I did a Let's Play (not the whole game of course, just few missions) if you want to have a look.

This is worth checking out too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iabkfM5VZDk

http://empyriongame.com/

Apparently. Can't remember hearing about such a version before. I don't even know what it means.

It's not unheard of, for example Planetary Annihilation used this term as well.
It is used to mark another stage of development, obviously, although it's not clear at what point Gamma could be accurate. When all features are added and there's just testing? If everything important is added and they're just polishing? ...for me it is just a marketing gag.

Yeah I'm only interested in buying products that say "Final" or "Finished". That way I know I'll get a Beta that start for most people.

I guess it's what you call it when you want to say you've finished beta but the game isn't actually ready for release. =/

-10 years later-
"We would like to announce that we're almost ready for the omega stage of development! Stay tuned as the Omega 0.0001 of Elite gets released tomorrow!"

... and then they'll switch to arabic alphabet.

Ahahahahaha!

So David Braben turned out be a as trustworthy as a Thargoid?

Well he started his career with ripping of Elite cocreator Ian Bell so people shouldn't be surprised.
Nice analogy. :)

He's more like a borg, who want all players to be assimilated and hooked up to a central mainframe ;p

I wonder why so many old creators (David Braben, Richard Garriot, Derek Smart, Chris Roberts) seem so obsessed with online gaming.

Back in the days when they created the classics that made them famous, Internet was a thing from sci-fi literature and secret military stuff. Now they all see Internet as the future of gaming, when it's clearly most a thing for FPS combat, shallow RPGs and subliminar merchandising.

Are these guys turning senile?

Thank heavens for people like Brian Fargo.

Let's hope that Paul Neurath doesn't turn Underworld Ascension into a dungeon crawling MMO. :P

My best guess is that they want online gaming to be more than what it already is, which is not a bad thing per se. I mean, look at Ultima Online. Before World of Warcraft came out, it was the most popular MMO out there (even if it did have it flaws). It's still running even 18 years later.

When new gaming technology appear, it's normal for game designer to want to create something that exploits it (that's how they created most of their classics, after all). That's how most if not all of id software games were created building from a new technology.

Do I wish that these games were single player? Definitely. But I understand why they want to look at online gaming.I used to complain a lot about game designs being unoriginal, so I'm not going to complain when a developper is trying to experiment (even if I don't like the end result).

Was it a good decision for Elite Dangerous? After the Kickstarter pitch, definitely not. If it was explained during the pitch and explained properly (as far as I know it still hasn't been explained properly), I could've been interested.

Shroud of the Avatar did it way better. Despite the fact that a good part of the game is based online, the game still includes a single-player option (not available now, but the game is still in pre-alpha). I don't know how good it would be, but so far, the game seems really good and has some interesting concepts. I guess all that I can say is: only time will tell.

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic/suspicious, but I think such options are more related to financial gains.

"Hey! Kids these days are always online. They dig online stuff. So that's where the new money is. Let's go and make it online so that all the kids think it's cool and buy it"!

Somehow makes me remember the times when everyone used to make things with , because every kid loved [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnrDI_Bn3rA ]Ninja stuff (dang... even Wizardry had ninjas).

It is a bit more sinister than that, with only they can make people pay a monthly fee (plus micro-transactions "oh you want that shiny thing over there, lucky you, it has a price" AND with true mmo's the game is not even installed in your computer, your screen is merely a terminal so there can be no piracy. So the truth is that they want to move away from SELLING games and go full throttle into RENTING them. Therefore it is a mere illusion to think you are buying said titles since you are only paying for the privilege of using it for s limited span of time, like arcade games. I would not mind if this was limited to true MMO's, but braben is a clear example of how every game designer has wet dreams of owning their own money making machine aka mmo game.