Quote Originally Posted by Kafeen View Post
Actually, betas are games with all of their features implemented when all that's left are bug fixes, balancing issues and other minor tweaks.

MMO's undergo larger changes than most games post-release though in order to keep the attention of their players.

You don't see WoW players calling everything pre-Cataclysm a paid beta. FFXIV was just forced into major changes earlier than most.
Haven't betas been more of a demo lately though? Basically just a glorified way of saying "Here's a early access period, but if it's shitty we'll call it a beta to cover our asses."

Like battlefield 3 'beta' lol. "All features implemented" are what demos are, betas usually lack quite a bit because it's the phase before the polished release since they release it to test the major functions because you can always hotfix smaller things later based on internal QA testing that happens after beta. (Post launch patch.)