abriael, on 10 October 2012 - 11:29 PM, said:
The term "beta" is what the industry decides it is, not what you decide it is.
You're correct on this - our difference of opinion comes on which "industry" we're talking about. Is it the engineers who originally developed the term? Or is it the marketing flacks who have appropriated it and twisted it into a way to excuse failure? You obviously think that letting marketing redefine the term is just fine - I don't. It means what it means, regardless of how the term has been perverted.
abriael, on 10 October 2012 - 11:29 PM, said:
Again, at the moment the industry is veering towards charging people optionally even before a project starts. Kickstarter is being very successful and is breathing new life in developer/publisher/customers relationships.
And it's also in the process of redefining its structure in order to curtail vapor products, unrealistic promises, and outright deception. I have my deep concerns about crowdfunding for software - it's a field almost inherently defined by overrun cost, underdelivered products, and requirements failures. There's still a difference between crowdfunding - which is essentially offering people the chance to give you money based on little more than hope - and directly selling an incomplete product.
abriael, on 10 October 2012 - 11:29 PM, said:
Also, I'm afraid "unplayable" doesn't mean what you think it means. The game is perfectly "playable". You can maneuver your mech, fire your weapons, kill people, accumulate progression in the form of experience and cbills. Every feature that makes the game "playable" is functional. There's no real issue that prevents it from being playable.
Really? So incredibly poor frame rates, massive lag spikes, entire games dropping, lockups every time someone exits the client... all those reports don't qualify as unplayable? <shrug> Keep telling people that.
abriael, on 10 October 2012 - 11:29 PM, said:
The features you name are still going to come between here and the official launch (that Bullock strongly hinted a couple months ago at being this coming spring). They have not been canceled. That's why it's a beta.
Why would they even both with an official launch? What's the point? If they can charge people as they wish while in beta, without ever having to actually commit to a complete or functional product, why ever officially launch? Really, at this point, what's the difference? Beyond a press release, how exactly would you know that Monday was beta, and Tuesday was launch?
You continue to think that what they call it matters. Without any actual engineering weight to the term - since the marketing guys have defined it all away - calling it "beta" is utterly meaningless. I can tell the difference in my work between an alpha test and a beta, and between beta and a released product. From one day to the next, you could know where the project was. Where MWO is concerned, if you can't tell me what will change from the last day of beta to the first day of release, then there is no difference. For instance, I can tell you what the change from "closed beta" to "open beta" is, in some detail - can you do the same for "open beta" to "release"?
If not buying into meaningless marketing terminology that borders on the Orwellian makes me a hater, fine. If being disappointed that a term in my field has been corrupted beyond any useful meaning makes me a hater, then yeah - I'm a hater. And I'm even OK with that.