accounts" in the hope of getting a stuck invite to go through. While I didn't create an alt account I did get my son's account invited and his invite came through in about 45 minutes (I've been waiting 5+ days now with dozens of invite attempts).
With alt/second accounts comes the inevitable "selling account w/ Deadlock" access. This is not my cup of tea and I can wait (or just play on my son's account when he is not playing anything). However, there are some in the community that won't wait and will buy those second accounts which brings in it's own level of scams.
Fear of missing out (aka FOMO) is also a huge part of the equation that drives the above. Playing a game close to it's launch and during it's test period is a one-time affair. If you miss out; you miss out. Some players can't stand missing out so go above and beyond to get access. Thus the situation becomes ripe for scammers.
The question is whether other methods of test invites would avoid these problems? Not exactly. Steam does have "request test access" processes built in that many other games use. At minimum this eliminates the "get scammed asking for an invite" from other players and does reduce how easy it is to get a second account set up to then try and sell. It does not reduce FOMO.
Personally I think Valve would have been better suited going the same way they have other games enter testing on their own platform. At least then players could confirm their invite status by simply going to the store page for the game. End of day I just want to try the game and not miss out on the chance to learn the game while everyone else is learning it.
/signed "a frustrated Valve fanboy"
