Day-One Patches Are The New Normal

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I like how this person says that day one patches are the new normal and then tells you to "deal with it." Personally I think the reason we have insane 40GB day one patches is because, as consumers, we've put up with it instead of voting with our wallets. There is no reason for broken games at launch yet it happens all the time. It may be part of the "modern game development process" but it doesn't have to be. :(

A day-one patch is not a sign that the developers are trying to pull a fast one on players or that they snuck an unfinished game through certification. Sure, it seems like some games simply aren't done when they hit consoles -- we're looking at you, Assassin's Creed Unity -- and those are worthy of our ire, especially if we've just dropped $60 on a supposedly AAA experience. However, day-one patches on their own are not sinister. They're simply part of the modern game development process.
 
Stuff like this is why I don't pre-order anymore. That being said, as long as the day-one patch fixes the game I am okay with it. If the game comes with a day-one patch and it is still broken, then I have a problem.
 
He talks about the fact that getting the game thru the approval for consoles takes a long time and then makes excuse that is extra time to 'add content and fix stuff'. So the excuse is that it is ok for day 1 patches is that it wasn't finished when submitted for console certification. <<< Bingo. So in the end it is a straw man for not having a completed game and needing a Day 1 Game rework. err Patch.
 
Shmee said:
Stuff like this is why I don't pre-order anymore. That being said, as long as the day-one patch fixes the game I am okay with it. If the game comes with a day-one patch and it is still broken, then I have a problem.
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Exactly. I don't mind a day-one patch if the game runs smoothly.

And to second your PSA: Don't pre-order games. Just don't.
 
One of the final steps before a game is released needs to be having senior management + board of directors install and play the game over a network connection throttled to simulate a 3mb connection. Then simulate the 'Day One Patch' install process over the same connection. After management and directors have to spend hours or days of their time installing then patching the candidate game release and the developers have the answer the WTF comments from the imperious leaders, the next release candidate will likely have far fewer problems and a much smaller day one patch.
 
Krixon said:
And to second your PSA: Don't pre-order games. Just don't.
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You're going against human nature though. This will never get better because of that. For everyone that says don't preorder games, how many of them will be hypocrites, and still preorder the game, because of a "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality?
 
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Nytegard said:
Your going against human nature though. This will never get better because of that. For everyone that says don't preorder games, how many of them will be hypocrites, and still preorder the game, because of a "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality?
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Speaking for myself, I can't remember the last game that I preordered.
 
Nytegard said:
Your going against human nature though. This will never get better because of that. For everyone that says don't preorder games, how many of them will be hypocrites, and still preorder the game, because of a "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality?
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I cannot speak to the resolve of those who say not to pre-order, but I haven't done so since I was screwed out of a pre-order copy of GTA3 for the PSP back when I was in college. I do wish everyone would do the same, but fully doubt that this practice will ever end.
 
Krixon said:
Exactly. I don't mind a day-one patch if the game runs smoothly.

And to second your PSA: Don't pre-order games. Just don't.
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I am going to disagree with you here. If I am going to buy the game day one then why not preorder the game and have it fully downloaded and ready to play at release instead of trying to download it at the same time as everyone that buys it same day? Plus I can get a free thing normally for preorder.

now I don't think you should preorder months in advanced, but if you are going to buy a game day one regardless might as well buy it a week early.
 
As a developer, the ability to keep the game up-to-date and fix bugs and polish the product up until the literal day it releases is priceless.

The idea is great, you can keep developing the game and bring the retail release forward without compromising the quality of the final day-1 product. In the past, once a product goes gold, it goes through weeks, if not months, of packaging and distribution. With the safety net of a patching system, you can keep developing the product until the day it releases: allowing you to A: release the product earlier than traditionally possible or B: fix far more issues/apply polish than traditionally possible. Win/Win.

Think of it like this: would you rather play it today with a big D1P or in two months without?

Exavior said:
I am going to disagree with you here. If I am going to buy the game day one then why not preorder the game and have it fully downloaded and ready to play at release instead of trying to download it at the same time as everyone that buys it same day? Plus I can get a free thing normally for preorder.

now I don't think you should preorder months in advanced, but if you are going to buy a game day one regardless might as well buy it a week early.
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Pre-order and day-one purchase culture is what enables publishers and developers to take a backed-up shit, put the excrement into a DVD case and sell it to you without refunds. You already paid for it, and chose not to wait for reviews, so now the dev has your money while they work on another constipated turd.

Don't pre-order, and Don't day-1 buy. Wait for reviews. I was actually REALLY excited for DOOM, but I waited for the reviews. I was REALLY excited for SIM City. But I waited for the reviews. In both situations, I won.
 
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Why do developers do this? Simple reason.

Because they can.

This all started when consoles started coming with HDD's by default. PC's of course always had them but this day 1 patch shit did not exist till consoles could be updated.
 
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Exavior said:
I am going to disagree with you here. If I am going to buy the game day one then why not preorder the game and have it fully downloaded and ready to play at release instead of trying to download it at the same time as everyone that buys it same day? Plus I can get a free thing normally for preorder.

now I don't think you should preorder months in advanced, but if you are going to buy a game day one regardless might as well buy it a week early.
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A majority of those free extras amount to useless skins and bonus weapons. Regardless if you care whether or not you're supporting a shady business tactic (like posters above stated), you're also potentially screwing yourself by purchasing a game that could very-well be broken at launch.

The only time I could ever condone a pre-order is if it is limited and comes with something physical that you cannot live without (i.e. the pip-boy FO4 special edition).

Downloading the content ahead of time? For the sake of a few hours, I'd rather wait until I know whether or not I'm paying $60+ for something I want.
 
The alternative is the developer waiting longer before declaring the game "gold" or holding back features that they can't finish in time. The end result is that we still don't get a polished version of the game any quicker.
 
This is publishers infecting developers. We get crap because we allow it but also because of poor management and testing. In a professional(or read corporate) software development environment consistently failing to release a viable product means you get fired.
 
I wish that anytime a patch is more then 100MB or so, that patch notes are clearly available in game. I hate having to download gigabytes of data and then given zero information on why. But I did grow up on WoW and they were good about patch notes.
 
Krixon said:
A majority of those free extras amount to useless skins and bonus weapons. Regardless if you care whether or not you're supporting a shady business tactic (like posters above stated), you're also potentially screwing yourself by purchasing a game that could very-well be broken at launch.

The only time I could ever condone a pre-order is if it is limited and comes with something physical that you cannot live without (i.e. the pip-boy FO4 special edition).

Downloading the content ahead of time? For the sake of a few hours, I'd rather wait until I know whether or not I'm paying $60+ for something I want.
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Depends on the game you are talking about. Sounds like you only play FPS games, a genre which I don't really ever play. So my extras have normally been free games. From my last 3 preorders (most being made within 24 hours of release) I have netted myself 4 free games. MK X only got me Goro which would have cost me something like $3 to buy him later so saved me a few $. That said I was very careful in my wording and did say IF you are going to buy a game day one anyway, meaning you have already made up your mind that no matter what you are not going to wait but want the game day one, then in that case I don't see where preordering makes a difference as you have already decided that no matter the review, no matter how buggy you are getting it no matter what. So in that case might as well take advantage of whatever free stuff you get.

All said, personally I haven't screwed myself on any preoders as I am careful in what I will and will not preorder. I also don't play FPS games which most people get fucked over with but still continue to buy and help ensure they will get fucked over on again. I have only personally preordered games that I felt that I would be ok preordering and has lead to me only regretting one purchase and that was Destiny. Which the game wasn't broke, it is just a boring shitty ass game, which did get fixed after 4 DLCs although I refuse to spend another cent that game to fix it. As for buying a game that was downright broke and not playable. I have never once experienced that.
 
necrosis said:
Why do developers do this? Simple reason.

Because they can.

This all started when consoles started coming with HDD's by default. PC's of course always had them but this day 1 patch shit did not exist till consoles could be updated.
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Yes - exactly.
Reading that article - it's clear the person in question doesn't have a good understanding of what things were like prior to online distribution and update frame-works being put in place. Back in the early and mid 1990's - day 1 patches were not an option and software quality was better as a result (IMO).
I think it's fair to compare the changes in game development between that period and now. I personally find the assumption by a lot of modern developers (or publishers) that the game audience can "suck it up" regarding having to download large patches partially offensive. Is modern software being QA'ed and tested to the same levels as it was in the past...or are the game players being effectively used to perform the last stage of QA and testing - which would result in cost savings for the game makers... ?
 
KazeoHin said:
Think of it like this: would you rather play it today with a big D1P or in two months without?
[/B]
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I'll take the second option every single time thanks.
Your comments confirm the fact that the software is being pushed out too soon without sufficient testing.
For the record I'm an IT professional with a good understanding of software development life cycles...
 
muz_j said:
Yes - exactly.
Reading that article - it's clear the person in question doesn't have a good understanding of what things were like prior to online distribution and update frame-works being put in place. Back in the early and mid 1990's - day 1 patches were not an option and software quality was better as a result (IMO).
I think it's fair to compare the changes in game development between that period and now. I personally find the assumption by a lot of modern developers (or publishers) that the game audience can "suck it up" regarding having to download large patches partially offensive. Is modern software being QA'ed and tested to the same levels as it was in the past...or are the game players being effectively used to perform the last stage of QA and testing - which would result in cost savings for the game makers... ?
Click to expand...

I think it's a combination of both. But remember, the complexity of software was slightly different back then. I wouldn't say simpler in terms of development, because certain aspects which are now a couple lines of code calling into a DLL had to be fully written out. But games today are definitely longer with more complexity involved with the game itself, which will always lead to more bugs.
 
muz_j said:
I'll take the second option every single time thanks.
Your comments confirm the fact that the software is being pushed out too soon without sufficient testing.
For the record I'm an IT professional with a good understanding of software development life cycles...
Click to expand...

I get what you're saying. And I understand that a big Day-One patch is a pain, but I, personally, have never looked at it as anything other than a minor inconvenience, as (in the rare instance I do purchase a game early enough for the patch to be unexpected) I sit down, let my comically slow internet download the patch for the day, and play the game the day after. I can play the game same-day if the patch is less than 1GB and only takes a few hours to download. In an alternate universe, I would wait not 24 hours worst-case, but 2 months. Side-By-Side, the brass-tax, hard numbers advantage is hard to ignore.

That's how I see it. I'm also completely fine with understanding that my opinion may not reflect others, and I can see how when you buy a new game and are 100% ready to sit down and play it, a few hours to wait for a patch can kind-of kill the buzz. taking that into account, I still would rather have the same exact software in hours instead of months.
 
I don't think I'll ever understand why people pre-order games, or even buy them at or near launch. Personally I always wait a few weeks to a few months (if not longer, sometimes much longer), usually the latter. Most modern games launch in terrible condition, with horrendously high prices (says the guy who paid $76 at Best Buy for Turok 1 on N64, LAWLZ). People who have been gaming for more than 3 decades just naturally tend to end up playing the waiting game with new releases. A lifetime of experience just kinda makes you a smarter video game consumer.
 
I pre-order games if they give me a lot of crap with the game. Like sometimes on Steam, they'll do the "If we get X amount of preorders, you get A for free. If we get XX, you get A and B. If we get XXX, you get A, B, and C for free." That or it's some kind of collector's edition. Course, I'm gonna stop getting those, cause I never do shit with the crap it comes with. Like my Pipboy that just sits there collecting dust.
 
Shmee said:
Stuff like this is why I don't pre-order anymore. That being said, as long as the day-one patch fixes the game I am okay with it. If the game comes with a day-one patch and it is still broken, then I have a problem.
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Lol broken on day one after the patch....is the new norm ;)
 
I have a good connection and no bandwidth cap. I personally don't mind post-release patches except for the downtime, which isn't a big deal either. I get the frustration for some people though.
 
ragnarz said:
This is publishers infecting developers. We get crap because we allow it but also because of poor management and testing. In a professional(or read corporate) software development environment consistently failing to release a viable product means you get fired.
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not necessarily
 
KazeoHin said:
As a developer, the ability to keep the game up-to-date and fix bugs and polish the product up until the literal day it releases is priceless.

The idea is great, you can keep developing the game and bring the retail release forward without compromising the quality of the final day-1 product. In the past, once a product goes gold, it goes through weeks, if not months, of packaging and distribution. With the safety net of a patching system, you can keep developing the product until the day it releases: allowing you to A: release the product earlier than traditionally possible or B: fix far more issues/apply polish than traditionally possible. Win/Win.

Think of it like this: would you rather play it today with a big D1P or in two months without?



Pre-order and day-one purchase culture is what enables publishers and developers to take a backed-up shit, put the excrement into a DVD case and sell it to you without refunds. You already paid for it, and chose not to wait for reviews, so now the dev has your money while they work on another constipated turd.

Don't pre-order, and Don't day-1 buy. Wait for reviews. I was actually REALLY excited for DOOM, but I waited for the reviews. I was REALLY excited for SIM City. But I waited for the reviews. In both situations, I won.
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Why don't you knock of a milestone (or 2 in your case) and get your ass in gear for releasing something that installs out of the box without game breaking bugs that is the least you can do for people who pay for your game not for you to make bug fixes..

I mean can you imagine the reviews of a retail game that says runs great out of the box no major bugs and little to none small ones , you would have a product that stands out and sell far better then the usual crap that is out there.

The way forward is only when companies stop bullshitting customers we have heard it all before ....
 
Whilst not a day one patch, the latest doom patch fucked me for 2-3 days until I could go somewhere with fast enough internet to download it. That wasn't fun as it was almost entirely for MP (especially the 12gb bloat) and other bullshit that's irrelevant for SP. Look at the numbers playing online and you'll see how further irrelevant that is, I guess they forgot/ignored that Doom is primarily SP.


Day one patches seem here to stay though, if like No Man's Sky, then I have no issues as that has vastly improved the game and removed much of the whinge points against it.
 
Nice shill piece! Look at these great quotes:

"And there's nothing wrong with any of this."
"A day-one patch is not a sign that the developers are trying to pull a fast one on players or that they sneaked an unfinished game through certification. "
"In this case, a day-one patch is not only normal -- it's ideal."

What can I say, I'm old school and like the concept of something you buy simply working. New games nowadays are late betas. It's gotten to the point where I almost never play anything new now, because I KNOW the game is going to be far more polished 6 months later. People will complain about early access games, but that's essentially what the entire industry is doing now. At least early access games warn you!

necrosis said:
Why do developers do this? Simple reason.

Because they can.

This all started when consoles started coming with HDD's by default. PC's of course always had them but this day 1 patch shit did not exist till consoles could be updated.
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Yeah, that's pretty much the short and long of it.
 
I wouldn't blame the developers. A company like EA, Activision, etc has marketing, sales, project managers, finance, etc. At some point, a shipping date is picked. Based on companies I've worked before, the developers are not necessarily consulted on the date. The devs have to bust their butts to meet deadlines. If you miss a shipping date, you probably lose out on bonuses. At least this lets them hit a ship date while working on the big patches we are used to seeing.
Unless you are an indie or self-funded (aka - indie) - not sure how to break the cycle.
As consumers, be careful pre-ordering and wait for reviews. I'm cheap, so I usually won't pick up a game until 6-24 months after it was released so I can get a better price. My strategy also lets me enjoy more patches, more reviews, and cheat guides if I'm feeling lazy/get stuck.
 
steakman1971 said:
I wouldn't blame the developers. A company like EA, Activision, etc has marketing, sales, project managers, finance, etc. At some point, a shipping date is picked. Based on companies I've worked before, the developers are not necessarily consulted on the date. The devs have to bust their butts to meet deadlines. If you miss a shipping date, you probably lose out on bonuses. At least this lets them hit a ship date while working on the big patches we are used to seeing.
Unless you are an indie or self-funded (aka - indie) - not sure how to break the cycle.
As consumers, be careful pre-ordering and wait for reviews. I'm cheap, so I usually won't pick up a game until 6-24 months after it was released so I can get a better price. My strategy also lets me enjoy more patches, more reviews, and cheat guides if I'm feeling lazy/get stuck.
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You're right, I didn't mean to blame developers themselves, I was thinking of it all more collectively. The publisher is almost certainly more at fault for this crap. The danger is this part:

At least this lets them hit a ship date while working on the big patches we are used to seeing.
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In the future, we may no longer see those big patches if consumer habits continue the way they do. The publisher may decide they already have most of the money on launch, so patching the game further isn't worth the effort. It sounds insane, but look how at how much expectations have backslid on gaming to date from where it used to be.
 
tetris42 said:
You're right, I didn't mean to blame developers themselves, I was thinking of it all more collectively. The publisher is almost certainly more at fault for this crap. The danger is this part:

In the future, we may no longer see those big patches if consumer habits continue the way they do. The publisher may decide they already have most of the money on launch, so patching the game further isn't worth the effort. It sounds insane, but look how at how much expectations have backslid on gaming to date from where it used to be.
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Games have become extremely large and complex than they used to. We all know this, but I wonder if publishers overall really do not. I can picture the meetings with "well how bad are those bugs really?" and when told it is unplayable, they have to still push launch date. Retailers can be an ass about this too, often fining large amounts of money if a pre-promised date is changed or missed. Also I feel overall the gaming community (as it stands today) isn't tolerant of date changes, I have seen some hideous threads on sites about a publisher pushing a date to complete it later than expected.

I dunno, there may not be a way to win other than better project management and deadline creation.

As far as day one patches, idc, any time patches come out to fix things I am happy. I don't like neglected games that can take months to be playable, battlefield 4 I am looking at you.
 
Steve said:
...day one patches are the new normal...
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Funny how he says "new". This has been the case for years.

But I'd much rather have a day one patch that makes the game playable than an unplayable mess.
 
Ah. An article written by a "professional nerd" who "specializes in Harry Potter" and accuses gamers of being "entitled". You just know that's some quality journalism there.
 
Funny how that article telling people to just accept it takes the only paragraph from Rami Ismail's blog that is talking about players living in the past. His blog actually talks about why it happens, why it's not exactly a bad thing, and also shows some amount of frustration with how the system works. Reading his blog post is actually a hell of a lot more informative and interesting than this trash.

Link for people that don't want to go find it in the article: Patch The Process
 
back in my day after walking uphill both ways for school we would get our atari 2600 off the tube machine , flip box on the back to game instead of tv, insert our cartridge and play our game bugs and all. I am indifferent on day 1 patching.
 
necrosis said:
Why do developers do this? Simple reason.

Because they can.

This all started when consoles started coming with HDD's by default. PC's of course always had them but this day 1 patch shit did not exist till consoles could be updated.
Click to expand...

Wut? This has nothing to do with developers.... This is all project/upper management setting stupid unrealistic deadlines because they can just patch it before release...
 
To a certain extent, day one patches are unavoidable. Even with thorough validation, you can't possibly test on every single hardware/software combination before launch. You try to cover the few hundred to a thousand most common combinations, but after that, you aren't going to detect hardware/software compatibility until launch.

So, stuff like that I can forgive.

What I can't forgive is when elements of the game, independent of 3rd party software or hardware installed in the system are broken.

For instance, while I love the Civilization series, even now, 6 years after launch, when the next Civ game is right around the corner, Civ 5 still has accounting errors in resource trades. Your trading screen will tell you you have a qty of 2 luxury resources, when you only have one, so you trade away one, thinking you have a spare, and you don't, to disastrous consequences.

This kind of stuff is not excusable on day one, or on day 2,149 as it were...
 
I don't mind day one patches.. I hate day one servers down.. then week one servers down.. then month one servers down.. after doing a pre-order.
 
I can deal with a day one patch, to a game being installed from physical media. I cannot forgive a fresh install from a download from the maker/seller/etc not being up to date with the latest patches.
 
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