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The Rise Of Bugs In Console Games
Thanks to GameSpy for posting a column discussing the increasing prevalence of serious bugs and glitches in console titles, especially in relation to several of this summer's 'blockbusters'. Singled out are Enter The Matrix: "Even if you enjoy the game.. you can't ignore the fact that all three console makers let Atari have a 'get out of final approval free card' when it came to testing...", as well as the new Tomb Raider title: "AOD froze up on me at least half a dozen times... Lara fell through invisible gaps in the street, walked through invisible gaps in walls, and refused to walk up stairs that she was supposed to be able to climb." What's to be done when, as the author says, "judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"?
Buggy games certainly have to account for a portion of "piracy" out there. A few bad experiences of dropping $50 for a piece of trash can make individuals who aren't quite in the middle-class less than eager to take the risk again.
Consoles are even worse. At least for PC games we can anticipate patches, which generally tend to do a pretty good job fixes bugs, especially if its a big game (or an online one.)
I'm betting on "We HAVE to get this game on the shelves, otherwise we lose money because of X"
X = in time to be released same weekend as movie
X = it's already been delayed and it's killing us
Don't the publishers realize that releasing sub-par games on schedule is MUCH worse than releasing excellent games behind?
Look at Blizzard - standard-bearer for "when it's done, it'll be fabulous" - Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 are prime examples
Gamers are lenient on deadlines when the game exceeds expectations, but I'm betting that Matrix Revolutions (if they make a game) won't have quite the same reception....
"Lara fell through invisible gaps in the street, walked through invisible gaps in walls, and refused to walk up stairs that she was supposed to be able to climb." "
Let me know when you get the buggy one where Lara has invisible clothes, right buddy?
Enter the Matrix was a rush job by a studio that never should have gotten the contract. Shiny's biggest accomplishments (Earth Worm Jim, MDK) are no where near the great games put out by the first two studios contracted by the Matrix producers (SquareSoft et al). Also, Tomb Raider was an abomination to let out the door. The controls are terrible, and the game is buggy. A beautiful looking game however. Even with that said, these games are in the minority. Alot of good bug-free games came out this year
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
How many of us have ever bought a game on the PC and the FIRST thing we do is check for patches?
Yet we still buy them the first day they are out, accepting this as common practice.
Is it any REAL surprise that companies would start pushing games such as "the matrix" (der, people bought that because it was THE MATRIX, its not THAT good, although I wouldnt call it "bad" either... its just, "meh") with bugs? These games will sell, and sell well, based on name alone.
I have 0 faith in all companies, save Blizzard. At least they havent completely fscked me yet (although the latest ACCESS VIOLATION error from WC3 TFT is starting to REALLY piss me off)...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
2) With Enter the Matrix, there finish date was not determined by the status of the game but by the realease date of the movie (they were meant to come out at about the same time). I suspect the release of the Croft title corresponds to the new movie, though I am not sure.
3) Consoles have never really been bug free. Granted, they had a much better track record than PC games (since PC developers always figured they could patch). However, I remember even Super Mario Brothers and Donkie Kong having minor unintended glitches/exploits.
I hereby boycott all non-GPL'ed console games that I haven't already bought. I'm out of the console market. I'm applying the same logic to MS-hosted systems. Until I get my $ back, or I get Freedom of the source, I'm out of these propritary shit-holes.
mmmm.... apt-get install copter-commander...
I'm surprised the XBox hasn't had more buggy games, considering the ability of games to save patches to the hard disk. I think that was the first thing people feared when they heard that MS was putting a hard disk inside.
Unfortunately, this may be the way of the future. The PS2 has a hard disk attachment that Sony has yet to push, but you can be sure the PS3 will have one bundled in, along with some sort of subscription service to go along with it a la XBox Live. Of course, this service will provide new levels along with patches for poorly-done games, just as XBox Live will eventually do.
The unfortunate side of things is that most gamers don't finish games, and only get to see the single, linear quest the developers set out for them. Developers don't test the side quests or places out of normal reach because they rightly assume those places aren't as important. Even in the original Tomb Raider there were a number of places Lara should not have been able to hold on to, but could, and places that looked like handholds which weren't. Those weren't bugs; just design flaws.
- Cloud
look, we're not talking about pac-man anymore. every year the games and the systems involved get more and more complex, and the potential for bugs increases geometrically. consoles have been able to keep major bugs from becoming common by limiting the variables -- that is, using a standard system to play the game on -- but the system is getting very complex. it used to be, a game developer team had to write all their own code. nowadays, they use drivers and game engines that may or may not have major bugs or incompatibilities built in, even on the consoles they were written for.
show-stopping bugs like crashes or even just annoying gameplay bugs should never make it to the final product, to be sure, but crappy games based on a movie license are certainly not a NEW phenomenon. anyone remember E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial for the 2600? of course you do.
there are plenty of console games out there that are basically (major) bug free, and economic darwinism is still at work weeding out the crappy titles from the stellar ones, except where an established license gets in the way.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Consoles, however, should be identical. The X-Box they test on is exactly the same as the X-Box that you play it on. This means that they should be able to test much more for console games than for computer games. There is no excuse for this trend.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
how some bugs exist and to a certain extent I sympathise with developers. The range of not just hardware but also drivers available for each piece of hardware, make it simply impossible to guarantee a bug free game, something that can be said for any program but I think multiplied in the gaming industry.
But saying that I have to agree that lately some appalling games have made it to the shelves, with Enter the Matrix leading the way. I have never been as disappointed with a game as I was with EtM, I am a huge matrix fan and I would have preffered they kept the launch back, it actually would have been a good way to fill in the months leading up to revolutions and could have been a far more solid game but its money that talks these days, not quality and even worse, not gameplay quality.
Enter the Matrix though was not just a buggy game, it was no fun, if you want to see what it should have been like, get yourself a copy of Max Payne, which despite its age looks as good as EtM and download the mod MAX PAYNE: Kung Fu Edition . This is exactly how EtM should have played and this is a mod made by one person, not a giant software house.
Anyway, I could rant on for hours about the state of games today, you get the idea...
Don't forget that publishing games on a console platform has as much to do with politics as the game itself.
Many big publishers (Eidos, Acclaim, Activision, etc) are given what I call "slack points". Basically these are allocated to them for a few games that they can use to push through QA on a "fast track". They typically use these on big-name games (Tomb Raider, anyone?) and *especially* if these big games need to be out by a hard date, such as quarterlies, Xmas, license coincide launches (ie moveies) or console launch dates. (Launch dates are a little bit different because QA is a bit tougher than usual - you don't want your launch titles to be too buggy!!)
In addition to slack points, these big publishers will also use whatever else influence they have to push a big game through. Nowadays it's all about $$$ - if a bug is not a showstopper, well lots of people are willing to look the other way (anyone remember Digital Polyphony's GT3 not being 100% finished? Lots of examples).
This is why I tend to a) check online reviews of games and b) rent a game from Blockbuster before purchasing it. Of course it gives more profit to Blockbuster and doesn't really hurt the game sales much since Blockbuster will tend to buy more of a frequently rented game, but it does save me $$'s if the game sucks.
"judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"
How do you know a console game is buggy before you buy it? Okay, maybe you know a good website or something, but does the general public? No. The general public buys a console game expecting it to work without bugs.
So how do you punish the gamemakers? Chances are you probably can't return the game -- it's considered software, so most major retailers won't accept a return unless it's defective and in that case will only exchange it for the same item -- which doesn't help because all of the same title will have the same bug.
So what do you do? Don't buy that publisher's next title? I suppose, but then it's a little harder to make a linkage between the original purchase and slow sales on a subsequent title. Maybe just write a letter to the publisher complaining and letting them know you won't be buying their next title. But a letter isn't exactly punishment, is it?
And here we have a case of the "good-old days syndrome"
"When I was your age.... All our software worked! There was no patching and freezing or any of that! None of this 6 years in development crap you kids today put up with"
While I won't argue for the quality of a lot of the games that get put out (3DO and Acclaim, I'm looking at you two) I would hardly say that the games of yesteryear were bug-free or really any more functional than the games of today.
Are games buggy? Yes
"But super mario brothers never froze when I was playing my NES" you say. And I ask "How many of Nintendo's games today freeze up all the time? Zero" The companies that produce crap, have produced crap since the dawn of time. Those that have been commited to quality, have for the most part stayed with that creed.
Is this a new phenomenon? No, we are just a lot more likely to notice and or hear about it from others than we used to.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Many of us refer to those as 'doors'.
Imagine if movies hit the theater with scenes missing, or even just sections that don't display right, or have faulty audio, etc. Moviegoers would revolt.
As gaming heads more mainstream, the tolerance of the public to deal with technical failures will drop.
I'm currently playing Midtown Madness 3 on the Xbox. Great game, but the custom soundtrack option has HUGE bugs (one involves a failure to randomize - playback just goes in reverse order through the playlist on some occasions, and another bug involves the soundtrack getting "stuck" on a single song). What trade school dropout programmer can't implement a simple randomizing algorithm?
Luckily, a "fix" is supposedly coming (downloadable through Xbox Live). But it shouldn't come to that.
In some cases, with games like Enter The Matrix, the push to release a game on 3 or 4 different platforms at once is a fool's quest that leads to crap like this. Any game that tries a simultaneous multiplatform release in a short dev time will end up like this.
Of course, the biggest problem is a million or so idiot customers bought it anyway.
I've noticed this becoming an increasingly alarming problem on the Xbox, and part of it is due to the PC port mentality they seem to have. This was especially apparent in games like Morrowind and Ghost Recon. We're talk roach motel. Live games have seen this problem with a vengence as the "patch it later" menatlity of the PC is taking increasing hold. Not only are they shipped with obvious bugs, but timely patching is a fanciful illusion. Honestly, I laugh everytime I hear somebody mention a patch for a Live game.
I wish I could say it was getting better, but this is one area where the PC seems to be overrunning the console and not vice versa.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You've never worked at a Wal-Mart electronics section, have you? Sure, that's the stated policy. However, in reality, the policy is "do whatever the customer wants you to" (at least at the store I worked at, it was). If you whine and bitch and moan and ask to see a manager, they'll take your return. Hell, most of the time, you just have to be firm about it- your repeat business is more important to them than a measily policy (esp. since they'll just mark the game as "defective" and send it back to the manufacturer regardless).
We had one customer come in one time and complain that the South Park game contained "inappropriate language," and so she wanted to return it. Well, no sh*t, lady! There's a label on the front and back of the box that says "Mature: Language." Not to mention the fact that it's a South Park game. But she got her return. [sarcasm] The customer is always right. [/sarcasm]
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
Ah, games have had bugs for years... and it's definitely not a NEW thing to have video games development cycle shortened in order to get a product out by Christmas. I have Atari games with bugs in them too, and when you compare things, games these days probably have LESS bugs per unit of code than they used to. I mean hell, Mine Storm (the game built into the Vectrex) screws up if you beat level 13, because it tried to load information that isn't really there.
Obviously, some games have some pretty major bugs that stick out like a sore thumb these days... especially since imperfections aren't tolerated as well (sprite corruption in an Atari game isn't as bad as broken polygons, or a complete crash on a PC game), but I hardly think it's enough to warrant any major action.
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH