Many of the fall's high-profile shooters, including Gears of War 3 and Battlefield 3, held public beta tests of their multiplayer modes. Modern Warfare 3 hasn't, though. Why not?

"Personally I don't like to show a painting in progress," said Glen Schofield, boss of MW3 co-developer Sledgehammer Games in an interview with Eurogamer. "I don't like to show anything in progress, because you know as the artist what it's going to look like when it's done and you're looking at it now and don't feel right about it, because it's not finished."

That's not really the point of a beta, though. A beta is supposed to be "a painting in progress". Testers try out the game, point out what sucks or what's broken, and then the developer makes changes so that the final version of the game is more polished.

Sadly, though, a lot of players don't treat a beta as a test. They act like it's a trial version of the final product - in other words, they act like it's a demo. I imagine a good chunk of people played Battlefield 3's beta in order to evaluate whether or not it was worth buying. They're free to do that but you can see why the thought of releasing an unfinished version of their game to the public would give developers anxiety. It's much safer, in their opinion, to internally test their titles.

MW3 will launch worldwide on November 8th.