Introducing Playtester

Game discovery today is fragmented. Players looking for alphas, betas, and demos are forced to jump between Reddit threads, Discord servers, itch.io pages, Steam events, SteamDB, and social feeds across multiple platforms. There is no single place to reliably see what is playable now or what is opening next. As a result, meaningful playtests are easy to miss, and many players only discover games after the opportunity to try them has already passed.

Mobile views of Reddit, Bluesky, and itch.io showing game demo posts across separate platforms.

Playtester was created to make pre-release discovery easier and more inclusive. It is a curated place to discover upcoming games, including alphas, betas, demos, and early access builds, presented in a single, continuously updated feed. The goal is to help players stay informed and give developers a clearer path to visibility during the most fragile stage of development.

Background

Most existing discovery platforms are built around released titles. Playtester takes a different approach by focusing entirely on pre-release games. When a playtest ends or a game ships, it is deprioritized. What remains is a live view of what players can actually access now, rather than an archive of stale listings. This keeps the feed relevant and ensures that discovery reflects the present.

Every game on Playtester is manually curated. Games may be submitted by developers or surfaced through discovery, but inclusion is intentional. We avoid adult-only content, crypto projects, AI asset flips, and anything that does not respect players’ time. The aim is not to list everything, but to surface the strongest upcoming experiences and maintain a quality bar across the platform.

Playtester is designed to serve both players and developers. It began as a tool for players who wanted a better way to find demos, and naturally evolved into a discovery channel for developers seeking exposure. Visibility should not be a luxury, and discovering a major playtest should not depend on being in the right Discord server at the right time. Players deserve to know what is available, and developers deserve a place where early work can be found without noise.

Playtester homepage showing a featured banner and a grid of playable pre-release games.

Since launching in November 2024, Playtester has grown steadily. The platform has listed over 3,400 games and generated more than 1 million page views, with 150,000 monthly views from players across 193 countries. What began as a simple experiment has evolved into a space for pre-release game discovery.

Looking ahead

Playtester will continue to focus on pre-release discovery while refining how players and developers interact during this phase. A near-term focus is enabling structured feedback, giving players a way to share insights directly with developers through the platform in a way that is useful and respectful.

Longer term, the goal is for Playtester to become the default place to discover alphas, betas, and demos, and a natural part of release roadmaps for studios of all sizes. Discovery should feel timely, reliable, and consistently worth returning to, whether you are an indie team testing your first build or a larger studio preparing a wider release.

Sequence of Playtester logo marks showing visual iterations over time.

Playtester is open to anyone who enjoys discovering games early. Browsing does not require an account, and the platform is designed to be something players come back to regularly.

You can start discovering at playtester.io, and follow updates at @playtesterhq on X (Twitter).