I get that its more "at one time" testing for larger updates. The point I was making was that a bunch of small betas adds up to the same as one large beta.
To paint it a little clearer (and these are random numbers, not based on anything), what I'm saying is:
Testing/bugfix time for small (2 week interval) updates: ~24-36 hours
Number of 2 week updates in a 6 month period: ~12-13 updates
Total time spent on beta and bugfixes in a 6 month period: ~12-19.5 days
Testing/bugfix time for large (6 month interval) updates: ~2-3 weeks
Number of 6 month updates in a 6 month period: 1 update
Total time spent on beta and bugfixes: ~2-3 weeks
Testing/bugfix for 2wk updates vs 6mo updates: 12-19.5 days vs 14-21 days
The point is the result is the same. That was the point I was trying to make. Its a matter of people's individual preference. You aren't really waiting any longer nor are they working any longer for large updates. It just seems like the wait/work is longer because you get it all at once instead of broken up.
Again, you aren't getting any more or less from either method. It comes down to whether you prefer to wait/work a short time for short content or a longer time for longer content.
you may say that, but, finding 1 bug in a" 1 month content" update 6 times, is much easier and less tiresome than finding 6 bugs in a single "6 month long content" update.
and i would even advocate, it will be faster to fix as well.
and that's also ignoring how something may be broken, fixed, but the fix breaks something else that was partially broken, but unoticed. this will always be a risk, but with a bigger content update, its not only higher chance to happen, but also harder to detect and fix.
there have been many cases here where the devs tried to make something, ended up breaking stuff, and going back and forth trying to figure out what is broken was too much and they gave up.
i still remember game of moans went through it. they did ALOT to try and give their game more quality, but it ended up a mess, instead of fixing it, they did the basic and moved on, but each new update was a shittier show than one before, when they decided to stop and try to fix it up they gave up because the work was too much. and because the quality was so poor, they werent able to gather the patreons to support the amount of work they did.
so while at first it may look like a preference thing, history has shown that trying to do too much at once will make it harder on yourself. even if you use the same amount of time.