So while we were all chomping at the bit waiting for the Skyrim CK post-release, it turns out that for all those months the rest of us were waiting bored, a selection of modders had already been given early access to the CK.

This same scenario played out with paid modding, as well, with a hand-selected group of modders given secret early access.

How is this selection made, and who will be given this privilege this time? In light of paid modding attempts, wouldn't this practice amount to hand-selecting people for early success and promotion?

Early sucess in what, giving out free mods?

Its usually given the the biggest modders on the scene currently.

No, because they cant actually release anything with it.

They gave beta access to the CK only to people they knew well. Some of them were modders, some of them were not modders. The selection was made on a "Bethesda knows my name" basis. Which was a pretty lousy way to go about it, in my opinion.

Just a small thing, its the Creation Kit, not the Construction Kit.

As for a beta, of course they need to have people test it before they release it to the public, and what better way is there then to make a closed beta for it by some people who are already into modding.

Im glad its not releasing right away, allows me to actually play their game before I start modding

I think the concern here is that if certain modders get access to the CK months or two in advance they get an edge up over everyone else. Since paid modding is not a thing (yet), this isn't quite as big a deal as it could be. However, this did happen for Skyrim, and I think the selection choice was questioned a bit. Selecting well known modders is all well and good in that they're well known, but they're also a very tiny portion of the modding population (like the top 0.001% or less) and that perhaps some other selection method, or even some form of sign up closed beta would be preferable.

But its not meant to be fair. I make demos for embedded UI, and really I am the first to get the software. Besides it allowing me to make stuff, the reason I pull down the nightly builds is to try to break it with pushing the limits of the software. I can do this because I know how to use the software back to front.

Thats the same way this is looking. These well known modders have pushed the envelope of modding, most likely using the software in ways it wasnt intended to be used, and bringing up bugs and use cases not seen. If it were given to random people, most likely by terms of statistics, a lot would be just texture rehauls. Bethesda knows this works, its worked forever. What they want though, is for good modders, well known modders, and people who are active at reporting bugs to pull apart their product before it even hits shelves for everyone.

The whole beta thing has changed so much. A lot of people complain they dont get a beta but they dont want it to help out the product, they just want a demo, or it first. The reason for a beta is for bug fixing and stress tests

*edit: Changed fallout to bethesda

Hey, if they want to get people to iron out the kinks, they should go for it. It only makes things better for the rest of us when it is released. As for "how were they selected" I really don't care. I haven't lost anything because a few people got to use the CK before me.