Where do you draw a line in the sand between alpha, beta, Early Access? Are they just labels?asked by Tom Phillips
TL;DRChris Roberts says alpha, beta and Early Access are just labels, since online games keep adding content after release, and backers get a early, cheaper, unfinished version where they can influence development.
I feel like they're just labels - people still think of the old way [of making games], like my past games. We'd talk about a game for years, we'd show it, but no one would have their hands on it 'til it was out. There was an obsession with 'when will it get released'. Even with those [traditional boxed] games now, they get patched, they add things, make things better over time. The way I look at it is, if you've supported Star Citizen you can download and play 2.63 which is a mini, early-stage version of this universe and play around. There's a game experience there - it's not got nearly as much as we'll have in the final game but you can go and see how ships feel, find out what you think, and get your voice heard in our community as we make it better. It's like saying 'hey, we're going to have this really fancy hotel, but if you want to stay in this wing which is finished but maybe all the bits aren't quite working - there's no hot water yet - you can'.
You're getting in there at a much cheaper rate than when it's finished and you can maybe help us define how we operate. I think even if we said, this is now past beta, the paradigm for online stuff just doesn't work that way now. You see it all the time. League of Legends continues to add new heroes, even more traditional stuff like World of Warcraft has revisions every year. Even if we said, 'we're released', we're never going to stop adding content. That's how online games die. If you look at EVE Online now, it looks nothing like the game which launched. GTA Online, too, it originally launched on PS3 and Xbox 360 which aren't even supported now, they're constantly adding new stuff to it. Maybe people need to shift their point of view - the way I look at it on Star Citizen, if you get involved it's not going to be completely polished or finished but you'll get your voice heard. It's not for everyone, of course - you can always take a back seat for a year or two and reassess it.