How to know of alpha testing?

[Julio Navarro]

Is there like a newsletter for gamers or something like that for getting notified when the alpha/beta of a new game is open? I have never done it before, but it sounds really cool. Also, do you know any games that are currently searching for beta testers? I'm new in this forum, and thanks for you responses

[DavidTheWin]

Alpha testing is internal testing within the company

Beta testing is with a selection of users

You wouldn't be involved with alpha testing unless you got a job there

 

Depending on the game you generally just need to hang around the official forums a bit to keep up with the news, then again depending on the game they will send out invites for beta access or have some sort of signup.

Or as the trend is these days, you can pay full price for the beta and play an unfinished game until you get bored of it before it even releases with the features you wanted.

[LogicalDrm]

There's rarely change to get into alpha of major games. Early access and Kickstarter are different. Usually its closed beta first and then open beta. As for closed beta, first keys go to journalists, reviewers, YT personalities and progamer. People who will be ones to give best feedback or get hype on. After that devs start to increase amount of users to test their backend (in multiplayer games). At this point game news sites like IGN, PC Gamer and GameSpot will get thousands of keys to distribute. Usually also anyone who is already in gets some keys.

 

As for finding these. I used Gamefront when it was still running. They sent email everytime some game had queue for beta. I feel like P4B (pay for beta) or early access is way to go now. As for where to find games, GameSpot is one good place among all other major gamesites.