http://ps3.ign.com/articles/842/842292p1.html

Thats a vid for Battlefield: Bad Company. It's a pre-alpha build of the game that the dev is playing. Now I seem to recall people all over the net screaming that "there's no such thing as pre-alpha" when the Killzone trailer was said to be pre-alpha. I wonder if people will scream now?  

Oh please.

Each developer has different standards of what constitutes a "pre-alpha" with an alpha and a beta build. In reality its all a term that doesn't do much to describe how far along a game is or how close to the final product it will be.

This is not about the topic, but about sieanr's signature:

"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away"

Um, if you turn 360 degrees, you will still be back to facing the XBOX. LOL. I think you mean 180 degrees, but then that doesn't make sense.

Pre-Alpha

The idea of a game's existence. Like a developer thinking about making the game before he actually begins development.

That's exactly why sieanr has it in his signature. It's pretty obvious when you look at the other quotes he has put there ;)

Pre alpha is when the game has not been tested for glitches, and has not reached its graphicle potential.

Leo-J, exactly. The vid of Battlefield: Bad Company says pre-alpha on it. And that clip looks fantastic. So i truly believe GG when they said that their Killzone 2 trailer was pre-alpha.

I always thought pre-alpha was before the game was given its first play test, so like when its still untextured polygons and what not.

For most game companies the development progression is something like this:

Tech demo or concept art demo - For pitching the game to publishers or management to get the game greenlighted

First playable - The most basic version of the game where someone outside the team can pick up a controller and do something

Alpha - all levels and major game features are in but game is still very buggy

Beta - all major bugs are gone. Ideally engineers are just sitting around for something to come up from the testing department

Gold Master canidates - Game is sent off to Sony or Nintendo for final TRC testing with all bugs fixed

Gold Master - Game image is sent off to be duplicated

Of course in reality Alphas end up looking like First Playables, Betas end up looking like Alphas, etc.