First, nothing has technically changed by this news. As I’ve told you many times in the past, expect no Public Beta unless we announce otherwise. That is still the case. We would never say something as definitive as “No Beta Ever!” as that’s simply not how we work. We’ll do an internal beta, if we feel a public one is needed, we’ll explore that route as well.
It is true that we have not announced a Public Beta for MW2, and that remains true unless I announce otherwise.
However, while no Public Beta is currently announced we do plan on running an extensive Closed Beta among Infinity Ward, Activision, and possibly 1st party partners worldwide. The internal beta will allow us all the benefits of a public beta test without the impact it takes on the time required to prep, distribute, & manage a public beta during this crucial time in development.
Remember, Multiplayer has been in development since Day 1 of working on Modern Warfare 2, and this is the essential run up to launch when we’re playing everyday, hammering away on it to make sure it’s as polished as can be by launch. As always, our internal QA team has daily multiplayer tests in addition to company-wide nightly MP tests we hold from the moment MP is in a running state throughout development.
Once the internal beta is completed, if for any reason we feel we didn’t receive the feedback, address the issues, or have the result we expect. We would consider pushing forward with a public one, however at this point only an internal Closed Beta is planned.
That said, any fears that no Public Beta will result in any quality loss in the final multiplayer game is completely unfounded; Multiplayer has always been and will always remain a major focus for the team at Infinity Ward and we would never ship a product we didn’t feel lived up to the high standards we hold ourselves to.
While we love public betas for all the obvious reasons, an internal Closed Beta allows us the extra freedom and flexibility to give the entire multiplayer a chance to be widely beta tested without requiring excess development time simply to prep the game for public release instead of an internal beta test which is ran on dev kits / test kits. That fact alone, allows us to have a smoother and faster process of iteration when addressing issues and pushing fixes out to beta participants.
This decision allows us to deliver a more polished experience, which in the end, is what we all want.
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