* The German version of ''[[FinalFantasyVII Final Fantasy VII]]'' for the PlayStation suffered from particularly bad and untested translation, which was obviously not based on the Japanese original but on the English version (as several untranslated English sentences and phrases, and sometimes only fragments of them, indicate).
** Notable if nothing else because ''said English translation wasn't all that good to begin with''. A poor translation of a poor translation? That isn't Beta, that's just bad work. ''No good game ever passes through such a linguistic state in its life cycle''.

* ThisTroper has been a game reviewer for various websites over the years. The prize for most ObviousBeta ever has to go to ''Rampage: World Tour'' for the PC. After installing it, the title screen actually had the word BETA in the corners, and when I called tech support to ask a question about how the game worked, the tech support agent I spoke to actually said (direct quote): "''You got it to WORK? For the love of God, tell me how you got it to work!''"... and this was the state the game shipped in.

*** And now that ''FinalFantasyXIV'' is coming out in less than one month, ''XI'' players can probably kiss any useful technical support and potential updates goodbye.

** Free Radical Design also rushed out Timesplitters as a PS2 launch title. The story mode was just a glorified multiplayer game.

* ''AnotherCenturysEpisode R'' is, by [[WordOfGod direct admission]], an ObviousBeta to allow the team behind the ''ACE'' trilogy to get adjusted to the Playstation 3 architecture. This entails rebuilding the game engine from the * ''Major League Baseball 2K 09'' for the Xbox 360. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIVUgW0t0o This video sums it up pretty well]]. Not enough proof? Okay, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN3cGmtm81g one more]].ground up and focusing on gameplay and graphics rather than LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, as the previous two games did.

** The developers were surprisingly up-front about this in later interviews. ExecutiveMeddling led to them having only 9 months to develop the game instead of the usual (for that series) 12 months.

* ''Space Station Silicon Valley'' famously shipped with no collision detection enabled on one of the souvenir objects, making it impossible to pick up.

* ''Major League Baseball 2K 09'' for the Xbox 360. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIVUgW0t0o This video sums it up pretty well]]. Not enough proof? Okay, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN3cGmtm81g one more]].

* ''StarTrekLegacy''. The Xbox360 version wasn't too bad, although it suffered more bugs than a console game really should. The PC version on the other hand was a total mess, riddled with bugs and controls that obviously hadn't been tested properly, if at all. Also, when players looked through the game directory, they found huge chunks of legacy code from the ancient ''Star Trek: Armada'' engine, just proving [[TheyJustDidntCare how little effort had truly gone into the game's development]].

* ''AnotherCenturysEpisode R'' is, by [[WordOfGod direct admission]], an ObviousBeta to allow the team behind the ''ACE'' trilogy to get adjusted to the Playstation 3 architecture. This entails rebuilding the game engine from the ground up and focusing on gameplay and graphics rather than LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, as the previous two games did.

* Notoriously, the XBox360 version of ''AloneInTheDark 2008''. The PS3 UpdatedRerelease / PortingDistillation fared better, but still had its issues.
* The N64 port of ''IndianaJones and the Infernal Machine'' was so full of {{Game Breaking Bug}}s that it was only released as a Blockbuster rental (or a direct purchase from LucasArts).

*** And now that ''FinalFantasyXIV'' is coming out in about one month, ''XI'' players can probably kiss any useful technical support and potential updates goodbye.

* Battletoads was another obvious beta game. One fine example is that if you play a 2 player game and make it to Stage 11, the 2nd player can't move, and will continually die until they run out of lives.

* In ''Super DoubleDragon'', it's impossible to catch your own [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang boomerangs]], knives do way too much damage, you can't switch weapons once you pick one up... The Japanese version, ''Return of Double Dragon'', which came out a few months later, is more complete than the American version (it even has an additional level, albeit a rather glitchy unfinished one), but is obviously far from finished (the game still lacks any sort of plot or even a proper ending). See also BadExportForYou.

* Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala." It runs great, if you install it properly. Installing it over a previous Ubuntu installation is a mistake you don't make twice. (Did we mention that Ubuntu automatically prompts for updates? Because it does.)

* HeartsOfIron III, a World War 2 strategy game, shipped with extremely broken AI. The AI countries would join factions seemingly at random; it wasn't uncommon for Japan to join the Allies or the US to join the Axis. Save games got corrupted all the time. The game ran incredibly slowly even on computers that far exceeded the system requirements and crashes were very common. The AI failed to research certain very valuable techs, giving the player a huge advantage. Totally improbable events, particularly involving naval landings, happened practically every game, such as Brazil invading Germany in 1941. All this prompted the developers to rely less on community testing and more on professional quality assurance companies for their future games.

* [[ElementalWarOfMagic Elemental: War of Magic]] was released in a buggy state. Given that it's Stardock, this by itself isn't too terribly surprising. What is surprising is that said "buggy state" is horribly, horribly buggy and received more patches ('''''six''''') in 4 days than [[GalacticCivilizations GalCiv2]] and SinsOfASolarEmpire did the month of their respective releases. And it's still missing content, [[ArtificialStupidity like competent AI.]]
** And if [[WordOfGod Brad Wardell]] is to believed, this was deliberate - as a substitute for CopyProtection. Reviewers did not wait for the six patches to hit before slamming the game for being unfinished.

* Wonderswan had several others.

!!Atari
* ''[=~E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial~=]'' for the [[AtariTwentySixHundred Atari 2600]]. The developer was given only five weeks to make it, and as a result it was an utter mess. Coincidentally, this also makes this trope at least OlderThanTheNES. The backlash from this was so bad that a planned 5200 version programmed by John Seghers (which was thankfully a completely different game) was aborted.

** The same applies to the Atari2600 port of ''PacMan'', which Atari released as soon as they got their hands on the programmer's alpha version.

!!SNES

!!N64

!!Game Systems
* YourMileageMayVary, but some actually ''do'' argue that even game ''systems'' often count as an ObviousBeta. Consoles and Handhelds, especially the latter, often have an UpdatedRerelease / Updated model released a couple years later that addresses several bugs. This can sometimes lead to the original models seeming a bit [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny odd to play]] after you got spoiled by the newer ones.
* Many cell phone models often fall into this trope, considering how many updated models come around that improve bugs and complaints about the previous models.
* Game consoles themselves. The Sega Genesis had a ''lot'' of models, some of the later ones with the Add ons built in.
** The 32X was pretty much a beta, a system that was just a standalone 32X was planned, but scrapped.
* The original Nintendo Entertainment system was often a beta. The toploader was released in the later years of the system's lifespan. The AngryVideoGameNerd even pointed out that the toploader played anything, even PAL-formatted games.

!!Unsorted

** While far more solid than AOD (outside the [[PortingDisaster PS2 version]]), TombRaider: Underworld is also quite buggy, with various rough edges and some {{Gamebreaking Bug}}s.
* ''{{Elite}} 3'', AKA ''Frontier: First Encounters''. It's a great game. The fact it's still played after more than 10 years (after being reverse-engineered and spawning [[http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/GLFFE advanced graphics clones]] with the same gameplay) proves this. But [[http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Gametek Gametek]] took ExecutiveMeddling UpToEleven, went behind Frontier's back and released the closest thing to a complete version they had (Or so Frontier's official site says). Ugly bugs spoiled the release as a result. The quite staggering backlash [[TooDumbToLive hammered the last nail in Gametek's coffin]]; reviewers and fans of the previous games positively ''frothed'' with rage, and David Braben [[SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome took Gametek to court for breach of contract]].
** "Ugly" ain't the word. Try to fly into the atmosphere of a gas giant to scoop up hydrogen fuel, a useful (and oft-used) feature in the previous two games in the series. As soon as the scoop activates, the game crashes spectacularly. Even after the game was patched, it still refused to run in anything that wasn't a pure DOS environment - which prompted the aforementioned hacking of the game by the fans over the years so that they could at the very least run it in Windows.
** In regards to the backlash, one reason for the severity was the appearance of subtle {{Game Breaking Bug}}s in the original ''Frontier - Elite 2'' (at least on the {{Amiga}} version. These only appeared over time (150 hours or so). It, therefore, most irritated players who had put the most into the (otherwise excellent) game. It basically became impossible to access the bulletin board to take missions and other features became disabled. The fact that GameTek released several improved versions cemented its position as an {{Obvious Beta}} for those who played it for the requisite length of time.
* ''NeverwinterNights''. Not only technical issues, but it was [[IncrediblyLamePun never]] well-polished for [[ForgottenRealms the setting in question]] (up to [[CrystalDragonJesus Tyr temples without a single Tyr's symbol]]), even with expansion packs they sold after separately, until the end of game's life cycle (i.e. release of ''NeverwinterNights2''). Community expansions covered lots of issues, trivial and complex alike, that were never touched by the core ruleset.
* The original ''[[StarOcean1 Star Ocean]]'' came with several crashing bugs, an item creation system whose success rate in some circumstances was so low it almost wasn't worth trying, items that were obviously meant to exist (and referenced in places) but couldn't be found, and a final dungeon that (story-wise) came out of nowhere on a planet you couldn't explore. The enhanced remake for the {{PSP}} corrected most of these issues.
** Sequel ''Star Ocean The Second Story'' on PlayStation had a game crasher that would "randomly" occur after completing a battle, the overworld/dungeon screen would fail to load, leaving just a black screen and no music, forcing a reset.
** And it looks like this is what the Xbox360 version of ''The Last Hope'' turned out to be, with the announcement of an [[UpdatedRerelease "international" version]]. It seems to be SquareEnix's little way of saying, "Thanks for the beta test, suckers!"
*** It turns this wasn't the case. It's basically the same game only with dual audio voice tracks and no disc swapping. No new characters, or bosses, or skills or the like.
* ''MetalSlug 5'' was rushed for release and it shows. Several characters sighted in promotional materials do not actually appear in the game proper, the game has NoEnding, and exploration of the ROM data show that the cartridge is filled with unused sprites.
* Nearly any game translated by {{Natsume}} will have game-breaking bugs upon initial release. Worse, they work with consoles, so all you can do is hope that they'll release a new version without them, to no fanfare or announcement.

* ''[[MightAndMagic Might & Magic IX]]'' is a clear example of this trope, though it is partially excusable due to 3D0 [[AuthorExistenceFailure going bankrupt]] during the development process. The result was a game loaded with [[GameBreakingBug bugs]], [[{{Unwinnable}} glitches]], and [[EmptyRoomPsych strangely empty buildings]]. Fans have released several [[http://telp.org patches]] to help remedy the larger problems, but the game remains thoroughly imbued with a "half-finished" aroma. Largely [[DisContinuity dismissed]] by many long-time fans of the series, some still found the game enjoyable due to its expansive dungeons, [[SchizophrenicDifficulty highly-erratic difficulty curve]], and [[OutOfCharacter off-kilter sense of humor]] that bordered on [[CanonDefilement complete derailment]]. Then again, it may be enjoyable purely [[BileFascination because of its horrible qualities]]. YourMileageMayVary.
** Might and Magic VII was nowhere near as bad as IX, but it still has an assortment of problems - overpowered and underpowered classes, extreme laziness in the sprites (they didn't even bother with palate-swaps and just tinted them single colors) and obvious unfinished content.
* ''Major League Baseball 2K 09'' for the Xbox 360. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIVUgW0t0o This video sums it up pretty well]]. Not enough proof? Okay, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN3cGmtm81g one more]].
** The developers were surprisingly up-front about this in later interviews. ExecutiveMeddling led to them having only 9 months to develop the game instead of the usual (for that series) 12 months.
* ''{{Spelljammer}}: Pirates Of Realmspace''. Peek in the game's files, and there are traces of items including a wheellock pistol, variety of helms including temporary ones (and consequently required spells) and thus pretty much everything in setting box but advanced options and travel in Flow. But no such luck. Also, {{PC}}s were supposed to trade, ''{{Elite}}''-style, cargo lists are custom in every port... but [[KarlMarxHatesYourGuts the price is the same in all ports]] ''and'' they buy cargo for half price, so the only profitable business is delivery and errands (loot may or may not be, as repair costs a lot). So there are just several errands, one quest and handful of bugs.
* ''DungeonLords'' was released with many missing features, despite them being stated in the game manual and advertised as such. Buttons, sliders and icons were present in the game and didn't do anything. Game patches gradually implemented some of those elements. The developers later released a collector's edition with "new stuff" which were actually, you guessed it, the missing features... which ''still'' didn't made the game complete in the end. To add insult to injury, the very last patch doesn't upgrade the original release to the "collector's edition" version.
* The somewhat obscure Japanese Sega Mega CD sequel to the Genesis semi-classic ''El Viento'', ''Annet Again'', was released in a very unfinished state. The protagonist's flashy spells are all unfinished, usually resulting in just a single animation frame blinking in and out. Basic combat controls work correctly, but enemies swarm you any time you get knocked down, effectively making getting up an impossibility. Enemies and even bosses will occasionally wander off screen and not return for anywhere between 1-5 minutes... or never, making the game randomly unwinnable. It is little surprise that the game was never released outside Japan.
* ''Lords of Magic''. This game remained beta for a very long time after release. The developers admitted they rushed it out to cash in on holiday sales.
* ''Pool of Radiance: Return to Myth Drannor''. Ouch. This game was so buggy that some gamers reported it destroying their OS. And even the install shield was buggy. You can't install the game to a folder other than the default. It was so bad that the developer needed to release not just an update patch, but a completely new installer, meaning the user has to download this to ''install'' the game rather than going through the autorun setup from the disc. Most users would not be aware of this fact and will install it from the disc anyway, making it pointless.
* ''{{Grandia}} III'' is a case of this. The whole bit about airplanes and flying that the game makes a big deal about early on in the story is almost completely abandoned once you actually get a plane, the second disc is very rushed, and one of the main villains is PutOnABus, never to be seen again.
* ''StarTrekLegacy''. The Xbox360 version wasn't too bad, although it suffered more bugs than a console game really should. The PC version on the other hand was a total mess, riddled with bugs and controls that obviously hadn't been tested properly, if at all. Also, when players looked through the game directory, they found huge chunks of code from the ancient ''Star Trek: Armada'' engine, just proving how little effort had truly gone into the game's development.
** So one could then say that the game had a lot of... [[IncrediblyLamePun Legacy code]]?

** Nippon Ichi has become infamous for this lately: the US version of ''ArTonelico 2'' has a GameBreakingBug around the endgame, a badly translated fourth Cosmosphere, and even spots where there's still kanji floating around.

* The North American release of ''SuikodenII'' has several places where dialogue simply ''wasn't translated at all''. And because Konami also removed the Japanese font, the result is characters who speak [[http://www.rpgamer.com/games/suiko/suik2/reviews/suik2strev1.html indecipherable gibberish]].
* The japanese release for ''TalesOfTheAbyss'' was actually an ObviousBeta. There were several stuff that was DummiedOut (Hi-ougis and cut-ins that weren't accessible in-game, a potential part in which ''VAN'' was playable) as well as several bad bugs (Tear and Jade freezing while casting in overlimit) and plenty of {{Good Bad Bug}}s. (Being able to go ''anywhere'' on the world map, perfect because there are parts that can be LostForever) What appears to be a PALBonus for north America was actually more of a completion, despite several bugs that weren't removed. (Luke has an extension to his mystic arte if Ion is in the party, Guy and Natalia have two mystic artes, Fortunes Arc has an extension, the final boss has a second Mystic Arte, Nebilim had around ''SEVEN'' mystic artes added, the cameo bosses not only have their cut-ins but Phila and Rid actually had two)
* ''MortalKombat Advance'' in theory was to give a bone to MK fans wanting to play UMK3 on the go with their Game Boy Advance back in 2002. Midway, however, handed the license to an outside third-party away from Ed Boon and his team and gave them four months to turn it out for a quick profit. Unsurprisingly, the game came rife with glitches, incomplete AI (either motionless or [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard cheating]]), and unresponsive controls. The game proved to be a bit profitable for Midway, but this kind of practice foretold the future bankruptcy of the company.

* The German version of ''[[FinalFantasyVII Final Fantasy VII]]'' for the PlayStation suffered from particularly bad and untested translation, which was obviously not based on the Japanese original but on the English version as several untranslated English sentences and phrases, and sometimes only fragments of them indicate.
** Notable if nothing else because ''said english translation wasn't all that good to begin with''. A poor translation of a poor translation? That isn't Beta, that's just bad work. ''No good game every passes through such a linguistic state in its life cycle''.

<<|VideoGameTropes|>>

* Battletoads clearly did not have thorough play testing. Only the best and most stubborn players could possibly beat it. There is a bug in a later level where the 2nd player can not move, and it would be impossible for anyone playing multi-player to miss this bug.

*** And now that ''FinalFantasyXIV'' is coming out in about one and a half months, ''XI'' players can probably kiss any useful technical support and potential updates goodbye.

* {{Valve}} in general have a habit of releasing games with GameBreakingBugs, although they are generally prompt about patching them. However, they also have a habit of releasing patches that cause brand new bugs in addition to fixing old ones (and sometimes not even that; they've "fixed" the spy's backstab register twice so far without actually fixing it). Special mention goes to the 2010 ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' update, which ported the entire game over to the newer version of their engine without checking for side effects. The patch was released in May 2010, and to date only one bug (which made the AI crash at a critical point) has been patched.

** Subverted by {{IMVU}}, as it is explicitly a Beta version (as it has been since its creation).
*** SecondLife (not really an MMORPG, but it might as well be mentioned here since every literate English speaker in existence seems to be stolidly convinced that it is) ran rather smoothly with it's typical userbase. But Linden Labs boasted infinite scalability to it's investors, and in order to demonstrate that, launched a marketing blitz to get users into the millions. As a result, most walked away with this trope as their first impression of SecondLife, and the veteran Residents weren't too happy with the performance grind (or the influx of trolls and newbies,) either.

* Inverted by Google. Gmail was supposedly still in beta even after it was the most common webmail client.
** And, in fact, was not updated in any visible way aside from losing the "beta".
*** Are you kidding? Gmail has changed a TON since it first came out. They've added dozens of features, tweaked everything countless times, and that's not even counting the Labs section.
**** Those who only use it as a free IMAP account with their regular email program are likely to be unaware of all these extra features.
** Not to mention that you can use a Google Labs option to add the BETA tag back into the Gmail logo, for those who've grown accustomed to it.

* Subverted with ''MountAndBlade'', which was released years before its completion and the developers were perfectly honest about the state it was in. In return for putting your faith in the devs' promise to not run away with your money but rather use it to complete the game you got a neat discount and free updated versions as they were being developed. Odd as it might seem, this business model turned out to work very well.
** This funding model is also used by ''Overgrowth''.
* Similar story with ''{{Minecraft}}''. Notch, the sole developer, has released the beta version to the public for half the price of what he intends to sell the finished game for. He essentially lets the user base do play testing this way, and keeps the game regularly updated.
* While playing Fortress Mode in ''DwarfFortress'', you'd never guess what you were playing was officially an alpha, the wide variety of GoodBadBugs aside. However, the same cannot be said for Adventurer Mode, which is presently a very unpolished {{Roguelike}} with nothing to do but meander the world and possibly explore your old forts. (The next update ''may'' amend this somewhat, promising a vast underground full of [[SealedEvilInACan hidden]] [[OurMonstersAreWeird fun]] [[TheLegionsOfHell stuff]] to encounter.)
** ''[[YourMileageMayVary Nothing to do]]''? Explore forts, climb mountains, kill legendary monsters, ''[[ScrewYouElves genocide elves]]'', '''''[[OmnicidalManiac send the world into the Age of Emptiness]]'''''. It's not that there's nothing to do, [[QuicksandBox you just aren't trying hard enough]]. There really are a lot of GoodBadBugs, though.

* ''{{Xenogears}}'', specifically the entire second disc, could be argued as this.
** Yeah. However, it really doesn't have any bugs. And who says [[ProgressiveRock Disc 2]] needs to be like Disc 1?

*** And now that ''FinalFantasyXIV'' is coming out in about two and a half months, ''XI'' players can probably kiss any useful technical support and potential updates goodbye.

**Microsoft in history of not giving a shit about customers shock.

* Notoriously, the XBox360 version of ''AloneInTheDark 2008''. The PS3 UpdatedRerelease fared better, but still had its issues.

* The japanese release for ''TalesOfTheAbyss'' was actually an ObviousBeta. There were several stuff that was DummiedOut (Hi-ougis and cut-ins that weren't accessible in-game, a potential part in which ''VAN'' was playable) as well as several bad bugs (Tear and Jade freezing while casting in overlimit) and plenty of {{Good Bad Bug}}s. (Being able to go ''anywhere'' on the world map, perfect because there are parts that can be LostForever) What appears to be a PALBonus for north America was actually more of a completion, despite several bugs that weren't removed. (Luke has an extension to his mystic arte if Ion is in the party, Guy and Natalia have two mystic artes, Fortunes Arc has an extension, the final boss has a second Mystic Arte, Nebilim had around ''SEVEN'' mystic artes added, the cameo bosses not only have their cut-ins but Phila and Rid actually had two)
** ''TalesOfVesperia'' on the Xbox 360 was pretty much an ObviousBeta for the Playstation3 release...and to think Europe waited about eight months ''for a beta''.

On the other hand, companies may have to do this, particularly small ones. Not all companies have enough money to go through all the development stages for what they're planning, and so have to release in the hopes enough people will buy it to get them going to go through the rest of the stages for them to better perfect it and then get attention to those changes to make more buy it later.

**You think that's bad? Before any of the expansions came out, most final raid bosses were rendered unkillable or unreachable by {{Game Breaking Bug}}s ([[UnwinnableByDesign sometimes on purpose]]). Ragnaros would never come out of submerge and just keep throwing Sons until you ran out of mana and died. C'thun would eye beam you while you were in the stomach. The most amusing one was Chromaggus, who was [[HopelessBossFight overscaled on purpose]] to prevent players from reaching Nefarian ''because the Nefarian encounter wasn't fully coded''.
*** To be fair, the Nefarian fight turned out to be the single most epic and satisfying encounter in the game almost immediately upon anyone being able to get to him.

* The GameBoy line ''runs'' this trope. The Game Boy nowadays looks like a brick, whereas the Game Boy Pocket was a ''lot'' more portable, as was the GameBoyColor, although some consider the GameBoyColor to be a bit of a different format altogether
** The ''GameBoyAdvance'', just...the ''GameBoyAdvance''. The original model released in 2001 practically ''was'' an ObviousBeta for the ''SP'', which is considered the vastly superior model, some even said that was how the GameBoyAdvance ''should'' have been in 2001. The Game Boy Advance SP featured a frontlit screen (Which was asked for in the game boy model for ''awhile''), it can be toggled on and off, and, rechargable batteries, which were built into the system. There was also a game boy Micro, but it wasn't as major of a change.
* The ''NintendoDS'' also followed route. The original model shown at E3 was ''obviously'' a Beta, it looked ''far'' different than what hit markets in 2004. (Namely in that it didn't even have a ''stylus'' holder.) Then in around 2006, the DS Lite made the original model look like a beta. Brighter screen made the games look better, larger stylus for people with bigger hands, etc. DSi also made it a lot more like a PDA with access to DSiware, etc. The Nintendo ''3DS'' is expected to follow a similar route.
* The Sony PSP models, although the PSP GO was often considered a downgrade by fans.
* Game consoles themselves. The Sega Genesis had a ''lot'' of models, some of the later oens with the Add ons put in (Sega CD, at least).