dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
415

Hazy Arc
join:2006-04-10
Greenwood, SC

1 recommendation

Hazy Arc

Member

Why Do We Put Up With Shoddy Game Releases?

[begin rant]
"Next Gen" is increasingly becoming a joke because of the high-profile launch snafus hitting what we consider AAA games. It seems most every major game release of the past 2 years has encountered some issues, many of them game-breaking.

The most recent example is Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The game has been out since 11/11, and matchmaking/online multiplayer is still all but broken. I don't buy the "but do you know how hard it is to make a game" argument for one second.

Honestly, it doesn't matter how hard something is. If you release something, and take peoples money for it, it better work. It's not the consumer's job to worry about how hard it is. Designing and building cars is hard, but you wouldn't try to defend an automaker if they sold you a car and as soon as you tried to drive it you found out the engine doesn't work. "Guys, I know that these cars are unusable, but do you know how hard it is to build a car?"

Working in IT myself, I know how finicky software development can be. Let it be known that I'm not blaming the developers - it's undoubtedly the publishers pushing deadlines that can't realistically be met by the developers.

Why do we as gamers put up with this? Any other industry would be failing hard if they released products that didn't work on a regular basis.

[/endrant]

banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
Premium Member
join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX

banditws6

Premium Member

Blind trust, preorder bonus mania, "gotta have it right now" or "gotta have it before anyone else." All reasons why people may purchase broken games on day one, sight unseen.

It's rare anymore that I'll preorder a game, unless I've played a beta and I have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting into, or the developer's credentials are so spotless that it's nigh impossible they'd screw up. Any prudent person these days would wait for reviews and technical analyses of games and simply not buy if the quality control work hasn't been done.

The only way publishers will ever reconsider aggressive release schedules is if this somehow costs them more money than taking the time to get it right. Goes for just about any business these days, really. Unfortunately it's a lot easier to measure revenues from sales in the week a product is released than it is to quantify cumulative losses -- both monetary and in goodwill -- after release after release of shoddy garbage.

TheBionic
Funkier than a mohair disco ball.
Premium Member
join:2009-07-06
united state

1 recommendation

TheBionic to Hazy Arc

Premium Member

to Hazy Arc
There are a lot of reasons. 'Gaming journalism' has just become another marketing arm of the games industry. They hype games for months or years before release, telling everyone how great it will be before it's even in beta. The hype train revs up an people get excited for the game.

Then you have dishonest trailers at gaming cons, a good example being Watch_Dogs showing visuals that the consoles couldn't even come close to actually delivering. Not to mention these cons give awards to games that haven't been reviewed, and those rewards make it onto the back of the box.

After that every retailer announces their own exclusive preorder bonuses that you can't get anywhere else, and places like Gamestop hound customers for preorders at every opportunity.

Then you have a company like Ubisoft putting late review embargoes on games they know are broken for the sole reason of delaying the bad news and maximizing sales before anyone knows the game is broken.

So the sites gamers go to hype the game for months or years without having played it, the cons show dishonest trailers and give awards to unfinished games, retailers push preorders like crazy, and companies actively seek to keep their customers in the dark regarding release date quality in order to push sales.

Not everyone has the time to know the industry as well as some of us do, so it is understandable that people trust the gaming sites, awards, and so on. This is why people keep buying this crap.

Happily, the internet and Youtube is a great tool for anyone who uses it. I preordered Dragon Age:Inquisition, but only because several Youtubers I trust played it and loved it. I was not let down.

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix to Hazy Arc

Premium Member

to Hazy Arc
I'm pissed off at how they completely just stop support for God of War: Ascension after less than a year of the game being out.

danawhitaker
Space...The Final Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-03-02
Thorndale, ON

danawhitaker to Hazy Arc

Premium Member

to Hazy Arc
said by Hazy Arc:

Working in IT myself, I know how finicky software development can be. Let it be known that I'm not blaming the developers - it's undoubtedly the publishers pushing deadlines that can't realistically be met by the developers.

There used to be a time where you'd know generally that a console game would be released and would work without question. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of consoles basically becoming internet-connected computers is that the developers and publishers now treat them as things that can be released broken and in theory finished by the time they hit the market and then can be patched.

Yes, all my consoles can connect to the internet, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want them to have to - especially not in order to have my games work without bugs. They take advantage of consumers in this manner and it's damn annoying.

All of the other things mentioned in this thread aren't necessarily incorrect, but internet-connected consoles is the one thing that allowed this to proliferate to the point of ridiculousness. If they didn't make the assumption that users would be connecting their consoles to the internet to patch the game at launch, they'd have to actually release games that worked. This mentality astounds me, but I suppose they figure that the people they're pissing off are the die hard fans and no amount of frustration is going to drive them away from a franchise they love.

Hazy Arc
join:2006-04-10
Greenwood, SC

Hazy Arc

Member

That's an interesting point and one I had not considered fully. I attribute the rise in poor releases to the fact that publishers care about the bottom line more than they do about releasing a quality product, but your point that consoles are basically computers truly enables the publishers to continue with this cycle without (much) repercussion.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

bottom line watching is almost always the reason for shoddy product.

It gets worse in gaming because id imagine most investors do not know a damn thing about the games industry. They know this product makes shitloads of money and that is it.

Hazy Arc
join:2006-04-10
Greenwood, SC

Hazy Arc

Member

»www.engadget.com/2014/11 ··· runcated

I agree with every point.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

Since that mentioned AC-Unity... I have heard rumorings of youtube channels showing bugs in that game getting DMCA'd.

Not at all a surprise if true.

danawhitaker
Space...The Final Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-03-02
Thorndale, ON

danawhitaker

Premium Member

I definitely heard that for Call of Duty.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed to Hazy Arc

MVM

to Hazy Arc
One other issue is the screaming of the customers when a release misses its date. Back when a replacement for TEN (I believe the replacement was iRacing) and it missed the release date 2 times and the collective scream could be heard for days. Even the IT professionals in our racing league started talking about how many times they were lied to about the release dates and they did not want to race on their system because of it.

At some point the bad press on missing dates is worse than releasing the product with issues.

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix

Premium Member

said by CylonRed:

At some point the bad press on missing dates is worse than releasing the product with issues.

If they can't hit the release date and don't address it with a satisfying explanation, then I agree.

But look at Batman: Arkham Knight; Rocksteady Studios pushed the original release date back by 9 months! But they gave an explanation that the gaming community actually approved of, and lauded, because they aren't trying to rush out a game loaded with bugs, glitches, and a slew of other problems, they are trying to release a quality game that will exceed gamers' high expectations.
said by »kotaku.com/batman-arkham ··· 85288018 :

"Now Batman: Arkham Knight is totally awesome," Ginn told us in May, under embargo. "The thing about awesome, though, is awesome takes time. And totally awesome takes a lot of time. So in collaboration with our colleagues at Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and DC Comics, we have decided to extend the development time of Batman: Arkham Knight. Now, the very simple reason for doing this is to ensure we are delivering the awesome level of quality that Batman fans and gamers expect from this, the final episode and the epic conclusion to the Rocksteady Arkham trilogy. The Dark Knight will face his ultimate challenge in Batman: Arkham Knight now to be released in 2015."


CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

CylonRed

MVM

Depends on the gaming audience. I have seen too many reasonable explanations and the gamers poo poo the announcement as if they were part of the development team.

I find the average joe blow gamer will do the knee jerk reaction and act as if they were a developer on the project.

danawhitaker
Space...The Final Frontier
Premium Member
join:2002-03-02
Thorndale, ON

danawhitaker

Premium Member

said by CylonRed:

Depends on the gaming audience. I have seen too many reasonable explanations and the gamers poo poo the announcement as if they were part of the development team.

I find the average joe blow gamer will do the knee jerk reaction and act as if they were a developer on the project.

The difference now, though, between today and the early 2000s is that the developers now have the capacity to gamble that they can set a launch date and scramble to fix things between when something goes "gold" and when it hits the market by patching it at launch. That was never a real option before. Gamers could complain all they wanted in the past, but it wouldn't change the fact that game had to be finished before the discs were out on the market. I'd like to see that be a prohibited practice entirely. A game should be fully playable from Day 1 without connecting to the mothership in order to download critical updates.

journeysquid
join:2014-08-01

1 recommendation

journeysquid to Hazy Arc

Member

to Hazy Arc
Better late than never:

Ubisoft Apologizes For Assassin's Creed Unity With Free DLC

That being said, I found CoD: Advanced Warfare to be quite playable on the PS4, certainly not to the extent that AC Unity was so horribly broken.