We're Paying For Broken Games, And It's Unacceptable

T1125P said:
Nope I hit them where it hurts the most, I torrent the game like Assassin's Creed Unity for PC that game was and still is a mess. I won't pay for an unfinished beta sorrry. So in this way the devs are hurting not me.
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See that is 100% wrong. The devs aren't hurting and you are the scapegoat. You want to hurt them it'll actually take a sacrifice for you to do it. You and your pirate brethren need to NOT download, play or buy the game. No matter what these companies tell you the only thing they fear more than piracy is disinterest. If you pirate, they will tell everyone that people love the game and how it was released that they are willing to risk being sued to get it. But there is no way to spin we released a game, and no one wants it even for free on pirate websites.
 
That's going to be tough. There are always going to be people that will pirate the game no matter what happens.

LurkerLito said:
See that is 100% wrong. The devs aren't hurting and you are the scapegoat. You want to hurt them it'll actually take a sacrifice for you to do it. You and your pirate brethren need to NOT download, play or buy the game. No matter what these companies tell you the only thing they fear more than piracy is disinterest. If you pirate, they will tell everyone that people love the game and how it was released that they are willing to risk being sued to get it. But there is no way to spin we released a game, and no one wants it even for free on pirate websites.
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I complained about dragon age crashing to desktop and people responded that it is what I get for buying a game on day 1. It should work on day 1! At least the patch fixed most of the issues but those first few weeks were hell.
 
john doe 182 said:
The reason I never got in to PC gaming was because of having to update and configure shit. No big deal as there was consoles. Put the game in and you're playing in no time. Once the 360 and PS3 came out that changed. Once again you could have to update your console just to play a game. I never bought either of them and I'm happy for it. Gaming in it's shit state can die for all I care.
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And yet you feel the need to not only read this story but read and comment in the thread on it. I have no interest in astrology, but you also wont find me reading and commenting about it. lol!

Seriously though, while I could understand shying away from PC gaming in the DOS days, but that is no longer the case, but even so I'm sort of stunned that having a console to auto update it's OS and/or a game before playing it is a deal breaker for you.


temujin987 said:
yea, yea... just a lame excuse to pirate a game pretending to be lord justice, holiest of paladins. just don't buy the game and drop that retarded robin hood attitude.
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pcjunkie said:
Plus it doesn't give him/her any right to bitch about it one way or the other. You lose your gamers card. :)
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+1 to you both.
 
I stopped pre-ordering games, Call of Duty Ghosts and Battlefield 4 soured me on it, haven't bought Advanced Warfare and don't plan to get Hardline. Nothing really came out that is all that appeal right now.
 
the only day 1 release games worth getting are from Nintendo, everything else wait a few months for Steam/Origin sale
 
dgingeri said:
As games get more complex and have more features, they will have more problems at launch that a standard beta testing procedure won't find. It is something we can expect and we must tolerate. There will always be some problems with complex games. That's the price of putting in so much complexity.

Granted, some developers are doing this totally poorly, such as the latest Assassin's Creed. People need to just stop buying their stuff if they're going to release something without nearly enough testing. That is not tolerable.

(I'm having a hell of a time with a wireless access point right now because the configuration program, which only runs on iPhone, iPad, or some more recent, but not the most recent, Android devices, is one of those that wasn't properly tested. It only connects part of the time, and then times out when trying to program it. Obviously, it wasn't properly tested before release, or they knew about the issues and did nothing to correct them before release. Besides, what kind of idiot makes a wireless access point only programmable from smartphones, intentionally?)
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I'd sure ask in what way games have gotten more complex cause I don't see it. All that happens is changes in game engines and physics models.
 
T1125P said:
DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP, HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP, I EAT PAINT CHIPS!!!
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I bet you rarely buy any software if ever.

People like you are the ones MOANING about games like Elite Dangerous needing a net connection, cause you cannot pirate it easily without running a host server on your machine/network.

Please fuck off with the pirate shit.
 
kbrickley said:
How would you enforce such a rule? Also, what is the bar of "function"? Can we define the minimum or recommended requirements as a contractual requirement with the user? (If you don't meet the exact requirements they specify then you have no legal complaint) ... if the bar is raised to that level it would only encourage developers to do something that gamers really hate (write games for specific hardware manufacturers only ... game requires Intel and NVidia to work, etc) ;)
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You enforce it by fining the shit out of a company that releases a product update, patch, hotfix, anything, within six months of release of the core product. Simple, once they say it's good enough to buy and play that's it, a freeze for six months. Said product will then have to survive on it's own original merits for six months or it's a wash and a big loss. At that point companies will have to step up and produce reasonably bug free products or they aren't going to last long in the business.

As for a bar of "function", no need, if the damn thing isn't reasonably playable the customers will see it dead soon enough knowing it'll be six months before a fix will be available. Put the developers in the hot seat, make them do it right.
 
Devs want the penalty for copyright infringement to be as severe as if you stole a physical, tangible good. They also wish not to be held liable to lemon laws because they're producing an intangible product.
We need a line somewhere in the middle holding both devs and pirates accountable.
If you want a kid's parent to pay a $10k fine for pirating your software, as consumers we should be allowed to send it back for a full cash refund, not some BS certificate good towards your next purchase of their product.
Could you imagine (this is strictly an example, trolling not intended) MS giving full retail reimbursements for every Windows 8 pc sold due to the number of people that just couldn't stand it at release? Talk about a game changer.
 
TIL: Non programmers talking about bugs. sure there is a lot of useful info here
 
lcpiper said:
You enforce it by fining the shit out of a company that releases a product update, patch, hotfix, anything, within six months of release of the core product. Simple, once they say it's good enough to buy and play that's it, a freeze for six months. Said product will then have to survive on it's own original merits for six months or it's a wash and a big loss. At that point companies will have to step up and produce reasonably bug free products or they aren't going to last long in the business.

As for a bar of "function", no need, if the damn thing isn't reasonably playable the customers will see it dead soon enough knowing it'll be six months before a fix will be available. Put the developers in the hot seat, make them do it right.
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The problem with this is that it takes the responsibility away from the user and puts the government into the role of arbiter between the developer and the user ... the right solution (as many have suggested) is for users to wait to buy software until they need it or are sure it is ready ... as many others have suggested we should hold console developers to a higher bar than PC developers (consoles are fairly stable and have fewer variations) ... PCs have too many variations to realistically be totally bug free

As to the folks who complain about DLC or add-ins they should speak with their dollars ... buy games that are complete or only release DLC as intact expansions ... users should never pirate software as a protest except in one very narrow context (they have bought a legal copy but the DLC is preventing them from playing the game)
 
lcpiper said:
You enforce it by fining the shit out of a company that releases a product update, patch, hotfix, anything, within six months of release of the core product. Simple, once they say it's good enough to buy and play that's it, a freeze for six months. Said product will then have to survive on it's own original merits for six months or it's a wash and a big loss. At that point companies will have to step up and produce reasonably bug free products or they aren't going to last long in the business.

As for a bar of "function", no need, if the damn thing isn't reasonably playable the customers will see it dead soon enough knowing it'll be six months before a fix will be available. Put the developers in the hot seat, make them do it right.
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Now that would work for consoles, but no way it would ever work for a pc. I can't even begin to count how many times MS released an update that broke a game or a driver a game relied on.
If MS and Sony both put games through their own qc tests, then found a game broken or buggy, then slapped the dev with a 6 month hold before the game could be resubmitted it could curb the shit we've been forced to accept on consoles.
Again.
One console.
One OS.
One hardware configuration.
No excuses.
 
I don't understand the problem. In the U.K. the Sale of Goods Act applies to digital sales just as much as physical ones and specifies that goods must be of merchantable quality and fit for the purpose. If it doesn't work, you get a refund. Don't other countries have similar laws?
 
They should pass a law, something like cigarette pack warnings.

Every commercial, boxed and or downloadable game must carry a big warning label, that the game may have serous bugs that make it unplayable on day one.
 
Spewn said:
The solution is...stop paying for broken games? If you're not patient enough to wait a week or two after launch to find out if the game actually functions, well, enjoy your broken games I guess.
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I preordered Civilization Beyond Earth. This is the first and last game I ever pre order.
 
kbrickley said:
Although it can be abused by certain companies, I think it is ultimately a no win situation for developers ... they can try to hit arbitrary release dates (and release with bugs) or they can delay until the product is bug free (and miss launch windows or piss off customers because of the delays)
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I keep hearing this over and over, as if its one or the other. Scotty has been teaching us good customer service since the 1960s. Underpromise and overdeliver.

If you think its going to take 6 hours, you tell the captain 12 hours, then if you deliver in 6 hours you're a miracle worker. If it takes 9 hours, you're still high fiving the crew. If it takes 12 hours, the captain still isn't mad at you as you finished just in time.

Scotty never promised 12 hours and then told the captain either it'll actually take 24 hours because of unforeseen circumstances, or he could cut corners and the Enterprise would run like shit in 12 hours and he'd fix the rest of the stuff later.
 
Ducman69 said:
I keep hearing this over and over, as if its one or the other. Scotty has been teaching us good customer service since the 1960s. Underpromise and overdeliver.

If you think its going to take 6 hours, you tell the captain 12 hours, then if you deliver in 6 hours you're a miracle worker. If it takes 9 hours, you're still high fiving the crew. If it takes 12 hours, the captain still isn't mad at you as you finished just in time.

Scotty never promised 12 hours and then told the captain either it'll actually take 24 hours because of unforeseen circumstances, or he could cut corners and the Enterprise would run like shit in 12 hours and he'd fix the rest of the stuff later.
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This works fine when it is the programmer's money ... since many games use Other People's Money then the other people get a say in how it is spent (and when) ... if our ultimate goal is bug free software the easiest way would be to outsource it even more to low income but technically savvy countries, like China, where you can hire an army of programmers and testers for virtually nothing ... this would improve the quality of the software without adding excessive pressure to the company revenues or profit

Ironically, although many here dislike it, I think Kickstarter is actually starting to help here ... there is a large pool of interested beta testers available and most of the sponsors are forgiving on the schedule since the excellent communication between the developer and user is allowing a higher level of trust on quality and features
 
Ducman69 said:
I keep hearing this over and over, as if its one or the other. Scotty has been teaching us good customer service since the 1960s. Underpromise and overdeliver.

If you think its going to take 6 hours, you tell the captain 12 hours, then if you deliver in 6 hours you're a miracle worker. If it takes 9 hours, you're still high fiving the crew. If it takes 12 hours, the captain still isn't mad at you as you finished just in time.

Scotty never promised 12 hours and then told the captain either it'll actually take 24 hours because of unforeseen circumstances, or he could cut corners and the Enterprise would run like shit in 12 hours and he'd fix the rest of the stuff later.
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This is exactly how it should be. If developers would only start to seriously promote the game once they knew a very good stable release was ready, then they wouldn't need to worry about criticism for releasing an on time terrible game instead of nicely polished game that is still on time because the time was never set beforehand.
 
I don't think you guys understand the realities of running a business. Do you find it surprising when yet another software developer gets bought up and/or shut down?

For them to exist they have to make money. To make money they have to produce a product. To produce a product they have to have a development budget. To have this budget someone has to front the money. To front the money these people want to know when/how they are going to get it back. As in deadlines, goals that are kept.

Add to the equation customers. You have to please the customers. Most of the customers are on consoles. You have to be competitive with other similar games on the consoles. Meaning graphics, gameplay and so forth. You have a limited development budget, and you have to spend it where it will do the most good, and again that is going to be consoles.

Development is not a linear process. I have been there plenty of times where when you start out on a project you just have no fucking clue how long it is going to take. You try to estimate as best you can, but then when you are working with different libraries and engines and assets, well unexpected shit always happens. You have to make everything work together and fix incompatibilities and chase down obscure bugs. PC hardware? Ain't nobody got time for that.

The intent cannot be to produce a perfect game, and it is not possible because at release people will do unanticipated things and break the game in various ways. It just happens. So before release all the bugs are categorized by severity, show stoppers or not. All the effort is placed into fixing the show stoppers, and the rest will get fixed in a day-one or later patch.

It sucks but that is the way it has to be to maintain a business. CD Project and Valve are the exceptions. They have their storefronts so they get the freedom to do whatever they want in producing a product.
 
jiminator said:
I don't think you guys understand the realities of running a business.
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I don't think you understand. I don't want business in my pleasure, or science, or government, or my personal life. Those things always come second and the excuse is always "but that's business". Fuck that.
 
lilbabycat said:
I don't think you understand. I don't want business in my pleasure, or science, or government, or my personal life. Those things always come second and the excuse is always "but that's business". Fuck that.
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then play indie games where "two buddies put together something in their spare time".

The big games cost millions to make and investment recovery (short/long term) is always going to be "the priority".
 
Steam has been selling early access games for months now.. Half of these games never finish and you don't get refunded. Gamers can't control themselves this is why these companies do this.
 
jiminator said:
I don't think you guys understand the realities of running a business. Do you find it surprising when yet another software developer gets bought up and/or shut down?

For them to exist they have to make money. To make money they have to produce a product. To produce a product they have to have a development budget. To have this budget someone has to front the money. To front the money these people want to know when/how they are going to get it back. As in deadlines, goals that are kept.

Add to the equation customers. You have to please the customers. Most of the customers are on consoles. You have to be competitive with other similar games on the consoles. Meaning graphics, gameplay and so forth. You have a limited development budget, and you have to spend it where it will do the most good, and again that is going to be consoles.

Development is not a linear process. I have been there plenty of times where when you start out on a project you just have no fucking clue how long it is going to take. You try to estimate as best you can, but then when you are working with different libraries and engines and assets, well unexpected shit always happens. You have to make everything work together and fix incompatibilities and chase down obscure bugs. PC hardware? Ain't nobody got time for that.

The intent cannot be to produce a perfect game, and it is not possible because at release people will do unanticipated things and break the game in various ways. It just happens. So before release all the bugs are categorized by severity, show stoppers or not. All the effort is placed into fixing the show stoppers, and the rest will get fixed in a day-one or later patch.

It sucks but that is the way it has to be to maintain a business. CD Project and Valve are the exceptions. They have their storefronts so they get the freedom to do whatever they want in producing a product.
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This argument only holds water when things have SCREWED UP. When the time planning was totally unrealistic, there were WAY more bugs than usual, important people quit, etc. The AAA companies releasing games are not barely getting by, they're powerhouses with hundreds of millions of funding behind them. They operate this way because it's more profitable to run things at the edge and work people harder than it is to use your resources to have things operate at a saner pace or smaller scale.

What we're seeing here is another form of race to the bottom. Because SOME studios have been able to pull off miracles with development in a tight amount of time, management assumes ALL can and adjusts accordingly. The people in charge often don't give a shit about games. They're beholden to shareholder interests, who want ever-increasing profit from quarter to quarter or year to year. Taking extra time for a quality game that will have a better shelf life over time is simply not how these people think. It's only about maximizing profits in the short term. Big budget games are going to continue being broken at launch for a long time. The only variable is HOW broken. It needs to be broken enough so that it's still profitable to do it this way, but not SO broken that it hurts profits.

Even boycotting won't do anything. People who make careful decisions about purchasing games are in a small minority. Even if a boycott is successful, it would have to be associated BECAUSE of bugs, and the execs would have to get the message. It's a fine line. Alien Colonial Marines and Assassin's Creed Unity hurt profits as they had a few too many bugs. Diablo 3 and Sim City were broken on launch and had insanely good profits. Enjoy broken games, it's the way of the future.
 
tetris42 said:
This argument only holds water when things have SCREWED UP. When the time planning was totally unrealistic, there were WAY more bugs than usual, important people quit, etc. The AAA companies releasing games are not barely getting by, they're powerhouses with hundreds of millions of funding behind them. They operate this way because it's more profitable to run things at the edge and work people harder than it is to use your resources to have things operate at a saner pace or smaller scale.

What we're seeing here is another form of race to the bottom. Because SOME studios have been able to pull off miracles with development in a tight amount of time, management assumes ALL can and adjusts accordingly. The people in charge often don't give a shit about games. They're beholden to shareholder interests, who want ever-increasing profit from quarter to quarter or year to year. Taking extra time for a quality game that will have a better shelf life over time is simply not how these people think. It's only about maximizing profits in the short term. Big budget games are going to continue being broken at launch for a long time. The only variable is HOW broken. It needs to be broken enough so that it's still profitable to do it this way, but not SO broken that it hurts profits.

Even boycotting won't do anything. People who make careful decisions about purchasing games are in a small minority. Even if a boycott is successful, it would have to be associated BECAUSE of bugs, and the execs would have to get the message. It's a fine line. Alien Colonial Marines and Assassin's Creed Unity hurt profits as they had a few too many bugs. Diablo 3 and Sim City were broken on launch and had insanely good profits. Enjoy broken games, it's the way of the future.
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QFT
 
Wait a minute, I can understand when this happens when there is a brand spanking new engine involved and no I don't mean how Activision's devs call each CoD revision a new engine.....

But when you're using the same old same old engine and the same devs, you should be able to knock this out each year with minimum bugs, not to mention game ending bugs as we've seen lately.

How about they cut back on all the assistant, assistant - assistant producers and assistant, assistant - assistant managers, trips to rerecord the same sounds and textures again and again and again, and add a few more devs working on the product.
 
Ripperjack's 3 universal laws for purchasing Video games.

1. Assume ALL games are shovelware SHIT, until you get to play the game for yourself. Reviews are unreliable and biased, reviewers can be bought off (aka Gamersgate) and the hype train will always taint ones perception of the game. Only trust your own judgement!

2. Beware early release games and kick-starter campaigns. All these do is promise the world and you end up with a montage of broken code, empty pledges and outright lies. Wait until the game is retail (Not early access) released and see rule 1.

3. The quality of the game is typically diametrically opposed to the hype, media coverage, pre-order bonuses offered before the game is launched. If a distributor has to flog a game THAT hard in the media, you have to ask yourself... "What are they trying to hide?"

Don't become a victim! This stands true for video games today, more so than ever before...

Caveat emptor

Let the buyer beware!
 
Also... I'll just leave this here.'

af9f21359130dad0cb50d184b56dddfa-how-buying-videogames-is-different-from-buying-everything-else.jpg
 
Stop pre-ordering and stop buying games the second they come out. Wait for the first wave of reviews to tell you if the game is buggy.

That's what I've been doing for the last few years. It's working out well. By the time they fix all the bugs the game has such a bad reputation that I can generally scoop it up for $5-$20.
 
webdev511 said:
I almost NEVER buy games on launch day or even launch month/quarter. I'll let someone else pay the $60 premium price and do all the beta testing before I think about jumping in at $30 or less.
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Same, its a win win when you have patience! My cousin paid $60 for Far Cry 4 on launch day, game was horribly bugged for him. 2 weeks later it has a lot of that fixed and you can find it for half that price.
 
Rule#1 - No matter what the game is be patient and wait for it to hit the bargain bin.
Its the only way to ensure game development has Finished
 
kbrickley said:
This works fine when it is the programmer's money ... since many games use Other People's Money then the other people get a say in how it is spent (and when) ... if our ultimate goal is bug free software the easiest way would be to outsource it even more to low income but technically savvy countries, like China, where you can hire an army of programmers and testers for virtually nothing ... this would improve the quality of the software without adding excessive pressure to the company revenues or profit

Ironically, although many here dislike it, I think Kickstarter is actually starting to help here ... there is a large pool of interested beta testers available and most of the sponsors are forgiving on the schedule since the excellent communication between the developer and user is allowing a higher level of trust on quality and features
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Actually, no. Outsourcing is actually a big source of terrible code bugs. Outsources don't care about the code maintainability, because they charge by the hour and half the time they probably won't need to maintain it anyway. Overseas outsourcing companies hire people who sometimes have no idea what they're doing because they pay absolute rock-bottom wages (all the good Indian programmers work for Indian software companies, not outsourcers). They employ one good guy for the initial meetings and stick you with a bunch of idiots for the actual project.

This is just my experience working with Indian outsourced programmers, feel free to add yours if you've got any first-hand experience yourself.
 
Is a day one patch really that big of a deal? Would you guys rather not have it and be stuck with the game as-launched?

It would be great if games worked perfectly out of the box, but that's just not going to happen. You're either going to have to get over it or wait a couple weeks before buying the game. Speak with your wallet. It's literally the only thing that makes a difference.

I remember buying plenty of PC games in the early '90s that had terrible, game-breaking bugs. And there were no patches. You either found a workaround or you were fucked. At least these days we have patches.

lcpiper said:
What if a publisher/developer is not allowed to patch a product for the first 6 months from the date of release?

If their product doesn't function within reasonable limits it's dead, and it's going to die fast too. Six months is an eternity in the gaming world.
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Worst idea ever.
 
I have a problem with people blaming the devs for releasing crap. The reason they release crap is because people pay for crap! If there was no market for half-finished games, nobody would be making half-finished games.

We live in a supply and demand world. There will only ever be a supply if there is demand for something. When someone pre-orders a game, they're paying a dev for only a vague notion of an end product, versus buying a game after it's been released, where you know exactly what you're getting.

If I'm going to blame a dev for anything, it's over-promising and under-delivering. But this whole "broken on release day" snafu is entirely due to the gullibility of gamers to gladly support the devs who release those games.
 
So many people going off about pirates.. Just stating my case here but I pirated skyrim to see how well it would run on my pc, found out it works good and better then expected, now I have a physical game disc I bought because of it. Just saying that some people legitimately do download to test it first.

Or another case, BF4 when it was free for a bit. Downloaded it to try it, hated it so I deleted it. Would have been PISSED if I spent all that money on it and it be the same case.
 
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