Rhetorical question.
I am seeing a lot of people asking questions about the beta that suggests they don't understand the term. I am also seeing a lot of people answer those questions incorrectly and only furthering misunderstanding. For this reason I will explain the matter to the public.
During software development, particularly complicated software like games, drivers or operating systems where quite a lot can go wrong, extensive testing is required before the game is published. This is to make sure the finished product works well enough to meet the expectations of the paying customer. The earliest phases of development are entirely arcane to the end user. Design documents, concept art, placeholders, brainstorming and lots of variable defining has to take place before we even have anything we can look at.
Then comes roughly hashing out levels and models, putting something into the computers that can actually be fired up and interacted with. And the development team throws what they have together into something called an alpha build, collectively crosses their fingers, and tries to make it work. It usually doesn't, or if it does, it is a shambling abomination of runtime errors and unhandled exceptions. After a few builds the alpha becomes playable, to a degree, and the development team starts seeing how levels, weapons and gameplay dynamics all flow together. This is the playable alpha, when you're actually playing and not just making sure R causes your character to reload instead of crash to desktop.
Once everything is more-or-less working with the playable alpha, the development team puts out a beta. They then distribute the beta to beta testers. These testers are not so much playing the game as testing it to see if all the hardware and software oddities a hundred or so PC gamers will have crashes and bugs out the system. This phase increases the game's tolerance to odd configurations and also gets more eyes and brains trying to find problems and solve them. They also suggest things that need changing or discover all the glitches and exploits they can. The developers might decide they need more publicity or more input from players and release progressively broader betas. Unfortunately for every successive phase of beta with a broader and broader audience, more and more people who don't know what a beta is get a hold of the game then blab off on the internet about how buggy it is. These people are why the rest of us can't have nice things.
When the beta is working smoothly and everything is ready, or when the publisher starts screaming through the phone about fiscal quarters, the game goes gold. This is the magical moment when the first release version is printed to a master disk, from which the game is mass produced for distribution.
A demo can be released at any time, for free, presenting however much or little of the game the developers want to show off to the public. Demos are not betas. They are expected to be bug free, polished and entertaining. Betas are not demos. They are expected to contain bugs, be roughed in in places, and be played with a notepad of bugs you spotted at hand. Demos rarely contain the whole game, because then people would have no reason to buy it. Betas nearly always contain the whole game. There is very little sense in not testing anything but four levels out of ten in a beta!
I hope this post was informative to those who needed informing. Everyone else, inflate minor ommissions or mistakes into serious errors worthy of your esteemed critique below.
I am seeing a lot of people asking questions about the beta that suggests they don't understand the term. I am also seeing a lot of people answer those questions incorrectly and only furthering misunderstanding. For this reason I will explain the matter to the public.
During software development, particularly complicated software like games, drivers or operating systems where quite a lot can go wrong, extensive testing is required before the game is published. This is to make sure the finished product works well enough to meet the expectations of the paying customer. The earliest phases of development are entirely arcane to the end user. Design documents, concept art, placeholders, brainstorming and lots of variable defining has to take place before we even have anything we can look at.
Then comes roughly hashing out levels and models, putting something into the computers that can actually be fired up and interacted with. And the development team throws what they have together into something called an alpha build, collectively crosses their fingers, and tries to make it work. It usually doesn't, or if it does, it is a shambling abomination of runtime errors and unhandled exceptions. After a few builds the alpha becomes playable, to a degree, and the development team starts seeing how levels, weapons and gameplay dynamics all flow together. This is the playable alpha, when you're actually playing and not just making sure R causes your character to reload instead of crash to desktop.
Once everything is more-or-less working with the playable alpha, the development team puts out a beta. They then distribute the beta to beta testers. These testers are not so much playing the game as testing it to see if all the hardware and software oddities a hundred or so PC gamers will have crashes and bugs out the system. This phase increases the game's tolerance to odd configurations and also gets more eyes and brains trying to find problems and solve them. They also suggest things that need changing or discover all the glitches and exploits they can. The developers might decide they need more publicity or more input from players and release progressively broader betas. Unfortunately for every successive phase of beta with a broader and broader audience, more and more people who don't know what a beta is get a hold of the game then blab off on the internet about how buggy it is. These people are why the rest of us can't have nice things.
When the beta is working smoothly and everything is ready, or when the publisher starts screaming through the phone about fiscal quarters, the game goes gold. This is the magical moment when the first release version is printed to a master disk, from which the game is mass produced for distribution.
A demo can be released at any time, for free, presenting however much or little of the game the developers want to show off to the public. Demos are not betas. They are expected to be bug free, polished and entertaining. Betas are not demos. They are expected to contain bugs, be roughed in in places, and be played with a notepad of bugs you spotted at hand. Demos rarely contain the whole game, because then people would have no reason to buy it. Betas nearly always contain the whole game. There is very little sense in not testing anything but four levels out of ten in a beta!
I hope this post was informative to those who needed informing. Everyone else, inflate minor ommissions or mistakes into serious errors worthy of your esteemed critique below.
