Forums > Game Forums > Powerslave (Official Beta Version) > Betas on MG

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leilei (343) on 2/1/2014 12:16 AM · Permalink · Report

Come on now. They're not finished products.

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j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (94161) on 2/1/2014 12:31 AM · Permalink · Report

If they were publicly released and have unique content, I don't see how it's any different from the demo versions we have here.

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Game Guesser (28) on 2/1/2014 4:24 AM · Permalink · Report

You know, it's kind of a shame that Mobygames can't form a partnership with The Cutting Room Floor (due to the handful of prototype/beta ROMs hosted there). Everything documented so far in this entry would fit perfectly there, and the only thing that might work better at Mobygames is credits (which are unlikely to have significant differences). It'd be really cool to be able to go to an entry on Mobygames and see an image link on the side indicating a corresponding article on TCRF.

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Indra was here (20756) on 2/1/2014 2:13 PM · Permalink · Report

You'll have migraines trying to figure out what should or should not be documented in MG, dude.

The floodgates hath been opened.

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Pseudo_Intellectual (66360) on 2/1/2014 9:25 PM · Permalink · Report

Naysayers have rallied against floodgates of eg. MS-DOS shareware and Flash browser games being opened, but thus far we don't seem to have been actively flooded with crap despite the opening of the gates. If anything I would level my finger at DLCs and compilations clogging things up.

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leilei (343) on 2/1/2014 11:18 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

I would understand if it was something like Mechwarrior 2: The Clans... which was technically a completely different game than MW2

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Игги Друге (46653) on 2/2/2014 4:35 AM · Permalink · Report

DLCs and Virtual console.

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vedder (70767) on 2/1/2014 11:30 PM · Permalink · Report

I approved this and I must admit I was on the fence about whether the changes where big enough to warrant an entry. I figured the best way to get the discussion rolling was to just approve it and see what happens.

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leilei (343) on 2/1/2014 11:45 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

It would lead to things like every version of Q3Test getting its own entry, the crapload of SEGA prototypes... every Battlecruiser 3000 demo, etc... and then there's 'betas' that are all faked, like Resident Evil 1.5, who would probably have some faker kid uploading 'real' screenshots to MG - and no one could be able to verify it, because "ha ha i have rare beta u canot have it until i have a milion youtube sub scriber's"

This stuff is better left to the specialists. Imagine browsing games by year and seeing nothing but different builds!
I think a better thing to do is link to a TCRF article where appropriate. Just like Mobygames they're also brutal with verification and against misinformation.

Sometimes screenshots are enough to cover revisions.

Also one time I posted an obvious fake hilarious screenshot of a folder full of betas. Afterwards I got constant messages to share them with the world by beta obsessed kids who have been seriously WOOSHED.. Seriously. MG allowing betas is going to be chaos like that. TCRF has a large blocklist for a reason too.

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CalaisianMindthief (8172) on 2/2/2014 9:07 AM · Permalink · Report

Beta is a part of the release cycle of a product, compared to a demo and a game which are both finished products, if it's even correct to use the expression "finished product", since a product is naturally and technically already finished as a result of a development process. On MobyGames, the development process is documented in the trivia section.

The description does not make it clear if this particular version is a demo or was released for QA reasons. For starters, the entry should be called Powerslave: Official Beta.

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vedder (70767) on 2/2/2014 11:24 AM · Permalink · Report

From what I understood from the sources it was publicly released. Else I wouldn't have approved it.