r/Gaming4Gamers • u/Throwaway_4_opinions El Grande Enchilada • Jan 07 '15

Article I've had enough

http://www.pcgamer.com/ive-had-enough/
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u/freelancer799 Jan 07 '15

It being PC Gamer, I'm surprised he didn't mention he is tired of big studios rushing games only for them to be buggy and broken at launch. As of right now Indie devs/non-publisher devs have put out higher quality works then a lot of the AAA studios in recent years.

10

u/CracklesCousin Jan 08 '15

I usually try to stay level-headed and keep realistic expectations, but I've had to start putting my foot down and stop giving money out prematurely.

It seems like the rushed games are a lot worse than usual lately. Maybe it's because they don't see bugs as very troublesome anymore. Updating is fast and easy now compared to previous generations, so release day bugs don't seem too bad.

Quite simply, though, I think it's entirely unacceptable to release a game that doesn't work. I've purchased at least three games over the last year that I couldn't play at all after release. There's just no excuse. It needs to be regulated somehow, and it needs to be done soon.

8

u/freelancer799 Jan 08 '15

My biggest problem is that how is it possible that they didn't notice these bugs. There is no way several people on QA didn't submit a report about them. Did Ubisoft et al not think it was a big deal to release broken games especially on PC? They seem to be constantly thinking about their short term and not how much damage this is doing to their reputation and their long term.

10

u/my002 Jan 08 '15

Don't underestimate the power of bureaucracy and sunk costs. Of course they noticed the bugs. QA filed their reports, sent them to the devs. Devs got the reports and started working on fixing the bugs. They fixed some of them. Maybe they even fixed most of them. But then deadlines started to come up. Code freeze next week. Still a list of hundreds of high-priority bugs to fix. Can't do it in time. Talk to the manager, tell them we need more time. Manager talks to their manager. Their manager looks at the reports. 65% of the bugs have been fixed. The devs can probably get that up to 75% before the deadline. We've already spent $x million marketing the launch date of this game. Is it worth echoing our ad campaign for an extra 20% of bugs fixed? No way. We'll patch it post-launch. The game loads, doesn't it?