You have to pre-order the game to get into the beta, its closed because they wanted a focus group of actual buyers, 500 people who buy the game are going to give better suggestions and find issues quicker, than 5000+ people who might not buy the game and just download it , play a bit, say this and that needs to be changed, and then never buy it, effecting everyone who did buy it.
Thats how I see it at least.
