>>35154148Development is constant. First, you have proof of concept. At that point, all you have is a bunch of design documents and rough mockups with no actual art. After everything is approved by the higher-ups, you move to pre-alpha - that's where games come into being. The early art is made, basic concepts are established into something proper and the whole thing takes shape. Pic related is an early pre-alpha version of World of Warcraft. The next step is alpha - everything is refined, at this point games usually become actual games and not a bunch of ideas harshly sewn together. Then you have beta-versions - at this point the game is kinda finished but is also extremely glitchy. That's when beta-testers are hired to fix anything they could find. It could be something as small as a misplaced texture, or something that crashes the game and formats your hard drive at the same time. Also at that stage you fix design errors you've found while testing. When that's done, you make press-release versions that are sent out to those shitty journos, and are used in promotion (like pre-release trailers and store displays). And when that is done, the game receives its last patches and finally goes gold - that's when you start printing discs for sale.
