Yesterday, EA and DICE announced the open beta dates for their upcoming first-person shooter, Battlefield 3. The problem is the game comes out a month after this “beta”. I thought having a game in beta meant it was still being worked on, but according to this announcement, this will be more of multiplayer demo; a marketing gimmick. What’s the difference between a beta and a demo?
Back in the summer of 2008, I was contacted by Volition, Inc. to participate in a beta for their upcoming title Red Faction: Guerrilla. After a month of rigorous testing through Xbox Live, the beta ended and not much was heard on the game until spring of the next year when the title received an official release date. DICE has done something completely different from this traditional beta-testing process.
With only a month before the game is released, these beta tests are more of a stress test to the EA servers than actual tests for game mechanics or animation, in which the title of the process is supposed to reiterate. The question again comes up: what’s the difference?
A demo is a representation of what is to be the final product released to gamers, without any patches. A beta is the second process of testing a game’s completed design through, and in the case of public betas, exposing multiplayer in the hopes of fixing bugs or glitches throughout the core mechanics, or addressing graphical issues. A demo is supposed to reveal what the game will be like once done, whereas a beta is only a hint of what the title could be in the future.
Why do so many developers use the term “beta” in the wrong context then? To hide from the true facts of game problems, a company’s PR firm may suggest a title which deceives gamers from believing this is the final product, to convince them to purchase the game even if there are major flaws within. These are also often nothing more than an additional arm of a marketing campaign.
What do you think the difference of beta and demo is? Should game publishers or developers stop using the term beta, when demo should be used in its place? Give your thoughts in the comments below.
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Well, in my humble opinion, in regards only to BF3′s version of beta. The beta will last only 10 days, so I’ve heard, which means, the game will not have gone gold by then. They are using all of the data from the beta to balance and fix any issues before “going gold”. So, beta is when a company uses that multiplayer data to improve the game before launch, which DICE is doing. Demo is simply as you put it, a teaser of the final product in hope you will buy it. I personally do not classify something as a beta if the beta continues until launch, but rather a beta is something that is cancelled before launch, generally 2-3 weeks before. BF3 is putting out a beta in my eyes, where as most games nowadays put out Multiplayer Demos and call them beta.
I think when a company puts out a public beta of X game there should put the word beta in big bold letters on the tide screen. When the player press start there would see the definition on what a beta means.
Saying BF3′s beta will help improve the game is kinda of hilarious; it may, but not until after launch and DICE releases patches.
Battlefield 3 is shipping in a month; it’s done right now. It will be sent to certification in the next week or so, if it’s not been already. Only very minor fine tuning is able to be ongoing — not potential major changes or fixes that can result from the beta, which would happen if this had taken place back in spring when it was supposed to.
This is a well played PR tool which will let DICE get away with any day one/week one hiccups which would otherwise affect review scores and word of mouth.
@RealTalk
The code base is like a month old. What DICE submitted to Sony has quite a few issues already resolved.
This isn’t a PR move — it’s a freaking BF3 Server Stress Test.
Just because they release it under BETA, doesn’t mean that it’s the start of the BETA status. More than likely, it’s been in BETA for quite some time, however and furthermore, BETA status is usually a lot shorter than ALPHA obviously. Really, anytime something is playable, it can become BETA status if needed/wanted by the dev/pub. BETA can also last as long as the dev/pub wants. There really aren’t too many rules to how, when and where BETAS, APLHAS and gold status lasts.
The way I see it is that Alphas are at the very beginning of the production. When companies call footage pre-alpha like the footage released for The Avengers game, that means they haven’t finished compositing the idea of the game. Beta is supposed to be the stage of game testing once the game has been created in a very rough draft. This ‘beta’ for BF3 is for testing for the multiplayer mode in the game, but the final version of the game has already been submitted to the console publishers so final issues can be figured out before the release date to make it a smooth release.
This outcry from the community over the Battlefield 3 beta is baffling to me. Many of the issues that plagued the earlier days seem to be diminished (it’s a result of the servers getting tuned as we play). The build of the game is a month old and DICE never hid that fact. This BETA was not a very big marketing campaign for this month, it was a marketing campaign to help sell MOH.
DICE had to submit this code for approval by Sony, sure it’s buggy, but I haven’t seen any widespread reports of people’s PS3 catching on fire. So the buggy mess will serve the purpose of stress testing the servers. DICE just submitted the BF3 release code to Sony, they don’t have the time to submit a patch for the beta too.
What is baffling is that people like you some how have expected DICE to give their final game away for free a month before release. This article and your sympathy for the beta haters whole-heartily demonstrates you do not understand the definition of the word beta. Or you are a freetard.
If you do not know the difference between a beta and a demo you should not really be writing for a game website claiming to have expertise.
A Beta is generally only available for a small period of time prior to a games release. Generally the beta is used to test aspects of the game to generate data that usually will find it’s way into a day 1 patch (or first week patch depending on how things go in certification).
A Demo usually represents a near finished product. It may lack some bells and whistles and generally demos are limited to single player experiences (not always though). Demos can usually be downloaded after the game has been released (but not always). Of course developers gather feedback about demos, but the majority of game breaking issues are usually ironed out.
You know if you are going to have the balls to print such troll baiting garbage such as…
http://www.wouldyoukindly.com/why-the-battlefield-3-beta-was-bad-for-ea-and-dice
Then don’t be such a fucking pussy that you disable the comments. If you don’t like what people have to say about your writing, stop writing.
First of all, Sony doesn’t slow down anyone. It was Microsoft that didn’t certify this build. It was Microsoft that didn’t certify the ‘Day One’ update for Dead Island. Knowing the difference between a beta and a demo shouldn’t be a reason for me to stop writing; if I was wrong, this would be a stepping stone for me and I would continue the wiser. I’ve game tested on multiple games before and I’ve worked with Activision QA leads in the past. All the problems with the demo have been fixed since this ‘beta’ has been months old. Question Darth: did you pre-order Battlefield 3 before you heard about the beta? If so, think about it before you reply.
First off turn the comments back on in that post. It’s BS you not giving people an opportunity to rebut your bullshit.
No I haven’t pre-ordered yet and I am not going to let a BETA experience dissuade me.
The process of certification can be slow if something doesn’t pass it needs addressing. This takes 2 weeks to a month. So they aren’t going to certify a BETA patch when they are already certifying the entire game. They can’t exactly take a scalpel to the release version and carve out a beta patch.
Your writing just smacks of bias and it’s not very well thought out. Moreover your instance to censor those who wish to comment on http://www.wouldyoukindly.com/why-the-battlefield-3-beta-was-bad-for-ea-and-dice/ shows you can’t handle any real criticism to your narrow minded ideas.
I suppose DICE should have just “guessitmated” the server tuning and not release a beta because it wasn’t in perfect running order.
Seriously man gather some expertise or get off the soapbox.
You clearly dont know all the purposes of running a beta. One of the MAIN purposes of releasing an open beta is to stress test servers. This doesnt have to be done with a well put together version of the game. Just one that allows people to play. DICE has said multiple times that one of the main, if not only, reason they released this beta is for server testing. For that I am very grateful because I would hate for a game to be released and servers go down for 3 days because they got overloaded.