The term ‘beta’ has grown to mean less and less in the modern games industry. To developers the label is still an all important benchmark which indicates when a build is feature complete but still laden with bugs requiring further testing and optimisation, however for gamers the word ‘beta’ has become interchangeable with the term ‘demo’, ‘taster’, or ‘preview’. That isn’t a problem if a game is in a good state when it’s opened up to the public prior to launch, but if there are problems public perception can turn from excitement to pessimism in a matter of hours.

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