Gallifrey wrote:$10 is a deal, considering so many games come out now in beta form for full price

Ah yes, another Gothic 3 player, I recognise the complaint. Lol.
Actually beta testing is damn hard work (and 6 hours a day is just barely enough - 6 hours playing maybe, but then you have bug reports, screen shots, documentation etc. to do). Remember you're on the critical path, unless the developers are backlogged with bugs already (if there are no bugs, then the release date is 'as soon as the beta testers finish the game and say no bugs'.)
It's fun, but it's not quite like playing the game. The third time you have to start from scratch because the data structure has changed... Actually it's only fun if the developers have half a clue, and listen to the feedback - if I had been a beta tester on G3 I'd have cut my throat and certainly wouldn't have wanted my name on the 'release'.
A wrinkle (probably too late to suggest) but developers OUGHT put some number of known (non fatal) bugs INTO the program, just to see how well the beta testers are doing. (If the developers put 10 bugs in and the beta testers spot 3 of them, you can bet a lot of real bugs have been missed too). (This is called 'be-bugging', as opposed to 'de-bugging').