Are PC games more buggy?

Are PC games more buggy?

  • Some are

    Votes: 40 42.1%

  • Yes

    Votes: 49 51.6%

  • No

    Votes: 6 6.3%
  • Total voters
    95
F

factory81

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
215
With the latest releases out some people have argued or raised issues that the industry is in a slump of "beta" g@mes released followed by patches bringing the g@me to a more playable mode.

What is your opinion on this issue?

Should we be given pre-release beta playing time like BF 2142, or the original Unreal Tournament to work out the bugs?

Should we wait till release day to play the g@me so it feels like Christmas (you know, by the end of the day half the toys don't work....)?

Are g@mes just fine? Or do you see it happening only with certain manufacturers? Who time and time again release low quality g@mes?

Whats your take?
 
games these days are damn buggy that`s for sure,my first VERY buggy game was SiN,i couldnt beat the game cause of a damn bug even,since then its only been getting worst,i understand why ppl prefer consoles hehe.

my hard earned cash doesnt go to the companies that rush half finished buggy games out the door anymore,it seems that you gotta give new released games 1-4 months to iron out the bugs,and lately ive seen patches out for games that havent even arrived to the shops yet,i mean if it was that buggy it should have gotten a few more weeks of attention.

i guess thats why buying a game made by blizzard was usually a safe bet in that aspect,and might be 1 of the reason of why blizzard sells so many games.
 
The common problems with PC games today is that theyre being rushed more and more. Unfinished games tend to be buggy...
 
Most of the problems people have are isolated to certain setups. Some people have no problem with a game, while others cant even get the game to run. Thats the challenge of pc games and making them work on variety of computers. Some games do have bugs that affect everyone. Some developers/publishers are worse then others. Some developers fix them, while others release sequels or mods that cost money(ie bf2142) a year later.
 
chaikovski2002 said:
The common problems with PC games today is that theyre being rushed more and more. Unfinished games tend to be buggy...
Click to expand...
Which is exactly the problem and also why I tend to stick to smaller, independent studios. Blizzard, Epic, Relic, etc are all great studios that release games when they're ready: not when they're due. Hell, Blizz passed up releasing BC before Christmas which probably hurt their bottom line, but they know that people are willing to wait because they release finished products. That's not the say the games are perfect when they're released, but I've found the smaller companies tend to put a lot more effort into their games. Plus, the issues that are there are usually minor and fixed relatively quickly which is another bonus.
 
Games on average are a lot more buggy now a days, however they're a lot more complex in the terms of what is capable within the generated world and so keeping up with fixing bugs gets harder and harder.

However there do seem to be more development teams releasing what amounts to beta versions of games and then "fixing" them afterwards. It's not just bug either, a lot of the content now a days is being drip fed out, I remember being incredibly irritated that DOD:S only had 4 maps on release, CS:S was quite light on the ground also. Not to mention this insatiable need to move towards episodic game design without one shred of evidence that it's actually worth it. (although sam and max seem to have the whole short story thing down quite well, maybe because that was once a TV show...)
 
Yes, however this problem is not necessarily due to worse or more sloppy programming.

This is more a symptom of the bounty of internet bandwidth we have. 10 years ago, most people did not have the practical capabilities to download even a 5 meg patch for a game. Therefore, games HAD to be playable out of the box. Now, however, people tend to EXPECT patches shortly after releases. Therefore, companies work with the tide and push games out the door if they believe any errors can be handled in a relatively quickly released update.

This is not to say that the blame lies solely with the publishers. In fact, one could say that the existence of this expectation makes the expectations even higher! When you have a direct line of communications and access to the company that made the software, if so much as one pixel turns up the wrong color, many DEMAND the patch!

So, frankly, I see parallel forces working here. this is one more reason why I avoid, if possible, buying games online. There was always something comforting about having a computer that wasn't connected to any telco lines, popping in the disk, and starting up the game.
 
Do you feel that the growing console market is undermining PC games reliability?

Do consoles have any role in PC games being less reliable or more reliable?
 
factory81 said:
Do you feel that the growing console market is undermining PC games reliability?

Do consoles have any role in PC games being less reliable or more reliable?
Click to expand...

Yes. Companies are porting the console game to the PC. This doesn't work. The hardware difference allows for problems to be produced. Unless some things are tweaked when the port is made, the game will have issues.
 
factory81 said:
Do you feel that the growing console market is undermining PC games reliability?

Do consoles have any role in PC games being less reliable or more reliable?
Click to expand...

Yes, and at the same time, no.

I expect to see several major changes, the first we're already well into, and that's heavy porting between PC's and consoles for games which are popular, a good example is the GTA3 series. Now we're starting to see more "cross developed" games, such as spliter cell, that took a nasty turn for the worst.

Consoles and PC's are moving together, that is to say that consoles, in genreal, are tending towards PC's, with HDD's High def outputs, the demand for next gen capabilities, online abilities, and even a growing demand for keyboards/mice to allow gamers more freedom.

However I think thats where consoles might start losing their appeal over the next few generations, consoles in general are bought because they're plug and play, you get a large box, open it and plug it in, and insert a disc and you play, controls are simple, gameplay is simple. Now with online capabilties I'm betting we're going to start seeing games rushed more knowing they can just patch any problems afterwards, it wont be long (maybe next gen) where an internet connection is required, we're already starting to see consoles which might be upgradeable in future (phantom still in production or just rumours still?)

As consoles get "better" they will tends towards PC's, why? Because PC's always inherit the best there is to offer, any new technology can be embrased, the only problem is knowing what you're doing. So as consoles tends towards PC's they will inherit all of their problems, and one of the biggest gaming problems of today is that the expectation that everyone has broadband and can spend 500mb patching a game which was released very buggy.

Yeah lets bash BF2 again (why not? It's a perfect example) I mean give me a god damn break, how long has this game been out and they still find it hard to patch even the most basic of problems, and the latest patch is up to 500Mb I hear.
 
i use to work for sony interactive way back in ps1 days and let me tell you there are WAY! more bugs in console games, just the bugs that are there are not massively messed up ones that make your system crash.

If we are looking at bugs, then i would say consoles have more because they are more likely to be rushed out the door then PC games. But this is changing due to Xbox being a PC, this because PC games are starting to be bastardized Console games ala Star Trek Legacy.

I think PC games just get more CTD or system crash type of things but this might not be a bug in the coding but hardware conflicts etc.

PC games if built jsut for PC's are ALWAYS better then Consoles
 
The gold edition of game shouldn't be called 1.0 anymore. It should be called 0.6.
 
I'll probably end up repeating much of what others have already said, but IMO there are many factors that can contribute to the perception of PC games being more buggy.

1) Alot of problems with games hanging, crashing out to the OS, BSOD'ing, and etc. are probably OS, driver and/or hardware compatibility issues. Consoles being closed architecture are much more immune to this problem - smaller problem space, consistent hardware.
2) PC games tend to push technology more than console games given that the hardware around it changes. I.E. GPU technology changing every 9 months, physics cards, faster CPU's w/ more and more cores. Whenever trekking into new territory the margin of error given the same development cycle increases.
3) Games in general are getting more complex. Coupled with compatibility issues and perhaps trying to integrate some new hardware such as a physics card, could lead to a larger defect rate.
4) This will probably open the door to debate, but I've personally believed that since the introduction of the WWW into the mainstream audience, most PC developers have taken a ship first, patch later mentality. It is almost expected that PC users will have internet access and the population that don't are so miniscule that it won't affect the bottom line. Console hasn't had that luxury and really only with the XBox have we really seen an online update service. Additionally, I don't think the console market has matured to the point where it can be assumed that a console owner will have internet access to their machine. That almost forces the developers to make sure that most bugs, particularly game breakers, are fixed before shipping. There isn't that perception of having a second chance, which I think may change after this generation.
 
Absolutely. A lot of it's about hardware. PC makers try to make something that can be played on literally thousands of different configurations. At least on a console, they only have to make something that works on a single setup. Add in the fact the gamers have become complacent and expect version 1.0 to be a beta or RC at best these days.
 
My personal favorite example is World War II Online. The original install on the disc was so horribly broken that the day the game came out, anyone trying to install it got prompted to download the "1.01 update" which was a FULL install. The shiny new CD that people waited for, drove to the store and bought, and installed and everything, was totally pointless. The game makers could have just sold the keys online (which they now apparently do) and saved alot of headaches. I'm not a Greenpeace-level environmentalist, but to make all those CD's and have them go from the box right to the garbage is pretty freakin' lame.

When it's so bad that the game in the box is not the game they want you to play on DAY ONE, you know you got problems.
 
I definitely think that the game studios could use better quality control, especially considering some of the glaringly obvious issues present in some of the more recent games.

However, we do need to take a step back and look at the current state of gaming. Back in the day, the number of lines of code that were in a game were just a tiny fraction of what goes into a game today. As the size and complexity of a project goes up, the number of issues in the project will rise at a proportional rate. Again, though, a lot of that can be mitigated by some basic testing and feedback, and by not trying to rush a product out the door.

Right now, I'm really bugged :)p) by the trend towards crappy console ports of games. Hopefully with Microsofts push towards making it easier to build games that will play on both the PC and the xbox, maybe we will see less of those sorts of pain points.

As a developer, I have some insight into what it takes to complete such a large project. I know that in the majority of cases, the developers that write these games are not stupid or lazy. However, they constantly have marketing and management riding them, forcing them to cut corners in order to meet some arbitrary deadline. I wish it was as simple as just saying "vote with your dollars", but there is no way that you can get enough people to not buy a game. Plus, even if you can get sales to drop a point, or two, the publishers will just blame it on piracy, or some other excuse they find while their heads are up their asses. I've been sending an email to the support department of a publisher every time I don't buy a game because of a high number of bug reports. I simply tell them to kiss my ass, I'm not buying their game because of XYZ (in more respectful language, of course). I know some other people who do the same. Maybe if enough people to it, it's possible somebody will at least notice.
 
SuperSubZero said:
When it's so bad that the game in the box is not the game they want you to play on DAY ONE, you know you got problems.
Click to expand...

Back when I was young, foolish, and working in the tech room at Future Shop, I remember handling a customer complaint about a game that wouldn't run after installing. As standard protocol dictated, I went and tried it out on one of our demo machines on the floor and sure enough, same problem. I had given the customer the option of a refund or exchange (of which he chose the latter) and had kept the game around for further investigation. A little later in the day, finding some time, I decided to try it on a different machine and encountered the same problem. After finding this problem on about a half dozen of our floor demo's, I went online to find out what the hell was going on. It seemed that people will have to get the patch before being able to run the game. Apparently the developer had accidentally sent the wrong version of the game for the first production run, so if you were lucky enough to get one of those, you had to patch before you played. Too bad the name of the culprit escapes me.
 
EDIT: lol, SuperSubZero you just reminded me of this.

EDIT Again: Woah, so much for an in place edit, it resubmitted the whole post as a new one.
 
I will disclose my personal opinion here on the issue....

Game designers are rushed beyond human capabilities to get projects done. A project a coder would desire 3 weeks to finish is expected to be done in one week, and these are done by some of the biggest firms out there. I don't want to point fingers here, but EA....you suck. You treat your employees like crap. Why do Quake and Unreal games usually kick ass? Well along with Valve....if you have ever toured their offices, and looked at the funds available..they are not exactly in a rush to get the zero-gravity gun working. The zero-gravity gun in itself is one of the single biggest feats I have seen besides the use of physics in games, and this gun would never have turned out right if HL2 was published by Electronic Arts. You can find blogs of anonymous employees, ex-employees, and interns who post their rants about certain firms they have worked for. Along with being usually low on bugs at release dates, Todd Hollenshead encouraged such actions as Quake 3 Demo (pre-beta)....not only did it provide pre-release hype, but it also made for less bugs on release.

Here is how I can back this up....Battlefield 2....1942.....reallllly shabby games when they were released. Battlefield 2142 had a pre-release beta........is the game as buggy? In my opinion it has been a much more solid game initially compared to its previous games. But there is a reason to this as well...Battlefield 2142 has Quake Wars coming up....and Quake Wars has the possibility to re-energize that community of gamers that yearn for a FPS with a mix of RTS.

Not only is hardware advancing faster then any programmer cares to keep up with, but its expanding to not just PC hardware....,but yes Console hardware. So now a "good" developer has to learn how to take advantage of Pixal Shader 4.0...DX10....the SIMD instructions on the 360's CPU (like SSE), multi-core's on the 360 and desktops........and Sony throws a curve ball with Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). And so on and so on............if you were a game developer....someone just did game programming......you would have more work to do then anyone on earth possibly if you wanted to do it good.

So does it surprise myself we have shitty ports? No...do I expect it to get better? Maybe.... If Nvidia puts a G70 in a PS3...and a G80 in the desktops......why should a programmer go through and re-write easily tens of thousands of lines of code just for a few advantages that MOST of the customer base will not even experience. Lets face it...your selling a product....and its a product that most customers don't make sure they spend $500 on a DX10 / Pixal Shader 4 GPU....you have to design for customers in that middle road of GPU performance
 
Best comparison of what an ideal state a game that release is, versus, the current state of released games and where it's going was already shown.

Doom 3 vs Half Life 2

How many patches did each game get and how extensive were they?
 
Sly said:
Best comparison of what an ideal state a game that release is, versus, the current state of released games and where it's going was already shown.

Doom 3 vs Half Life 2

How many patches did each game get and how extensive were they?
Click to expand...

Doom 3 wins by a mile. The Doom 3 engine is regarded as one of the most bug free engines created.

I voted yes, because I do think they are more buggy, but not because it's only poor coding by the developers, but because in today's games, the complexity is huge. It's almost impossible to test everything. Take a game like Oblivion. How many options there are for the hundreds of quests in the game ? I bought the Collector's Edition of the game, which has an extra DVD with making of content, and testing is brutal. And they showed basically the testing of the demo showed in E3, which is almost nothing compared to the full game. Given that the complexity of the games increases, I believe it's only natural that games are more buggy.

Now, there's the other side of the coin, where the games are really more buggy, but clearly because of a rushed launch date and/or poor coding by the developers. The game I choose as an example for this is Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It's the most buggy game I have ever played. I can barely launch it, without it crashing. Crashes are a "No, No" in my book. We can find a broken quest or a graphics glitch, bad animation, whatever, but crashes ? No. That's poor coding and poor testing also. I basically had to wait for the second patch to be able to play it "more or less".
 
yes

theres simply too many software and hardware variables. At the end of the day it's still flawed humans programming. As long as we are a flawed race with flawed tools we will create flawed code.
 
Could you blame it on the hardware industry? E.G. Consoles and PC's should abide by the same standards and a standard set of instructions? Intel releases all SSE information, and AMD releases all 3DNow information for example.....

If you think of Direct X 9 and soon to be 10...as well as Pixal Shader 4.0 as being "standards".....ATI and Nvidia have to compete for the number one card in performance / looks, but the programmers wouldn't have to develop specially for one or the other........and consoles also begin to share the same standards.
Seems how consoles are already PC's in a unique "limited way", why shouldn't they have the same instruction sets available for ease of porting?

Then all we could blame our problems on is drivers.......

Does anyone think this is some sort of compromise for the industry as a whole that would benefit developers and gamers alike........

Or do you feel this would level the playing field of consoles vs. PC's and there would be no reason to be a PC gamer?
 
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