I think that bugs in games is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
With almost every new release, TONS and TONS of problems affect the experience for the end-user. Some problems are so bad that games can't even run for certain users; some problems result in weird behavior, corrupted saves, and generally all sorts of stupid annoyances.
It seems that it is generally accepted that it is not possible to create software without bugs. While this is true to a certain extent, I think that the number of bugs in current games is BY FAR more than what is acceptable.
Personally, I feel pretty convinced that the game companies simply are WAY too greedy. They release too many games and therefore are much too sloppy with testing and general QA. If a couple of users after release relatively quickly are able to identify SEVERAL errors in a new game then quite simply that game is in an insultingly poor condition.
Patches are a good thing as they allow for games to be fixed, but they are probably part of the reason also. They make the developers rely on just fixing problems after release.
If this is NOT even done, then things are seriously problematic (I am looking at you disgusting EA).
What I think simply NEEDS to be done now is for the authorities to step in. In ALL other lines of businesses problems like those described above would never be accepted. Why is it that game companies are allowed to act so complacent? In the end, the users actually REALLY suffer from this. It is not a small problem, but a massive one.
Should an attempt be made at making some legislation that somehow protects the users? I am not sure how it can be done, but perhaps a form of enforced and VERY long and thorough beta-test at the expense of the game companies could be a good idea?
Wot? Since when are bugged games a new thing? Which games are you talking about exactly? Do you know how many times the classics have been patched? By the original developer AND by the community? Do you know those game are still bugged to some extent?
EA games is your example? Their games are always polished since 99% of tehir catalogue lacks any complexity thus opportunity for bugs.
It's more a problem created by the first person view and the realistic gfx. Bugs and technical issues are "in your face" now, while with isometric view for example technical probelms are easy to overlook or ignore.
I miss the days that patches came with extra content, as a "sorry we missed some bugs, here are X new maps"-ish
Patching these days is getting so fucked up, like DLC. They are announced before the game is in retail How fucked up is that?!
Its like selling a non-complete product... I think its the ONLY business where this is "legal"
On the other hand, I bought Star Ruler... And that is still in "beta", I just wanted to support the indie firm- well knowing it was not a finished product.
With all the non-working and bad pc ports, how do they still think piracy is to blame for low pc sales??? Greed? Hell yeah!
Totally agree....Lately when i have the feeling its like i bought a car with square wheels and that i have to wait weeks for the good ones to come in.
Its just complete bullshit!
If they want to sell their products earlier on at least come with a nice plan that you can buy yourself in a beta and the price of the game rises whenever the beta stages continue
What I think simply NEEDS to be done now is for the authorities to step in. In ALL other lines of businesses problems like those described above would never be accepted.
What do you guys think?
Hundreds of commercials on TV, buy this, use it 10min a day, you will get a six pack. Fatty buys it, 6 weeks later he is still fat. I think there are more serious issues at hand for the authorities to deal with, this is definitely not a priority.
Someone should come up with a gamer's bill of rights.
Epsilon: Game is great btw, I love it, so far it's a definite goty. It's remarkable how much has changed since the beta, stardock have been working their asses off, and it shows.
or you shouldnt buy from companies that keep releasing bugged games, and if you didnt bought, you shouldnt bitch about it
jowood released bugged games 10 year ago, they still do, obsidian did same, bethesda did same, they still do, blizzard had flawless games, and they still do ( and lets not start another flame war how much you hate sc2 for one of random reasons not related to game )
in reality nothing has changed,
there are old companies which made theirs name with polish, there are new companies which polish games cuz they cant afford or dont want to get bad name, and there are old companies which didnt gave shit cuz they have avid fans following franchises and buying each game
I think that bugs in games is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
With almost every new release, TONS and TONS of problems affect the experience for the end-user. Some problems are so bad that games can't even run for certain users; some problems result in weird behavior, corrupted saves, and generally all sorts of stupid annoyances.
It seems that it is generally accepted that it is not possible to create software without bugs. While this is true to a certain extent, I think that the number of bugs in current games is BY FAR more than what is acceptable.
Personally, I feel pretty convinced that the game companies simply are WAY too greedy. They release too many games and therefore are much too sloppy with testing and general QA. If a couple of users after release relatively quickly are able to identify SEVERAL errors in a new game then quite simply that game is in an insultingly poor condition.
Patches are a good thing as they allow for games to be fixed, but they are probably part of the reason also. They make the developers rely on just fixing problems after release.
If this is NOT even done, then things are seriously problematic (I am looking at you disgusting EA).
What I think simply NEEDS to be done now is for the authorities to step in. In ALL other lines of businesses problems like those described above would never be accepted. Why is it that game companies are allowed to act so complacent? In the end, the users actually REALLY suffer from this. It is not a small problem, but a massive one.
Should an attempt be made at making some legislation that somehow protects the users? I am not sure how it can be done, but perhaps a form of enforced and VERY long and thorough beta-test at the expense of the game companies could be a good idea?
What do you guys think?
No. You have reviews and you can judge the game by those before you buy, at least as far as problems are concerned.
What will happen when such legislation is out there?
1. It will hurt all of the indie game developers that don't have the resources for proper quality assurance
2. Companies will start removing even more features from their games just to make sure the existing features get enough polish
Wot? Since when are bugged games a new thing? Which games are you talking about exactly? Do you know how many times the classics have been patched? By the original developer AND by the community? Do you know those game are still bugged to some extent?
EA games is your example? Their games are always polished since 99% of tehir catalogue lacks any complexity thus opportunity for bugs.
It's more a problem created by the first person view and the realistic gfx. Bugs and technical issues are "in your face" now, while with isometric view for example technical probelms are easy to overlook or ignore.
Hm, perhaps you have a point. Bugs have always been somewhat of an issue. I think, though, that there is more of an "evil" factor to it now than before. Meaning that companies simply do not invest enough in squashing bugs before release compared to the HUGE amounts of money that they earn (I am mostly talking about big companies of course).
The fact that it's not a new thing is not really an issue though. It still simply is not good enough.
Oh, and your comment about EA games being polished? Eh, have you tried any of their games lately? They are COMPLETELY bugged (my experiences are mainly from FIFA on console) and mostly the problems are not fixed.
What I think simply NEEDS to be done now is for the authorities to step in. In ALL other lines of businesses problems like those described above would never be accepted.
What do you guys think?
Hundreds of commercials on TV, buy this, use it 10min a day, you will get a six pack. Fatty buys it, 6 weeks later he is still fat. I think there are more serious issues at hand for the authorities to deal with, this is definitely not a priority.
Of course there are more serious issues. But this is a games forum so we discuss games. And the authorities also have to deal with other issues than the most serious ones.
Never happen. It's software. Of course you could say "Well why didn't they do quality control." To which they'd say "We did quality control on THIS type of machine. . .etc. etc."
well i could agree to what in 1st post has been said. i started to play computer games in the middle of 80s. C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga500, early PCs, Pentiums....
i remember alot of games, tiny, small games without weird problems. i could understand that tiny games have less chances to be bugged because source code is relatively small and easy to check and correct. but now, after ~25years of constant gaming i am seeing many games which have been patched in 2-3 days after have been released. i understand that 25y ago some words like "beta testing", "alpha testing" etc were totally unknown but now we have internet, companies are releasing games which they want to be remembered as great ones. they have budgets but they dont want to spend some time to check if their games are bugs-free. Fallout New Vegas has been released recently and 2 days after 1st patch has been released because lazy noobs from companies didnt check their product before release. what is worse they need to release patch number 2 to fix bugs from 1st patch. i dont know if its funny or sad, because alot of games have been released and then have not been patched, like nba 2k10 for PC. and then we are hearing that piracy is main problem. i dont think that companies greedy is the problem. the problem is that they have to release games in day XX.YY.ZZZZ and they have no time to check it after creation process. i dont want to believe that they are greedy and lazy enough to release incomplete product and earn money because we're naive enough to not check games before purchase them. bugs were, are and will be, but there are technologies and human resources advanced enough to reduced them before timeline.
Quality control in any software is a bitch, especially projects like today's games where about 40 different programmers worked on separate parts, at least 10 of them are worthless, and there's in average around 25 external libraries used.
For project like these, they set a fixed date where they just add stuff until they reach it, then they freeze content and then set another date where they fix problems and polish the game. Problem is, it usually take AS LONG, if not LONGER, fixing problems than creating new content. Publishers often decide to pull the plug halfway when they don't see major improvements for a few weeks (since they fix only small details) and prefer releasing the semi-bugged game everyone lost faith about right now to start working on that new awesome project that will suffers the same fate at the end.
Seriously, the problem is because CEO and Project Managers are NOT developers, and they don't have a clue what's best for the project, they just want money.
From another point of view, they are right. In a world like this where most of the sales are made to ignorants who would buy any title without checking reviews, it's hard to justify making a good game, since people who actually realize the game is better do so because they played a bunch in their lives, and if they played a bunch, they are mostly pirates.
I think the issue is games are KNOWINGLY released unfinished these days cause of publisher deadlines.
Solution is not to buy those games, but most will .
Reviewers have to be alot more harsh in reviews about unfinished games also, but ... we know how reliable corperate sites are already.
I miss those nintendo quality of seal days, SONY and Nintendo should be testing those games before they are released and decide if they are either good enough or at least finished without bugs.
No. You have reviews and you can judge the game by those before you buy, at least as far as problems are concerned.
What will happen when such legislation is out there?
1. It will hurt all of the indie game developers that don't have the resources for proper quality assurance
2. Companies will start removing even more features from their games just to make sure the existing features get enough polish
I am sorry but reviews are completely worthless in judging the amount of bugs and annoying errors/glitches in games. Often, games can contains millions of errors and still score very high. Reviewers have accepted it as a fact that Games Have Bugs. As have the vast majority of users. And while some bugs are unavoidable, the amount we are seeing currently is just absurd.
I agree that my idea of forced beta-testing might hurt some indie developers, so naturally it has to be done so that is not the case. For example the duration and the cost of the beta-test period should somehow be tied to the size of the developed game (for instance whether it's an AAA game).
This is just an idea, of course. There might be a better way of doing it. But I actually think it *might* work, as clearly the companies are not testing properly and that hurts the consumers. So it's pretty natural that rules should be in place to force the companies to test more and perform better QA, yes?
I think the issue is games are KNOWINGLY released unfinished these days cause of publisher deadlines.
Solution is not to buy those games, but most will .
Well if this was the case, most of the German and east-European developers would just go out of business. Their games are always the most ambitious but fall very short in technical specs and execution, and often one or two more years are needed to finish the game properly. Often cases, a huge "community patch" is also needed to make the games actually worth playing.
What has really ruined games is the friggin publishers mixed with corporate BS that impose their will on game designers these days.We have seen many of the big wigs destroy really good projects by taking a game and hacking out what they believe the public will not like or speed up design so its pushed out onto the market faster.Removing features,dumbing it down,etc so much that it doesn't even resemble what the developers made and what the consumers really wanted.
They have no idea whatsoever what gamers want and they don't care.Its time these Sob's stuck to their job of just publishing the game and staying out of development.
Last edited by akwar on Sun, 24th Oct 2010 23:32; edited 1 time in total
I think the issue is games are KNOWINGLY released unfinished these days cause of publisher deadlines.
Solution is not to buy those games, but most will .
Well if this was the case, most of the German and east-European developers would just go out of business. Their games are always the most ambitious but fall very short in technical specs and execution, and often one or two more years are needed to finish the game properly. Often cases, a huge "community patch" is also needed to make the games actually worth playing.
The funny thing is; even despite the glaring technical issues and the "reaching too far" syndrome, most eastern European games are often considerably more enjoyable/impressive than some of the shovelware shit we get from "western" developers I still consider Boiling Point and The Fall as two of my favourite games, lol.
(speaking of which; if you want a game that's more Fallout than FO3/NV, you have to check out The Fall. Absolutely spectacular game!)
I think the issue is games are KNOWINGLY released unfinished these days cause of publisher deadlines.
Solution is not to buy those games, but most will .
Well if this was the case, most of the German and east-European developers would just go out of business. Their games are always the most ambitious but fall very short in technical specs and execution, and often one or two more years are needed to finish the game properly. Often cases, a huge "community patch" is also needed to make the games actually worth playing.
The funny thing is; even despite the glaring technical issues and the "reaching too far" syndrome, most eastern European games are often considerably more enjoyable/impressive than some of the shovelware shit we get from "western" developers
That's because most of yer ex eastern bloc countries game developers are very protective of their designs and they don't let the big corporate machines push them around as much.
By the way "The Fall" was the sequel to Soldiers Of Anarchy,and yes its very good.
That's because most of yer ex eastern bloc countries game developers are very protective of their designs and they don't let the big corporate machines push them around as much.
Yeah right. Until they get noticed by some big publishers in the states, or their game somehow miraculously sells with the yanks. Then they throw all "protective designs" and do the most console crap ever. And it doesn't sell.
Developing an AAA title these days is far more complicated then it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago a group of a couple dudes could put out AAA titles. These days, you need large groups of people and millions of dollars and the software itself is vastly more complicated.
With software this complicated there is always sure to be some level of buggyness. The old games weren't anywhere near as big, nor the code structure as vast. You could ship a game without any glaring issues in a much easier fashion then it would take today.
The real issue are publishing studios forcing to short of time lines on the games. All the best PC games that i've seen, never had an arbitrary release date set by a publisher. The developers had the time they needed to release the game. Thus, the game offered what the developer initially wanted to set out to do, and they had more time to remove any bugs in the software.
No, there should not be oversight by the government regarding the quality of games. That is fucking stupid. Games wouldn't exsist without complete capitalism in the first place. The market decides what becomes a success or not. Guess what? Most games that come out buggy and are of low quality tend to fail. There are some exceptions to this rule, but generally the market decides as the market should.
I do not want the government stepping in on the process of game creation. That is just asking for issues.
Remember - A shareholded company is driven by the stockholders. Generally, the stockholders in the case of a game company never even play the games. This is why i'm thankful we have people like Valve not selling out to the system, or small Indy developers using services like Steam to get the market for their awesome games.
That's because most of yer ex eastern bloc countries game developers are very protective of their designs and they don't let the big corporate machines push them around as much.
Yeah right. Until they get noticed by some big publishers in the states, or their game somehow miraculously sells with the yanks. Then they throw all "protective designs" and do the most console crap ever. And it doesn't sell.
That was their own fault they sold out. They were greedy and wanted the fast cash.
Valve,GSC,BIS,just to name a few.Stalker was almost ruined by the damn publishers.Crudmasters tried the same crap.Luckily BIS said screw you.
I don't know if I would use STALKER as a prime example.
Frankly, STALKER was the most buggy, and biggest let down in years. They promised an open world and it was nothing close. The game wasn't even fun to play until 3rd party mods came out to fix it.
Developing an AAA title these days is far more complicated then it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago a group of a couple dudes could put out AAA titles. These days, you need large groups of people and millions of dollars and the software itself is vastly more complicated.
With software this complicated there is always sure to be some level of buggyness. The old games weren't anywhere near as big, nor the code structure as vast. You could ship a game without any glaring issues in a much easier fashion then it would take today.
No question that games are more complicated now. An AAA game is an incredibly complicated piece of software.
But still, many games contain such a huge amount of bugs discovered by the community in the first WEEK! It's just ridiculous.
Clearly, something is not right in the development process. But we all know what the problem is. You say it yourself in the following:
Mchart wrote:
The real issue are publishing studios forcing to short of time lines on the games. All the best PC games that i've seen, never had an arbitrary release date set by a publisher. The developers had the time they needed to release the game. Thus, the game offered what the developer initially wanted to set out to do, and they had more time to remove any bugs in the software.
I completely agree with this. And that is why things obviously need to change. This is not acceptable, because the users get inferior products because of the greed of the publishers. That's pretty disgusting.
Mchart wrote:
No, there should not be oversight by the government regarding the quality of games. That is fucking stupid. Games wouldn't exsist without complete capitalism in the first place. The market decides what becomes a success or not. Guess what? Most games that come out buggy and are of low quality tend to fail. There are some exceptions to this rule, but generally the market decides as the market should.
I do not want the government stepping in on the process of game creation. That is just asking for issues.
Remember - A shareholded company is driven by the stockholders. Generally, the stockholders in the case of a game company never even play the games. This is why i'm thankful we have people like Valve not selling out to the system, or small Indy developers using services like Steam to get the market for their awesome games.
I don't understand why you categorically state that the government (or lets keep calling them the "authorities" to make it sound less dramatic ) should not get involved. If there was SOME sort of restriction that prevented publishers from rushing games to the market wouldn't that be a good thing?
Can't we agree that the companies should not be allowed to ship games containing a grotesque number of bugs? We can't expect bug-free games, but we can damn well expect games significantly more bug-free than what we are currently given.
Gamers Bill of Rights - it's called the right to piracy. I haven't bought a game in years that I didn't first pirate. If the damn thing was so buggy it sucked to play it, then I NEVER bought the game.
To bitch about it on the internet is also your right but the perfect voice is just not buying subpar products.
Also, this fantasy of government involvement, please, if the producers tell us their is a delay in a long awaited game, what's the first thing 99% of you do...BITCH ABOUT THE DELAY.
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