"I'd say a beta also includes playing a 'feature incomplete' game but seriously these days devs never finish their job before selling the product."
As I've rantedabout before, that's mainly because current day video game developers and publishers don't have the slightest fucking clue what is supposed to be meant by the term "beta." It is (or used to be) the case that when a product went into the beta phase, that meant that the features were locked down. It was feature complete, in official terms. No new features or functionality is (supposed to be) added to the game after it has reached beta state. All the design and development is supposed to be finished at beta, with only bugfixing and usability problems resolved at that point.
Compare that to now, though, where there is pretty much no distinction whatsoever between alpha, beta, "early access" or "perpetual beta" (both of which weren't even things until modern game devs realized that they could use these asinine buzzwords to get morons to pay for their unfinished, probably-never-to-be-finished shit), release candidate, actual release, post-release, and so on. It's all the same damn thing now: essentially paid alpha testing, where the devs just perpetually add new shit willy-nilly to their games (whether for free or as paid DLC/microtransactions, it doesn't matter), often horribly breaking things in the process, until they call it "good enough," or else, more likely, simply get tired of working on it and abandon it, sooner or later. Only at that point would I consider a game "finished," by an extremely loose definition of the word "finished."
Honestly, for me, I never consider a game to be finished anymore until that game and all of its various and sundry DLC/expansion packs/microtransaction bits are available in a single, self-contained unit, with a single, self-contained price, whether it's called "GOTY," "Ultimate," "Complete," or whatever, and no further work is being done on that game. And if that game, especially if it's a physical copy, still requires you to download DLC as separate entities, then that game is not and will never be "complete," because sooner or later, the servers containing the DLC will go away forever, as has already happened for too many games in the past (i.e. more than zero).
Contrast video games to any other media. With books, you might have occasional new editions that fix typos and such, but for the most part, once a book is out, it's out. With newspapers and magazines, the initial print run is pretty much it, barring any back issues that might fix typos or whatever, I guess. With movies, there's usually the initial release (theatrical or direct-to-whatever), and then there's the inevitable DVD/Bluray with whatever extra features, and (if you're George Lucas/Disney) whatever other special edition releases that are made later, but each of those are usually considered to be their own separate releases, regardless, with all of the original releases (usually) still available (again, unless you're George Lucas/Disney).
No other industry that I can think of now releases products that are so consistently "work in progress" broken bullshit like the trash released by the modern video game industry on a regular basis. It's fucking ridiculous that the video game industry has gotten away with it for so long, and now, because it has become so entrenched and "expected" and (*ugh*shiver*) "accepted," they will continue to get away with it probably until the heat death of the universe. As such, there's really not a single fucking thing that can be done about it, aside from simply abandoning the modern video game industry entirely and no longer giving them money, maybe aside from the increasingly rare outliers who still do a proper job when creating their games (and, honestly, I cannot think of a single goddamned video game company right now that hasn't at least dabbled in this kind of dumbshit at some point or another).
So... I guess I would say there is a distinction between when a game is "released" and when a game is "finished" (and, for that matter, when a game is "paid for" by the consumer of said game, given that this, for far too many people, is now at a point well before the game is ever even "released," let alone "finished," thanks to all this "early access" and "crowd-funded" shit as well as to old school pre-orders.) Far too many games these days are "released," but far too few games are ever "finished" (but you can be damn well sure they are definitely "paid for," by hook or by crook.) I pretty much agree with your take on what constitutes a "release date," but overall, I would say that none of these terms have any actual meaning or value anymore, as far as the modern video game industry goes.
no subject
As I've ranted about before, that's mainly because current day video game developers and publishers don't have the slightest fucking clue what is supposed to be meant by the term "beta." It is (or used to be) the case that when a product went into the beta phase, that meant that the features were locked down. It was feature complete, in official terms. No new features or functionality is (supposed to be) added to the game after it has reached beta state. All the design and development is supposed to be finished at beta, with only bugfixing and usability problems resolved at that point.
Compare that to now, though, where there is pretty much no distinction whatsoever between alpha, beta, "early access" or "perpetual beta" (both of which weren't even things until modern game devs realized that they could use these asinine buzzwords to get morons to pay for their unfinished, probably-never-to-be-finished shit), release candidate, actual release, post-release, and so on. It's all the same damn thing now: essentially paid alpha testing, where the devs just perpetually add new shit willy-nilly to their games (whether for free or as paid DLC/microtransactions, it doesn't matter), often horribly breaking things in the process, until they call it "good enough," or else, more likely, simply get tired of working on it and abandon it, sooner or later. Only at that point would I consider a game "finished," by an extremely loose definition of the word "finished."
Honestly, for me, I never consider a game to be finished anymore until that game and all of its various and sundry DLC/expansion packs/microtransaction bits are available in a single, self-contained unit, with a single, self-contained price, whether it's called "GOTY," "Ultimate," "Complete," or whatever, and no further work is being done on that game. And if that game, especially if it's a physical copy, still requires you to download DLC as separate entities, then that game is not and will never be "complete," because sooner or later, the servers containing the DLC will go away forever, as has already happened for too many games in the past (i.e. more than zero).
Contrast video games to any other media. With books, you might have occasional new editions that fix typos and such, but for the most part, once a book is out, it's out. With newspapers and magazines, the initial print run is pretty much it, barring any back issues that might fix typos or whatever, I guess. With movies, there's usually the initial release (theatrical or direct-to-whatever), and then there's the inevitable DVD/Bluray with whatever extra features, and (if you're George Lucas/Disney) whatever other special edition releases that are made later, but each of those are usually considered to be their own separate releases, regardless, with all of the original releases (usually) still available (again, unless you're George Lucas/Disney).
No other industry that I can think of now releases products that are so consistently "work in progress" broken bullshit like the trash released by the modern video game industry on a regular basis. It's fucking ridiculous that the video game industry has gotten away with it for so long, and now, because it has become so entrenched and "expected" and (*ugh*shiver*) "accepted," they will continue to get away with it probably until the heat death of the universe. As such, there's really not a single fucking thing that can be done about it, aside from simply abandoning the modern video game industry entirely and no longer giving them money, maybe aside from the increasingly rare outliers who still do a proper job when creating their games (and, honestly, I cannot think of a single goddamned video game company right now that hasn't at least dabbled in this kind of dumbshit at some point or another).
So... I guess I would say there is a distinction between when a game is "released" and when a game is "finished" (and, for that matter, when a game is "paid for" by the consumer of said game, given that this, for far too many people, is now at a point well before the game is ever even "released," let alone "finished," thanks to all this "early access" and "crowd-funded" shit as well as to old school pre-orders.) Far too many games these days are "released," but far too few games are ever "finished" (but you can be damn well sure they are definitely "paid for," by hook or by crook.) I pretty much agree with your take on what constitutes a "release date," but overall, I would say that none of these terms have any actual meaning or value anymore, as far as the modern video game industry goes.