Alpha

You're a lucky one too ? !!!

I guess it is rather futile to generate a universal definition of these terms.

In any case your minimum defnition of "alpha happens before beta" already proves the point that alpha != beta.

Being a developer myself I consider an alpha version as something that has had only a minimum of testing and a minimum of implemented features, e.g. the actual developer was able to get it to run his own his environment and it implements a minimum feature set that makes practical testing even feasible for technically skilled people. The focus of alpha testing is about making the basic skeleton code run well before adding sophisticated features. So it is even realistic that the alpha version might not even be able to start up on many of the testers machines without crashing, because of hardware/driver issues.

IMO a beta version is something that you would make available to a broader non technical audience. Unlike the alpha version it will be something that will not inevitably crash, also it will have already some basic features implemented. The focus of beta testing will be that the features do what they suppose to do.


@Uber:
I recommend that you really manage expectations about what the alpha version will provide.

Canonically alpha means "not feature complete". Whereas beta means "everything is in but we need to bug test".

Of course for Google beta means "this is a product, use it!"

Alpha means, all must-haves are from the functional specification document reached. Beta is reached, when no known tweak of the must-have points are still there. In the beta is the game not completely finished, the 'nice-to-have' points are mostly missing.

Many 'games' say they are in the beta, for law reasons.

Whatever it means, I wonder more about the method that Uber will have users submitting bug reports.

One of my first legit jobs was as a product tester, and being able to repeat and see if an error has already been documented was huge in making sure the same ground wasn't being retread over and over.

Anyone from Uber want to comment on whether they'll be using some sort of in-built tool or a standalone type program or tool?

As far as that goes, it would be extremely nice if they did what Arcen Games did for their games. They set up a issue tracker: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/my_view_page.php. Easily searchable, I used it a few times while I was in the alpha for A Valley Without Wind when I came across bugs and unintended "features" to make sure I wasn't reporting a new issue, and to comment on issues that were already reported.