Nowadays, not all players correctly understand what a beta version is and why developers generally prefer to conduct it before releasing their game. However, in fact, the test version is one of the most important elements of launching any game, without which it is simply impossible to make a really high-quality project, devoid of all kinds of bugs and shortcomings.
Why Beta Tests?
Initially, when creating a game, any developer carries out the so-called alpha testing. During it, the team itself or specially hired people consider various aspects of the game and completely independently try to determine what serious bugs are present in it and whether it can somehow be improved in the future.
What is a beta version?
The beta version is a test version of the game, which allows developers to determine what shortcomings are present in their game, as well as whether they have the opportunity to fix them. In the process of conducting such tests, the development team involves players in testing and identifying any bugs / flaws. Thus, players are given the opportunity to play the game before its final release, while developers do not need to hire a large staff with a sufficiently large salary that will deal with all these things.
Considering what a beta version is, it is worth noting that today there are two stages.
Closed Beta
The closed beta test is the starting version of the game, which is polished by the developers themselves, but it may still contain any bugs, since it is almost impossible to find everything with a small team of employees. In this case, in the overwhelming majority of cases, only experienced players are invited, often with experience in testing other projects, however, in this case, the requirements may vary depending on the quality of the game and the community’s interest in it. If you want to know what a closed beta version is in a certain game, you will initially need to fill out a specialized questionnaire that the developers leave, and then wait until the responsible people decide about your participation. Recently, the provision of paid access to closed testing is gaining wide popularity.
Open beta test
Many people don’t know what the beta version of the open type means, since in most cases it has no differences from the release version. Here, in the same way, all players are given access to the game, and at the same time they can freely register without any restrictions. An open beta test is mostly just a name under which developers can for some time justify all kinds of bugs or game errors that they could not find in the process of conducting alpha tests and closed beta testing. It is worth noting that some developers consciously take their games to the long stage of open beta for several years with this purpose in mind.
If an open beta test really opens only for a final check and final polishing of the game, then in the overwhelming majority of cases this is done only to verify the reliability of the servers used. Many games that became popular even before the release, collect very large online at the opening of beta testing, and the enormous load on the servers can ultimately lead to the fact that many players will not be able to log in, but for others the game will become more complicated. In particular, the beta version of Minecraft has this drawback .