Why Are So Many Video Games Broken At Launch?

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.

Overhype, the brainwashing, and yeah 7 out 10 people are fools! A fool will soon be parted with his moneys!
 
I have my eyes on Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition, but I'm very glad I've held off purchasing because of all the issues.
 
Preorder + digital content = suck it consumer. Happened to my friend who preordered colonial marines, and of course steam has no refund policy.

Which is the real issue. People can pre-order phones and get them when they come out. But if the phone is flawed, people will just return it back to the store for a full refund. Software has the inherent advantage that once they get your money there are no repercussions for them. You can cancel the pre-order at any time and also long as you haven't finished the purchase you can get your money back. Once you finalize the transaction then you're stuck with what you have.

I honestly don't understand it either why with software people are more likely to keep dealing with problems. As stated if people didn't put up with it the market would change quickly. I can't think of a restaurant where if I got food I didn't like they either took it off the bill, gave me some type of compensation, or gave me something else for free. You don't get that kind of customer service from game companies because no one seems to be forcing them to.
 
Games have always been broken on launch, this is nothing new, there are just a lot more outlets to complain about it these days.
No, not really, you go back 10-15 or more years if you bought a BRAND NEW game from a company that put a lot of money into it, you're going to have a game that can run well in the vast majority of situations. The farther back you go, the less companies could rely on patching as it wasn't a sure thing people would have internet access, let alone fast enough to download a real patch, so they kind of had to do it right (or give it their best effort) the first time. Sure, broken games still occurred, but you're looking at maybe 2% of games back then v. what, 60-70% of games now? Again, I'm talking DAY ONE, no patches.
 
I play many games only once. I want that one time to be enjoyable and hastle free.

So i wait until well after launch, frequently years; when the games are patched, the hardware is cheaper, nicer mods are available, drivers are optimized, and i can just enjoy it.
 
I play many games only once. I want that one time to be enjoyable and hastle free.

So i wait until well after launch, frequently years; when the games are patched, the hardware is cheaper, nicer mods are available, drivers are optimized, and i can just enjoy it.

Are you a wizard?
 
It's all driven by marketing. If you look at a lot of the major releases, they all fall during the month of November.... the prime shopping month for Christmas. Heck, even console releases have major patches at release time now.

Hey, if you want to be the beta tester and have the latest and greatest, pay the $60. I'll wait a year and get the same game at a much lower price.... with hopefully the bugs fixed.
 
I agree with pre ordering but I will pre order if the developer/publisher has allowed early review copies and extensive hands on.

DAI set the bar for me on how developers should interact with the customer. Ubisoft will never see full price from me until they change their practices.
 
I agree with pre ordering but I will pre order if the developer/publisher has allowed early review copies and extensive hands on.

DAI set the bar for me on how developers should interact with the customer. Ubisoft will never see full price from me until they change their practices.

Remember when we used to get demo's.
 
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.

Pretty much this. Managers who really have no clue about SDLC, and only know what they teach in six sigma class. Further do not have any connection with their staff who are actually running the project. They just see dollar signs and the completed project.

This makes me glad I didn't pursue development any further than I did. I wouldn't cut it.
 
Remember when we used to get demo's.
Demos say too much about a product, therefore it's too risky to release demos these days. It has the potential to flush down all the work that has been done to attain profit! :D
 
People just need to stop preordering videogames. My brother always does that but after getting the Halo Master Chief collection, he's finally convinced not to do that anymore.
 
With video games, I'll buy in batches but won't get any others until I go thru what I currently have. And I'm fine with that, I'm not about the hype and online play and all that.
 
I felt compelled to post... Warriors of Might and Magic. Terrible incomplete launch game =p.
 
People who preorder everything are the greatest cause of buggy games. Publishers know they have the money already, so there's no need to deliver a convincing product.
 
This has been a problem for decades, it just appears worse.

10% of 20 games released a year is 2 games, 10% of 4000 games released a year is 400. Now those numbers are completely made up, but the point is that we used to have an extremely small number of games released. So a few percent of the games being broke would have only equaled a small handful of games. Now we have a dozen or so a month that people might care about, so now you are seeing far more that appear to be broken, but percentage wise it could be exactly the same or close to the same.
 
This has been a problem for decades, it just appears worse.

10% of 20 games released a year is 2 games, 10% of 4000 games released a year is 400. Now those numbers are completely made up, but the point is that we used to have an extremely small number of games released. So a few percent of the games being broke would have only equaled a small handful of games. Now we have a dozen or so a month that people might care about, so now you are seeing far more that appear to be broken, but percentage wise it could be exactly the same or close to the same.

Yeah, but many of those games aren't AAA yearly titles. The games that are in the Top 5 titles of 2014 are broken.
How can games that have been planned and made for years are still broken at launch?

No one cares about making a great game, just one that sells.
 
Why are so many video games broken at launch?

Can you name a single game that doesn't have any kind of bug at all? The answer is no, not even pong or tennis for two were completely full proof. The reason for this is actually pretty long and probably isn't 'devs are lazy' but here we go

  1. Games are incredibly advanced pieces of software you will never finish developing a game unless you pick a point and say DONE.
  2. Development cycles are nowhere near long enough to accommodate today's games, by that same token they need to be profitable otherwise you will no longer be able to make them.
  3. People expect their hardware (Of which is 1 config of millions) to be 'fully' utilized while also remaining bug free, an impossibility
 
Why are so many video games broken at launch?

Can you name a single game that doesn't have any kind of bug at all? The answer is no, not even pong or tennis for two were completely full proof. The reason for this is actually pretty long and probably isn't 'devs are lazy' but here we go

  1. Games are incredibly advanced pieces of software you will never finish developing a game unless you pick a point and say DONE.
  2. Development cycles are nowhere near long enough to accommodate today's games, by that same token they need to be profitable otherwise you will no longer be able to make them.
  3. People expect their hardware (Of which is 1 config of millions) to be 'fully' utilized while also remaining bug free, an impossibility

I don't think we're talking about minor bugs here. We're talking about major issues such as those we saw in AC Unity. The game was no where near any point where one can reasonably say it's done. That game was broken even on the consoles, so excuse #3 doesn't apply either.

If they are limited on development time, then they should ensure that the scale of the game can fit within the time given rather than releasing an unfinished product.
 
Why are so many video games broken at launch?

Can you name a single game that doesn't have any kind of bug at all? The answer is no, not even pong or tennis for two were completely full proof. The reason for this is actually pretty long and probably isn't 'devs are lazy' but here we go

  1. Games are incredibly advanced pieces of software you will never finish developing a game unless you pick a point and say DONE.
  2. Development cycles are nowhere near long enough to accommodate today's games, by that same token they need to be profitable otherwise you will no longer be able to make them.
  3. People expect their hardware (Of which is 1 config of millions) to be 'fully' utilized while also remaining bug free, an impossibility
These explanations would make sense if this wasn't coming from a well-funded corporation with lots of experience making this type of game, with obvious game-breaking bugs that EVERYONE was going to encounter on day one. The only part of your argument that holds water is the development cycle obviously WAS too short, but you're talking like they're some indie developer barely getting by when they brought in 988 million in revenue last year and have already taken in 678 million this year BEFORE ACU / FC4 / Crew sales. Poor, poor Ubisoft, we should really give them a break.
 
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