neogaf, ( , SEGA).

Ok guys I'm going to drop some knowledge about common uses of terms in game development, keep in mind that every single studios is different but these are the standards.

Prototype - Early or extremely rough proof of concept, used to determine if something is viable (The Bayonetta video is a perfect example). You can prototype all throughout development as well if you want when making decisions about bits of content, but usually after a prototype you head in to production.

Production / Pre Alpha - Interchangeable terms, they simply mean 'in development' and usually indicate the title has not reached gameplay complete status, at Sega we had many milestones during production and before alpha called Inline 1/2/3 etc and technically they would all have been Pre-Alpha, this usually constitutes the majority of development.

Alpha - The first major milestone on the path to releasing a game, common stuff associated with alpha are content lock and some form of 'complete' terminology (content complete, gameplay complete, etc). This can often be very close to the end of total development! In fact big chunks of the team might even start to roll off to new tasks at this point.

Beta - Basically public ready but with areas left to be polished and bugs to be fixed, the game is technically 'done' here but needs a little bit of love to make it shine. Most of the team is rolling off to new stuff.

Release Candidate - The bug fixed & fully polished version you submit for mastering, Everyone except a core group is now finishing the second DLC because the first one was probably completed earlier but content lock/greed prevented it from being in the game.

Gold - After however many Release Candidates it took the game is finally finished and passed submissions, rejoice and get to work on the day 1 patch you probably had to promise to get a waiver for the category A bugs they found during TRC/TCR testing.

So when someone tells you a game is pre-alpha all they really mean is that the game is actively in development, it's entirely possible that the piece of game they are showing you is near final (as is the case at most major events when they cherry pick bits of a vertical slice to show the public) but it's also possible you're seeing something that has 12 months of iteration left to go in to it.