Why Are So Many Video Games Broken At Launch?

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Why are so many video games broken at launch? Because consumers put up with it. Maybe these companies would pay attention if people started voting with their wallets.

Even after installing Ubisoft's "day one" patch, we encountered extreme drops in frame rate -- read: low teens -- and main story missions with broken objectives (forcing a manual reset). The game's developer/publisher went as far as to create a live update website to keep owners updated on Unity's ongoing patch work. Some folks are experiencing outright game crashes, and Ubisoft has a totally insane fix that involves deleting your list of in-game contacts. To illustrate how insane this is, allow me to point out that this year's Assassin's Creed is being sold on the hook of online, multiplayer co-op play.
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Shortened development life cycles: The devs get pushed too hard to meet a release date, instead of releasing when it's ready.
No QA: Why waste money on QA when you can just patch bugs as the beta testers (pre order tards) find them. Also you can't QA a product that isn't ready until days before release.
Internet: It's too easy for them to just patch it later. Back before the web, if you released a game with a bug, there was no fix. So they made sure to do adequate testing before release.
Money: It all boils down to shitty companies trying to spew out shit as fast as possible, while cuttings costs wherever possible. And stupid fucking people keep buying it all up, so the companies never suffer the consequences.
 
Just a theory but these game companies want us to buy console games. If they make the PC versions buggy enough, they are hoping we give up on PC gaming. That way, they are only developing for one platform -- the consoles.
 
amddragonpc said:
Just a theory but these game companies want us to buy console games. If they make the PC versions buggy enough, they are hoping we give up on PC gaming. That way, they are only developing for one platform -- the consoles.
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Unity is a bad example of this because it also runs pretty horribly on consoles from what I've heard.
 
amddragonpc said:
Just a theory but these game companies want us to buy console games. If they make the PC versions buggy enough, they are hoping we give up on PC gaming. That way, they are only developing for one platform -- the consoles.
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The article talks about both being broken. I think the reliance on updating besides minor patching is getting ridiculous.
 
It used to be a lot worse with PC games before digital distribution. Games (sold in retail boxes) with showstopper bugs that forced you to scrounge online for a patch.

No, it's still no acceptable. But I'm a lot softer on games that fail on launch because of online issues. (Diablo III)
 
Biznatch said:
Shortened development life cycles: The devs get pushed too hard to meet a release date, instead of releasing when it's ready.
No QA: Why waste money on QA when you can just patch bugs as the beta testers (pre order tards) find them. Also you can't QA a product that isn't ready until days before release.
Internet: It's too easy for them to just patch it later. Back before the web, if you released a game with a bug, there was no fix. So they made sure to do adequate testing before release.
Money: It all boils down to shitty companies trying to spew out shit as fast as possible, while cuttings costs wherever possible. And stupid fucking people keep buying it all up, so the companies never suffer the consequences.
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Agree with all of this. The big one, in my opinion, is how much money is poured into marketing generating the hype train for the pre-order culture. If they shifted just 10% of the marketing budget back into QA and be willing to push a release date back, it could do a lot for the state of AAA games being released in the current climate.

And stop treating your customers like idiots!
 
TheToE! said:
Because there is no incentive for their game to work at launch. Many people pre-order/pre-purchase the game. They've already got your money! They don't care at that point. STOP PRE-ORDERING SHIT!
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Not just pre-orders but also those who buuy games day one before any reviews are out as well.
 
Stop all the pre-orders and wait a few weeks for a proper review. Even then if the game seems bad then don't buy it. The practice of rushing games has to stop.
 
I don't preorder games, and I don't buy Ubisoft games. That takes away about 98% of gaming frustrations on my end.
 
Companies will deliver the lowest possible quality that people will still blindly buy without research.
 
Look at FC4 for an example:

1: The game is technically a hacked 32-bit .exe with the ability to use >4GB Address Space. All the dependencies are 32-bit DLLs. The game was NOT properly compiled against Win64.

2: The game forces a key thread to core 3. Aside from this artificially forcing quad core CPUs, this also kills performance on Intel chips with HTT, as Core 3 is a HTT core, and not a physical core. Nevermind the possibility some other "smart" [/sarcasm] programmer came up with the same exact idea, and core 3 is already being heavily used by some other task...

So yeah, I now have no faith whatsoever in Ubisoft. They broke two key programming rules: Never mix and match 32 and 64 bit, and never lock threads to specific cores. It's no shock their games are horrid if this is considered correct programming practice.
 
Easy answer - because people buy the broken games at launch.

Hard answer - because people by the broken games at launch.

There is no incentive to release a better product and spend more money and time on it - it has no bearing on sales. It just increases costs which lower profits. They are going to sell a ton of them right out of the gate, broken or not. It makes no financial sense to waste more money fixing it. It is a good thing to fix it, but these companies aren't in the business of doing good and making games work - they are in the business of selling games. Which they do very well.

I know my money isn't being spent on broken games. I know there are others that aren't spending money on broken games. But, the huge majority of gamers want it - broken or not.
 
The core 3 lock makes sense on a more closed system like... a console... with 8 cores.
 
gamerk2 said:
2: The game forces a key thread to core 3. Aside from this artificially forcing quad core CPUs, this also kills performance on Intel chips with HTT, as Core 3 is a HTT core, and not a physical core. Nevermind the possibility some other "smart" [/sarcasm] programmer came up with the same exact idea, and core 3 is already being heavily used by some other task...
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I really don't want to derail the thread, so hopefully this is an easy answer: Is there a place that shows this? Doesn't have to be specific to FC4. Even if it's Folding@Home or something - is there a way to assign the thread to certain cores and measure the performance compared to the others? I'd like to see how big of a difference there is.

Also, is there a way to assign it to a separate core, but tell it to use a physical core (if it can tell via software)?

More of a software question in general, not specific to this thread, but since you brought it up! :) Just out of general curiosity, really.
 
I still blame consoles for all of this. devs got lazy, release all kinds of crap because the idiots with consoles will buy anything and when they realize it sucks they can then trade it in.
 
While I definitely agree that more games (especially AAA titles) are broken at launch than has been true historically, I remember games like Daggerfall being _totally_ broken at launch and not even playable until after months of patches. So releasing broken games isn't a new thing - just more common now.
 
I haven't bought a game this year because of this kind of stuff. Until a majority of gamers do the same, things are only going to get worse.
 
How about games being cheaper at release, and gaining value add they are patched to working condition? :D


percydaman said:
I don't preorder games, and I don't buy Ubisoft games. That takes away about 98% of gaming frustrations on my end.
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+1 !
 
amddragonpc said:
Just a theory but these game companies want us to buy console games. If they make the PC versions buggy enough, they are hoping we give up on PC gaming. That way, they are only developing for one platform -- the consoles.
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Hardly. Console versions of games are just as bad. Even the pure console only titles have game breaking bugs and massive day one patches. the Halo Masterchief Collection is a great example of this. Assassin's Creed Unity is laughably bad on all platforms.

The day one patches and broken games are a fact of life because the customer base tolerates them. This allows developers and publishers to cut short the development cycle and perform break/fix patches on the game after they've raked in tons of money.
 
I read an article awhile back that said almost half of a games budget is used to advertise/HYPE the game before its release. What if they spent 80-90% on the game itself and let gamers advertise it for you through word of mouth or social media? O wait, then you wouldn't have a sure fire return on the investment.
 
Simple.

Game devs are often understaffed, and rush for deadlines whether they are done or not.

Add to that, with near infinite numbers of hardware combinations, you simply can't test everything.

The days of John Carmack's "When it's done" are long gone. Instead early buyers are used as testers to some extent.

And let's face it. They aren't developing software to control heart-lung machines. If there are bugs on launch, people will survive.

The fact that this is so rampant means that they can get away with it. If only one studio were doing it, they'd get hammered for it, but since it's just about every studio out there...
 
I find the kickstarter and crowd funded games with early access to be more satisfying. In most cases, the alpha versions of those are less buggie than the final versions of the big name publishers ie EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Blizzard, etc. Besides that, the indie developers actually listen to the suggestions and critiques of the games and are quick to make necessary changes or explain why something needs to be as it is. It has been a while since any of the big name companies has gotten any of my gaming money.
 
I remember when one of the team members of the assasin's creed series dropped out because he felt that #3 was too quick, and that #4 was right behind it.

From all this bad press, I am staying FAR away from Unity. I was planning on buying it or getting it for xmas, but I might not buy it at all. Its ridiculous that these shortened life cycles are producing these kind of buggy conceptions of what's supposed to represent this series. I wish Ubisoft was reading this, and would have given this game another 6 months to be worked on and finalized.
 
Biznatch said:
Shortened development life cycles: The devs get pushed too hard to meet a release date, instead of releasing when it's ready.
No QA: Why waste money on QA when you can just patch bugs as the beta testers (pre order tards) find them. Also you can't QA a product that isn't ready until days before release.
Internet: It's too easy for them to just patch it later. Back before the web, if you released a game with a bug, there was no fix. So they made sure to do adequate testing before release.
Money: It all boils down to shitty companies trying to spew out shit as fast as possible, while cuttings costs wherever possible. And stupid fucking people keep buying it all up, so the companies never suffer the consequences.
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It really all does come down to money.

The fact of the matter is, a game which is released November through Mid December will sell better than releasing January or February, even if it's buggier than the Jan./Feb. release. And the publishers know this.

And it's not like the developers don't want extra time. They don't get much of a say in the matter, and their livelihoods are on the line. I don't understand the business aspect (and don't work in it), but if they don't meet a deadline, I'm sure there are consequences of a breach of contract. The issue here though is that someone who has nothing/very little to do with the game is the one making the promise of the deadline. Oh, and they also get to decide on the features. And there's the general rule of thumb that when giving a time estimate of how long something will take place, always double it, as something will go wrong that you didn't think about. Except the money people know you will double it, so they'll give you 1/4 of whatever you ask for.
 
Shroud of the Avatar is a good example of a game that developers care about and are taking their time with, doing their best to please the community, and that will not be released until "it is done". It is the only game I have backed on Kickstarter.

The last game I pre-ordered was Dark Souls 2, and it was perfect.
 
Because sheeple? Pretty sure it's because they realized people will not speak with their wallets. You give them a turd and they will pay for it still time and time again, before you even shit it out!
 
Long story shirt majority of this nation are just followers who can't think for themselves
 
Simply put: Pre-Orders. Pre-Ordering is why the industry has changed. Instead of waiting for the game to be released, or waiting for reputable reviews to tell them that the game is an un-optimized, rushed, flaming, pile of crap, consumers are putting their money in these companies wallets before the damn thing is even out. Not to mention, this also causes companies to rush games out without even proper testing an development.
 
Games have always been broken on launch, this is nothing new, there are just a lot more outlets to complain about it these days.
 
Preorder + digital content = suck it consumer. Happened to my friend who preordered colonial marines, and of course steam has no refund policy.
 
Saturn_V said:
It used to be a lot worse with PC games before digital distribution. Games (sold in retail boxes) with showstopper bugs that forced you to scrounge online for a patch.

No, it's still no acceptable. But I'm a lot softer on games that fail on launch because of online issues. (Diablo III)
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i'm old enough to remember the old days of scrounging around on the internet for patches. yeah it happened and it was awful. i remember when i was much younger and got privateer 2 when it first came out...the version i had would crash constantly, it was awful. made the game nearly unplayable. eventually found a patch and fixed it.

but i'm getting off topic here. remembering what it was like, i'd have to say that new games have similar problems, but it seems far more common. there seems to be a real attitude of 'release now, patch later' simply because we have all the digital distribution, etc. that doesn't make it acceptable.
 
Mezner said:
Simply put: Pre-Orders. Pre-Ordering is why the industry has changed. Instead of waiting for the game to be released, or waiting for reputable reviews to tell them that the game is an un-optimized, rushed, flaming, pile of crap, consumers are putting their money in these companies wallets before the damn thing is even out. Not to mention, this also causes companies to rush games out without even proper testing an development.
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A good exception to the rushing part - Duke Nukem Forever. You saw receipts from 2000 (or earlier) for pre-orders. They weren't in a rush with that game. Still agree with the "flaming, pile of crap" part. The game isn't horrible, but it's not good either. Could be any game out there, it was nothing special. Standard, cookie cutter FPS.
 
Armenius said:
Agree with all of this. The big one, in my opinion, is how much money is poured into marketing generating the hype train for the pre-order culture. If they shifted just 10% of the marketing budget back into QA and be willing to push a release date back, it could do a lot for the state of AAA games being released in the current climate.

And stop treating your customers like idiots!
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From what I have experienced, most QA/Testers get paid in the $10 - 12.50/hour range but are supplemented by the massive amounts of overtime due to what the OP of your quote laid out; deadlines. If publishers had a reason to care (ie higher salaries, declining sales, etc.) they would slow the process and let the dev team work. Instead they rely on marketing (which is obviously working... someone once said 7 out of 10 people are fools), and have created one of the most toxic work environments known to western civ.
 
I would also attribute it to the internet changing us as people and a society as well
 
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