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.'"

Comments

Re:Refunds for broken merchandise.

[Anonymous Coward]

nothings wrong with it...
But do you really expect the to? Get ready for the requirements on the box going from :

512MB RAM
P4 or better
1GB disk space free

to :

512 MB DDR2 533MHz Rambus RT32Q-12W/P series RAM
Asus MB983-001GIGM/S-4 Motherboard with AnusTech 56chipset and SuperHD-VGA 512Graphic2.0
With Seagate 120GB 7234.42rpm disk and Windows XP SP3 with no other software and all updates except Office excel ones and Adobe Reader4.3, and a shortcut to Notepad at position (34,102) on the desktop with that spiffy desert wallpaper. Also required Network interface card NT-IKK100M with a blue and red striped 1.56m cable that's coiled around the couch leg at 125deg.
Apparatus must be used in a constant 26.3 degrees with relative humidity of 20% and 1024mbar pressure.

This is just fucking idiocy. Any half decent company is going to give refunds (or fix the bugs) if they care about their customers.
Those who don't will vanish and the suckers who bought their stuff will lose their money (much like the morons who buy rolex watches from email or the spastics who send their life saving to nigerian princes).

This is just going to fuck the smaller operators over who don't have the resources for testing every combination of software/hardware. As a example, a "normal" piece of software will be available on :

Win XP
Vista
Win 7
Win2k

x2 for 32 and 64 bit. And various combinations of Admin user, UAC on, regular user limited etc.

Then add Various flavours of server type deployments (Windows server 2000,2003,2008, citrix, TS etc).
Now add various doc management systems (eg sharepoint) integration.
Then sprinkle some scanner, printer and networked hardware deployments.
And this isn't even considering what other applications are going to be interacting with the system and issues with PS,PCL and GDI printing/drawing commands.

Fuck me... this is from experience... I need a beer now. And this is for a simple desktop general office productivity app.

The app code is tested and the app is tested, but there's no telling what the hell kind of environment it's going to be deployed in.

While we're at it, why not require that all software sold needs to be mathematically proven to be correct. That'll be easy right?

Hmmm.. I feel kind of better now...

AST

[yanyan]

So Andy Tanenbaum is now a mere "tech expert"? That's a big step down from "CS god."

For the uninformed, ast wrote a kinda good book on operating systems called "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation." I believe this one guy from Finland wrote an OS called Linux based on another OS called Minix discussed in that book (and even got into the flamefest of the century with the Finnish guy!). And then there's a bunch of other stuff you may or may not know about, such as the Amoeba distributed OS, a free anonymous p2p network called Turtle, and probably a few other knick-knacks along the way.

Seriously, give the Man due credit.

Re:Refunds for broken merchandise.

[Rogerborg]

Maybe if you read the fine article before jerking one off, you'd be able to answer your own question.

On a PC, the vendor can't control the environment in which their software is run. Something else on the machine completely outwith their control could nobble their app, for example, Google desktop stopping Demigod from launching. I say "for example" since that's the example given in the article that you didn't bother to read.