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What is a beta?
samus1001
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 22 Arc User
A beta test is a limited release of a nearly completed product with a goal of finding bugs before the final release. Software testing is often referred to by the terms "alpha" and "beta."
Generally speaking, the alpha test is an internal test to find bugs, and the beta test is an external test. During the alpha phase, the product is opened up to employees of the company and, as in the case of electronic games, a select group of "gamers". During the beta phase, the product is opened up to a limited number of customers.
Sometimes, beta tests are referred to as "open" or "closed". A closed beta test has a limited number of spots open for testing, while an open beta has either an unlimited number of spots (i.e. anyone who wants to can participate) or a very large number of spots in cases where opening it up to everyone is impractical.
Unfortunately, there is no commonly agreed upon definition of beta. Every company, and every gamer, has its own version of what beta means. In the past, beta did mean you couldn't yet pay for the game. Before fast download speeds became common many companies had to give their beta testers an incentive to test (which often required, at the time, a time consuming download or a long wait for the beta program to be shipped to them). The most common incentive was a free copy of the game upon full release. Such companies had to limit the number of testers for obvious reasons. (for those of you that can't see the obvious or are too young to have lived through it, these games were sold only on full release and no other payments were made when the company updated the game)
The change to being able to pay for things in a beta came about when game companies began charging for "DLC" and/or expansion packs. This naturally led companies to charge for "updates" that, before, would have been included in the original program, such as weapons, armor, missions, etc... Many games today even have DLC, that you must pay for, available the day of release. These are things held back specifically for the purpose of making more money off of players by charging them for the items that are "better" than that available to those that have not paid for said content. Such games are known as "pay to win" or P2W.
In this era of F2P games there is no truly "released" version of a game until that game has died and the players have moved on to other games. By definition, any game that is continuing development is still in Beta. When a company decides to call a game "released" doesn't matter. How long that game survives depends on two things that go hand in hand. They are, how often new content is released (free or not) and, how quickly the players get bored and look for something new. For a F2P game to survive and continue to thrive new content must constantly be released. The problem comes when a company stops developing free content. While new content costs the company money, When the only new content being released must be paid for, players (especially those at the end game) begin to leave. Server populations begin to drop. Server merges become common in order to keep the remaining players happy and for group events to even be possible. Eventually the population drops to the point that the game barely has the population to bother running the servers. While there are many games out there that continue to run with severely diminished populations, most simply shut down. These are the released games. They are no longer being developed and are dead or dying.
Generally speaking, the alpha test is an internal test to find bugs, and the beta test is an external test. During the alpha phase, the product is opened up to employees of the company and, as in the case of electronic games, a select group of "gamers". During the beta phase, the product is opened up to a limited number of customers.
Sometimes, beta tests are referred to as "open" or "closed". A closed beta test has a limited number of spots open for testing, while an open beta has either an unlimited number of spots (i.e. anyone who wants to can participate) or a very large number of spots in cases where opening it up to everyone is impractical.
Unfortunately, there is no commonly agreed upon definition of beta. Every company, and every gamer, has its own version of what beta means. In the past, beta did mean you couldn't yet pay for the game. Before fast download speeds became common many companies had to give their beta testers an incentive to test (which often required, at the time, a time consuming download or a long wait for the beta program to be shipped to them). The most common incentive was a free copy of the game upon full release. Such companies had to limit the number of testers for obvious reasons. (for those of you that can't see the obvious or are too young to have lived through it, these games were sold only on full release and no other payments were made when the company updated the game)
The change to being able to pay for things in a beta came about when game companies began charging for "DLC" and/or expansion packs. This naturally led companies to charge for "updates" that, before, would have been included in the original program, such as weapons, armor, missions, etc... Many games today even have DLC, that you must pay for, available the day of release. These are things held back specifically for the purpose of making more money off of players by charging them for the items that are "better" than that available to those that have not paid for said content. Such games are known as "pay to win" or P2W.
In this era of F2P games there is no truly "released" version of a game until that game has died and the players have moved on to other games. By definition, any game that is continuing development is still in Beta. When a company decides to call a game "released" doesn't matter. How long that game survives depends on two things that go hand in hand. They are, how often new content is released (free or not) and, how quickly the players get bored and look for something new. For a F2P game to survive and continue to thrive new content must constantly be released. The problem comes when a company stops developing free content. While new content costs the company money, When the only new content being released must be paid for, players (especially those at the end game) begin to leave. Server populations begin to drop. Server merges become common in order to keep the remaining players happy and for group events to even be possible. Eventually the population drops to the point that the game barely has the population to bother running the servers. While there are many games out there that continue to run with severely diminished populations, most simply shut down. These are the released games. They are no longer being developed and are dead or dying.
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