Noob question incoming... what's a Beta?

[Sexcellent]

Yes I know it's noobish I don't get all this 'gaming talk' so please no hatin'. I just always thought a Beta was kind of like a demo for a game? Like a little tester for an unreleased project, but seeing that L4D2 has been out for nearly 4 years that seems pretty unlikely... so what is a Beta? I've obviously got my definition confused somewhere :s

[Restless]

When a company creates a game, it goes through several testing phases.

"alpha" is when the game is tested internally by the developers and people working in the company. When they feel the product is ready to be tested by the public, it enters the "beta" phase, which can be either closed or open. Closed betas have a limited amount of invites while open betas are generally available to everybody.

edit: if you're referring to the latest announcement, it is to the beta for the Extended Mutation System, which will now be open to Linux, Mac and PC users

[Sexcellent]

oooh okay, I was going to say a beta for the game as a whole would be ridiculous. Ah okay, that'll be cool :)

[JAIR BOLSONARO]

beta is an in progress version of the game.