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Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases?
An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting:
"As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"
ATI, is that you?
No company is perfect, but there is always one company that ends up the flag bearer for PC game releases. Last decade, it was Origin. These days, I'd say the company that has the best processes for getting games to the PC would be Blizzard.
I don't intend this to sound fanboish, but they have had some very smooth release cycles in recent memory. Last year's release of WoTLK for example.
Of course, there are plenty of valid gripes on other topics against Blizzard, but they do get their PC games out and they tend to be polished and playable even at the 1.0 version level, and any major show-stopper bugs tend to get fixed.
This doesn't mean that other game companies have to copy Blizzard one for one in everything, but there are a number of things Blizzard does right which other game companies (mainly ones that seem to be just interested in what's up ahead next quarter) forget. First, the game gets released when its done. Not earlier. No "beta" releases and promises to patch. Reason? The patches to fix the broken stuff don't come because the devs get moved to new games. Second, Blizzard aims for the abacus. The more machines able to play games, the more people who can and will buy them. Lastly, PR. Blizzard are public relations geniuses. They keep players hanging on even in times between expansions by showing off a screenshot here, a model there, maybe a Flash movie or some terrain on another day. And this works. WoW keeps the subscriptions coming, and people keep playing even though if one compared raid zones, WoW doesn't have that many raid areas compared to say EQ1.
Of course, a lot of game companies just want next quarter profits and nothing else. So, they don't want to deal with the PC hassles, and go for the console market. However, they don't realize that even though console buyers do buy games, there are FAR more PCs out there than consoles, and even a small chunk of that market means far more cash rolling in than a major portion of the consoles. However, consoles are immune to piracy, easy to develop on, and the latest generation of consoles allow for shipping beta code, then forcing a patch before play, so it allows for bad development cycle practices.
The only reason that complex games have buggy releases is that game companies find it easier to ship beta quality builds as releases rather than waiting the amount of time before the show-stoppers are ironed out by true beta testers [1].
[1]: True beta testing isn't just handing out keys to random gamers as a reward and perhaps an advantage when the thing releases. Classic beta testing is actually paying people with QA experience to sit there and grind every little facet of a game, to find anything that squeaked past the alpha bug stomps. However, this seems lost these days, except for a very few companies.
How about wanting a refund for a car because you can't fit it in your garage. Never mind that your garage is already full of other crap which is why there's no room.