Thought people looking for early game builds might find some benefit in a quick discussion of game development nomenclature. So the way we here label all early builds of games "prototypes" (or even "betas" as we used to in previous years) is actually kind of a misnomer. This is a term borrowed from game development but it's kind of misused. Granted, "prototype" may be the best umbrella word we have at the moment to reference these builds in casual conversation ("prerelease build" is a bit cumbersome to say), but the fact remains that these early builds actually come in a variety of naming flavors based on which stage in development the game is in. There's a habit of calling pretty much everything before retail a "beta," or "prototype," and anything even earlier and more incomplete an "alpha," and that's just not accurate. I'm hoping that by clarifying how game devs actually use these terms in practice, we might have a better time correctly archiving and categorizing material in the future. In general, the game development cycle usually falls into these categories: Pre Production Pitches are written, concepts are drawn up, X videos/target renders are created, budgets are determined, schedules are planned, critical documentation is written (such as game design docs, art design docs, and technical design docs). If you're working with a publisher, letters of intent are being written, and contracts are being drafted and signed. Prototype A simple demonstration of a few key concepts. Usually a proof-of-concept that helps developers "find the fun" or prove out an idea. That recent SNES Rayman build is a good example of a true-blue "prototype." It shows an animated character moving and jumping on platforms in an arted environment, all running on the target hardware--and that's it! Vertical Slice This is a single level, map, section--a "slice" of the game--fully realized. It's got art, sound, enemies, and the game mechanics are all in and working, etc. Alpha The full game is feature-complete, which is to say all of the features of the game are completed and in the build. That's not to say it's without bugs. Artwork isn't done, either. Beta The full game is art-complete, which is to say that all of the game's art is in the build. Some art will still need tweaking, and bug testing is still ongoing which will surely lead to discovery of issues that need to be addressed. Release Candidate Once enough bug testing has happened, the team will start creating Release Candidate (RC) builds, which are what the developer will ultimately need to send to the certification process for whatever platform they're developing for (like the TCR testing at Microsoft, TRC testing at Sony, and Lotcheck at Nintendo). Sometimes publishers will even first put the game through their own rigorous internal testing group prior to submitting a build to certification as a means of adding assurance that the game won't fail certification checks, as submitting the game to these checks can be expensive. I believe most builds that magazines receive are Beta or Release Candidate builds. I imagine some are even essentially final retail builds with some debugging functionality turned on for review purposes. This isn't the exact development process every game is going to have gone through, but it's a good rough outline for the general case, at least among Western game developers. Also, if you ever find a build labeled "MS," this is likely a reference to the term "milestone." This is a term developers use to denote certain key markers along their development schedule where they owe management (or their publisher) a set of "deliverables." This will be things like certain features, certain art assets, certain documentation, and/or a build demonstrating a certain level of progress along the development cycle. Projects will usually have a number of these milestones in their schedule, due every few weeks or couple of months. It's a technique used to ensure a project stays on schedule throughout the full development cycle, instead of letting things go until you realize a month out from your final deadline that you're wildly off course. Anyway, I hope this is helpful or at least a little bit informative. Again, I don't think this is going to stop anyone from calling all early builds "prototypes," but maybe it'll at least help with some of the more formal archiving processes.
Brb reorganizing my drives Thanks for the input though. I believe we've had multiple threads about this exact topic, and most ended with "Some companies just use the terms differently. It really just depends." I call them builds, prototypes, and on the rare occasion even "media". For example I had a binder of discs (now in Borman's hands) of build after build of games, many of which even had duplicates burned mere minutes from each other. Most internal, some not so much, some just "busted" so to say (as indicated by a sticky note on them) but can I couldn't call them betas. I could have called them prototypes but after a while it gets tiring so I turned to a quicker "build [xxxx]" when handling them.
This is definitely helpful, especially for gamers not too pre-release savvy. I'd show this to my friends who might not get it fully.
