Sick of the quality of games (not gameplay related)
polycounter lvl 14
This is just a rant. I'm speaking from the fan & gamer's point of view, not as a dev. It slightly leans towards PC games.
Remember back when Super Nintendo was in its prime? When you bought a game, you'd bring it home, plug it in, turn on your console and BAM! Playing the game in less than 30 seconds with no problems. It never even occurred to me that there was always a possibility for some bug or glitch in the game that could possibly ruin my experience. It never occurred to me because from the huge selection of games I played, I never even encountered any... until playing GTA for Game Boy back in Jr. High school.
Fast forward to today. I can't buy a freakin' game without worrying about how many bugs will stop me just from playing the damn thing. This is very, very true for multi-platform releases (I'll just call them MPRs).
Now I know that there are still plenty of games out there that are properly bug tested and have little to no impact on gameplay. Usually games that are not MPRs are quite polished and lovely. Three games I'm going to target specifically are Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and Borderlands (yes, reaching back a few years).
Why these three? They're all MPRs, I love all three of them, they're all major AAA titles, and they're all buggy and poorly optimized, particularly on the PC. I'm going to try to avoid covering installation issues because that's a whole messy topic on its own. Let's start with Borderlands.
I was so damn excited about Borderlands to come out that we carved our Halloween pumpkins to be related to the game and hosted a 15-person Halloween LAN party at my place to all hook up and play. You know what's sad? If it weren't for the LAN, we wouldn't have been able to play together at all.
Borderlands had so many stupid, basic port forwarding problems that the CO-OP centric game they spent millions of dollars to market simply did not work. For MONTHS AFTER RELEASE. Hell, they even released DLCs for the game before properly addressing completely broken networking aspects of the game on PC. Not only that, it had a terrible UI that was an awful port straight from the console. I loved the game, but it would take almost 20-30 minutes just to get into a game with a few friends due to all the connectivity problems. One of my friends had bad internet and would even disconnect from me EVERY time we entered a new area. Yep, that's quality assured right there.
DRM is another thing that is getting in the way of players' enjoyment of games. The whole Origin / Battlelog system for BF3 is frustrating, feels archaic, and requires you to have two extra garbage programs running just to launch the damn game. Congrats! You found a way to suck more resources out of your fans' PCs just to run your game!
My friend here at work can't even play BF3 with me because his computer, which is a generation new / better than mine, has 5-10 minute load times for a single map. Map change? Load forever. Change server? Load forever. He can never get a jet at the start of the game because people have already taken 2 points before his game has even loaded. For me, the game crashes, without fail, the first time I start up any server for the first time I turn on Origin / Battlelog. Further still, the UI again is a horrible console port. Just to customize your guns accessories you have to click through 4+ different menus, then back out of them to get back to deploy. For the first 3 days practically no one knew how to join squads because the button was small, in an obscure location, and matched the color of the background.
Now, the best for last, Skyrim. I have almost 50 hours into Skyrim and I have crashed approximately 30 times in those 50 hours. 30 TIMES!!! How do I know exactly how many times I've crashed? Steam keeps track of your play time, and my game has crashed at approximately 1.5 to 2 hours without fail. I drew the line last night when I crashed at 40 minutes into the damn game.
Nothing is more infuriating than taking the time to kill a hard dragon, only to have the fuggin' game crash as you're collecting your loot. Or when you just made 100+ potions at the alchemy table, or just ran nonstop for 15 minutes in one direction while meticulously gathering resources along the way, or.... nevermind. The list goes on for about 30 different situations.
Not only does it crash all the time, it has weird problems with stuttering performance, loss of textures, exploding chunks of cheese and tomatoes that kill your player when you open closets, conversations with people while they're not even on screen, and more. Oh, guess what, it has crappy a UI for PC, just like Borderlands and BF3. PS3 players are reportedly having absurd performance hits once they reach a certain number of saved games.
In closing, MPRs make me sad. They're bug ridden, usually just ports from one major target platform to the other two (PC of which usually gets the shittier end of a shitty stick), and have bad UI.
It's all about the money and little about the fans.
Blizzard and Nintendo are just two companies that consistently put out high quality games with little to no game-breaking bugs. Many single-target dev teams do the same.
/endrant
Remember back when Super Nintendo was in its prime? When you bought a game, you'd bring it home, plug it in, turn on your console and BAM! Playing the game in less than 30 seconds with no problems. It never even occurred to me that there was always a possibility for some bug or glitch in the game that could possibly ruin my experience. It never occurred to me because from the huge selection of games I played, I never even encountered any... until playing GTA for Game Boy back in Jr. High school.
Fast forward to today. I can't buy a freakin' game without worrying about how many bugs will stop me just from playing the damn thing. This is very, very true for multi-platform releases (I'll just call them MPRs).
Now I know that there are still plenty of games out there that are properly bug tested and have little to no impact on gameplay. Usually games that are not MPRs are quite polished and lovely. Three games I'm going to target specifically are Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and Borderlands (yes, reaching back a few years).
Why these three? They're all MPRs, I love all three of them, they're all major AAA titles, and they're all buggy and poorly optimized, particularly on the PC. I'm going to try to avoid covering installation issues because that's a whole messy topic on its own. Let's start with Borderlands.
I was so damn excited about Borderlands to come out that we carved our Halloween pumpkins to be related to the game and hosted a 15-person Halloween LAN party at my place to all hook up and play. You know what's sad? If it weren't for the LAN, we wouldn't have been able to play together at all.
Borderlands had so many stupid, basic port forwarding problems that the CO-OP centric game they spent millions of dollars to market simply did not work. For MONTHS AFTER RELEASE. Hell, they even released DLCs for the game before properly addressing completely broken networking aspects of the game on PC. Not only that, it had a terrible UI that was an awful port straight from the console. I loved the game, but it would take almost 20-30 minutes just to get into a game with a few friends due to all the connectivity problems. One of my friends had bad internet and would even disconnect from me EVERY time we entered a new area. Yep, that's quality assured right there.
DRM is another thing that is getting in the way of players' enjoyment of games. The whole Origin / Battlelog system for BF3 is frustrating, feels archaic, and requires you to have two extra garbage programs running just to launch the damn game. Congrats! You found a way to suck more resources out of your fans' PCs just to run your game!
My friend here at work can't even play BF3 with me because his computer, which is a generation new / better than mine, has 5-10 minute load times for a single map. Map change? Load forever. Change server? Load forever. He can never get a jet at the start of the game because people have already taken 2 points before his game has even loaded. For me, the game crashes, without fail, the first time I start up any server for the first time I turn on Origin / Battlelog. Further still, the UI again is a horrible console port. Just to customize your guns accessories you have to click through 4+ different menus, then back out of them to get back to deploy. For the first 3 days practically no one knew how to join squads because the button was small, in an obscure location, and matched the color of the background.
Now, the best for last, Skyrim. I have almost 50 hours into Skyrim and I have crashed approximately 30 times in those 50 hours. 30 TIMES!!! How do I know exactly how many times I've crashed? Steam keeps track of your play time, and my game has crashed at approximately 1.5 to 2 hours without fail. I drew the line last night when I crashed at 40 minutes into the damn game.
Nothing is more infuriating than taking the time to kill a hard dragon, only to have the fuggin' game crash as you're collecting your loot. Or when you just made 100+ potions at the alchemy table, or just ran nonstop for 15 minutes in one direction while meticulously gathering resources along the way, or.... nevermind. The list goes on for about 30 different situations.
Not only does it crash all the time, it has weird problems with stuttering performance, loss of textures, exploding chunks of cheese and tomatoes that kill your player when you open closets, conversations with people while they're not even on screen, and more. Oh, guess what, it has crappy a UI for PC, just like Borderlands and BF3. PS3 players are reportedly having absurd performance hits once they reach a certain number of saved games.
In closing, MPRs make me sad. They're bug ridden, usually just ports from one major target platform to the other two (PC of which usually gets the shittier end of a shitty stick), and have bad UI.
It's all about the money and little about the fans.
Blizzard and Nintendo are just two companies that consistently put out high quality games with little to no game-breaking bugs. Many single-target dev teams do the same.
/endrant
Replies
I love blizzard and I'm a super fan boy but... have you played WoW or SC2 after some patches?
I feel like it's become easier for companies to release games a little ahead in order to keep up with the demands and then they can fix any glitches with online updates. The only problem with that is that can be a hassle, especially for people who don't have internet connection to their consoles.
I do agree though, I'd rather see a game more polished then released pre-maturely.
games now days are MUCH more difficult to test than the 2d games of our past.
It's almost impossible to predict how millions of people will run through any of the scenarios design in games now days, especially sandbox style games.
Blizzard also has a much, much bigger budget than just about any company out there. They can spend 10+ years developing a game, whereas most studios cannot. Nintendo also has incredibly vigorous testing procedures, which really tends to push away indie devs for nintendo platforms.
The ONLY bug/Glitch/wtf ever, i despise is falling through the floor
The more complexly compiled with trash a game is the more we suffer. Like how Blender runs without problem but our industry standard 3D apps are pile high with useless shit and love to crash at the worst times..
skankerzero- No doubt. That's also another contributing factor as to why those games would take a few months to a year to make, 2 years for some crazy long RPG like Mario RPG or Chrono Trigger. That's why I'm speaking from a fan's view and not a dev's view in this. When I buy something I want it to work. I don't want it to crash all the time.
Prohecies- Blizzard is in a special situation, yes. BUT, dev teams that target 1 platform generally have fewer problems. It's bothersome that so many games these days are MPRs. It drastically lowers the quality of each version of the game. And yes, there are very few indie games on Nintendo, but the games released on Nintendo are still very "clean," which is what I want from a fan's POV.
It all boils down to this really cynical point of view. Why should they care what's broken? They already have your 60 bucks. In games where there is a monthly subscription, then you want to keep the cash rolling in and you fix your game really quickly. BF3, who cares? You don't play to play once you bought the thing.
For what it's worth, the latest BF3 patch actually made my game more buggy. The patch to fix the black screen gives me more black screens that I ever had before the patch. I used to not have that problem, now it's every game. I could complain, but EA and DICE already have my 60 bucks.
I've never had a single bug/crash in SC2 that i can remember and i've racked up a fair number of hours in that game
I get your frustration, I too would have been pretty pissed if games that I've paid money for didn't work well. But it sounds like your hardware setup might be flawed, or at least your software. You should google the error messages or problems you get from the games to see what other people have done about them. The times I've had problems this has always helped me.
that being said, the diablo series and starcraft were damn near perfect. yes, they patched them for balancing issues. but nothing game breaking. just super picky tweaking.
but as someone said. they ahve the money to test it relentlessly
When Cataclysm launched on my server 120+ quests were impossible to complete because one of the early quests in Hyjal that was a pre-req to practically EVERYTHING in the zone would bug out and stop spawning NPCs. Since this was one of the two entry areas, it forced everybody on the server to level up in Seaworld which was an ungodly clusterfuck. Their expansion launch model for WoW is to basically go forward with crippled classes and fix it with patches later. Don't even get me started on the S&P bugs that they literally announced every patch "was fixed" but never was, which combined with the HORRIFIC healing changes made priests virtually worthless in PVP/PVE for months.
I also find it odd that you think this is a "new" problem with "MPR" games while citing Skyrim as your prime example. Morrowind came out almost a decade ago and was designed for the PC first and foremost, then ported to consoles LATER. It's one of the most crash prone games I've ever played. You think Skyrim is bad, that game may as well have been unplayable without quicksave. It even crashed on consoles which was pretty amazing because up until then I didn't even think that was possible and I still haven't played a game since that does that.
The problem isn't really "MPR" games, it's PC games. PCs have a VERY broad range of hardware you need to test and support for and it has ALWAYS been a pain in the ass to do and that isn't going to change any time soon unless the Mac becomes the new gaming platform. Consoles have more or less consistent hardware which makes it a much simpler process of getting reliable results out of. I do agree it sucks that the PC always gets a back seat but I mean, the reasons for why that is the case isn't that unreasonable.
It's easy to point to Nintendo and say their games are always great when they have the convenient advantage of making games that are WAY behind the curve in terms of complexity in rendering tech for a consistent platform that they also happen to manufacture...
TL;DR: I think your frustrations are misplaced.
Goraaz- Not a software problem. Borderlands didn't crash, it had networking problems, and my BF3 works decent (it's my friend's that doesn't). The problem with Skyrim is the "CTD" I'm getting (crash to desktop). No error message, nothing. Instantly closes game and goes to desktop. Googling it results in unfounded results ranging from changing sound settings to resetting registry. My complaint is something like this shouldn't even happen.
When I say Blizzard, I do mean Diablo and SC mostly. I played WoW too sporadically to get affected by certain patches. Even when I did play WoW I never had inexplicable crashes every 2 hours, networking issues, or frustration with PC UI optimization. It is impressive they get their products to work on a VERY broad range of PCs.
No, I don't think my frustrations are misplaced. If I bought something and it doesn't work as indented, that makes me frustrated. It's like buying a vacuum cleaner that turns off on its own every 3 minutes or shoots dust out the side.
...and I knew Skyrim was going to pop up here. Admittedly it does have a ton of bugs. And I will say I'm a little depressed at the recently released version 1.2 update notes.
I mean...really. Just looking at the UESP will tell you of some incredibly common, sometimes game-breaking bugs that aren't mentioned at all. Things like Esbern not having any voice/not opening a door, or doing certain outside quests that break thieves guild quests, or what have you.
That being said, while I am depressed at a lot of the "practices" going on in gaming, I also realize that a lot of the problem lies within myself and my own outlook. Back in the day we'd wait an hour to download and watch a TV show on our computers, these days if it doesn't load something in 10 seconds we're pissed. And looking back on it, I put up with A LOT of shit in video games growing up. If not bugs, just outright broken design. I mean fuck - the font they used in Mario 64?
And another part of me is happy because it's teaching me to wait for sale prices a year after the game is released.
I just try to relax, and rely less on my games and more on myself and my family for my entertainment.
Andreas- It's expected ;p
Snowfly- Over the past year or so I've been seriously considering switching to console. With the past few major game purchases I've bought and loved, it's clear they're optimized for console. After my wedding next year I'll be getting us a bigger TV and a console. It'll be nice to just lounge on the couch and play as opposed to sitting in a chair. I sit all day at my computer at work, I don't like having to go home and sit at my computer at home.
And then you've got the Wii, which while it does have a few worthwhile gems, is 99% "Shrek the game", and all of your games have terrible fucking motion controls (yes, even the new Zelda which while passable still makes me wish the goddamn A button was "forward stab") because as a company you just HAVE to try to implement your stupid fucking gimmick, even though it adds nothing to gameplay and causes 100% more frustration than it does make me feel more immersed in anything.
...thankfully at least for my Wii, I waited a couple years and got it cheap bundled with a few things.
That's the new name of the game. "Wait".
And yeah, Haiasi, same with me. Skyrim was a special case, bought it new. Love it as a whole, incredible game. But it's rare that a game like Skyrim comes along that's worth the trouble.
Edit: Gotta add, while Nintendo has pissed me off with their overall practices and their constant "It's mario so it's awesome and you should pay $50 for it 5 years after its launch" attitude, they are pretty great with their games and them being pretty damn bug free.
SupRore- I guess I kind of just stayed with PC gaming all this time because it's what I grew up on after the N64 era died out. I never had a Playstation, PS2, PSP, PS3, Xbox, or 360. I can also do art on my PC, so I end up buying a pretty nice PC rig that can run games on high graphics, so I'd just buy games for my PC. It's actually quite a bit cheaper to be a PC gamer, in my opinion.
It makes it easiar when Blizzard BANs you for running your game in multi-monitor eyefinity/surround because having advanced technology ( even as cheap as monitors are nowadays ) is an unfair advantage. Rock Solid for Blizzard means"lowest common denominator" support.
As a hardcore Blizzard fan I have hardcore rage every single time I open my pirated SCII copy of a game I have bought 3X ( is it even possible to pirate a game u have bought? ) Just to give it the immersive widescreen love it deserves.
If they do the same to Diablo mah bruthas @ wsg r sure to bust a blood vessel:
http://widescreengamingforum.com/forum/forums/multi-monitor-gaming/multi-monitor-gaming/16082/diablo-3-wont-support-3-monitors
Back in the snes days, when bethesda was only into pc-development, and they made elderscrolls 2: daggerfall, they still managed to make one extremely buggy game that it even got nicked buggerfall, this was when games like the doom series would run flawlessly on the same computer, no issues.
Other than that, microsoft and sony have requirements that are much more hardcore than releasing on something like steam, which means that resources will get shifted to fix bugs first and foremost on the consoles, you can easily release a buggy game on pc, no one will stop you, but if you try it on consoles, you'll get failed every time until there's no more crashes.
But if you take a company like blizzard, they'll keep patching and patching until everything works, with their focus actually being pc.
I would agree, and I'm a big fan of multi-monitor gaming (could I afford it, and oh my god in flight sims)
But there is a big point to competitive gaming + screenspace in a game that is supposed to have a set amount of area you are supposed to see.
I agree to a point...
God forbid anyone have advanced hardware that gives them an advantage.
But I do think the affordability of a multi-monitor setup is getting to be a stale argument. You can setup an eyefinity rig dirt cheap nowadays. In which case it comes down to choice and preference just like every other hardware choice you make on a PC. You would think that enthusiasts that do support our industry to such a ridiculous degree see a little more compassion.
Even if you still consider it an unfair advantage... and even it it were then "allowed"...
How upset would a competitor be? once or twice a month at the most ( if they even remembered that such an advantage existed.
Whereas someone with a sweet-ass $1700 3X27" 3d vision surround porn machine feels that pain every single day he fires up starcraft. Every single time. So unfair... so very very painful. ( well actually not. I get to enjoy that porn everday ) still being anti-piracy and feeling compelled to use as much is pretty dispiriting.
When I first put out a game, and I'm sure everyone who has will feel the same, I felt like SHIT. We had a deadline, and it wasn't that was annoyed with the bugs, I was annoyed that I couldn't fix them (even though I knew almost exactly how) because we had other issues and other things to do.
I looked at the particle effects, knowing I could double the speed and quality in 5 weeks. I looked at the physics, the cars were still a bit bumpy over some edges and the rebound wasn't as tight as it could have been. One of the tracks still had some miracle issue that caused trouble in the first laps, but helped greatly on the last lap (???).
But, along with the rest of the team, we spent the last weeks not fixing those bugs, but making sure the gameplay was better. We're not Valve or Blizzard, we can't just palm off people with 'when it's done'.
Then we became a Valve-like entity ("shaddup, it'll be done when it's done"), worked on it some more, and doubled the content, doubled the quality, and you know what? I STILL feel like shit. There's still effects that need to be faster, there's still physics that isn't perfect. But, the game STILL plays well, better than before. And the update was twice the size of the original game, so that another 'sounds like Valve' box checked off.
I think a lot of companies fail to realise that if you give the PC crowd something nice instead of the shaft, you don't just this shit pirated out of you. Valve's most 'offensive' release of late was probably L4D2, and within a month or two, they'd done their backflip, priced it at $20 and all was forgiven and forgotten. And the important thing is, everybody likes Valve again.
Surely if you keep releasing crappy ports for a platform, then there's going to be some kickback in the form of piracy - people thinking 'hmm yes this is interesting, but based on last time I don't think this is worth $100' or whatever.
Currently the trend seems to be ship now patch later. With the advent of the technology, this is possible, and it's awesome. However, it's heavily abused now in days.
My solution is this: Why not eat the same elephant developers are having to eat, but in smaller bites. Instead of releasing the whole game at once, why not go the route of episodic content? In many ways, this can improve the life of IP's and keep the hype alive. Why hasn't anyone caught on to this yet? Episodic content is great. It's why we love hour long TV shows, cry when it's over so soon, yet destroy anyone and anything in our path to see next week's episode. I would EASILY buy BF3 again if they released the single player game, and then added multiplayer later on, or even released the single player game with the first few missions along with the multiplayer mode and only a couple maps.
I'm telling ya, this is the way to go. Same size, smaller chunks, happier fans, lower cost (because you're doing things right the first time around), etc.
reminds me of the Age of Conan launch. It went great, until 3 weeks later when people realized that the release date didn't leave time for adding much content beyond the starter zone. The game never recovered from the bad press it got.
One year later everything was fixed and working and the remaining players were happy, but the bad press still stuck. You just cannot launch a title twice. How different would the games success have been if it had just been launched 1 year later.
Not sure how's to blame though. greedy management? greedy publisher? But it's always the same story - sacrificing long term gains for short term gains is often not a good idea, no matter what industry you're in.
If anything i'd say DLC is filling the role of episodic content quite nicely, especially the way it gets used in fallout.
Claydough, you really fucking bang on about multimonitor support, dont you? I think youre a bit bias a lot of the times
Sadly, I have to say that despite a decade of patching, it still crashed 5 minutes into playing it, which doesn't exactly support my point.
Suprore: I... don't know if you're trolling or just simpleminded, so which is it? All the pros of console gaming considered, I don't think innovation (above and beyond that of the pc) is one of them. The focus is still very much on big-studio releases, with small studios denied access to all but the mallnourished digital download part of the service.
That is why you rarely see any large sandbox rpg games, because people will avoid making them due to this.
I think the most important thing is that developers should be ready to work hard on fixing issues for quite some time after the game has been released, especially on pc which is the most subjected to messy releases.
Episodic content has worked in some cases, but they will not help with fixing bugs or avoiding them, releasing a sandbox rpg as episodic just won't happen due to the nonlinearity of it.
Valve tried the whole episodic thing, it just didn't work, development times were still high, bug fixing and testing still needed to be done.
It works nice for adventure games though.
There is no such thing as bug free.
Well, "Valve time" is partly to blame for that. You can't choose the episodic content route and then wait 4 years (entering 5th year without any press) to release Episode 3. The first two worked fairly well IMO.
I don't feel that Mirrors Edge was a large game or gave developers too much to chew, in keeping with my above metaphor. But even so, I don't know... it's been a while since I've played it. Wasn't the game divided into Chapters already? So divide it there, I guess. You can't just look at games now though and say "divide it here!" You have to write and develop with that in mind. Dividing it in retrospect naturally makes the idea look bad. It could be done right though.
And perhaps if it was episodic content, I'd remember better since I would have played it more recently
But my point is that when a very short game is still taking a significant amount of time to develop, would you really be happy to wait 4~ months (random figure) to get the next 30 minute installment? That to me seems wayyy too fragmented.
I think the idea of "episodic" content lends itself well to a missionpack/SDK approach, where you have a large amount of assets already there to play with... however, as a verticle slice i could see it damaging the potential uniqueness of levels/setpieces in order to keep a decent pace when releasing.
As a point of reference, how long does a TF2 map take to develop? Or perhaps a Portal 2 test chamber?
Because they dropped out from doing actual episodes and they slipped back into becoming stand alone expansions, with more features and content going in to them than originally planned.
It works for Telltale, since the structure of adventure games don't require you to make a game full of content that you'd need for just the start of the game such as mirrors edge, it's very self-contained. You want the full dev-cycle to polish the core gameplay elements that you'll use through out the whole episodic series.
But as Jackwhat said, all you'll end up doing is fragment your game over the same dev-cycle, but with the earlier releases receiving far less time and far less QA+bugsquashing.
Ideally the staff that work on a game should all play through it before sending it out for approval to Sony/MS/Nintendo, but studios rarely give themselves any leeway for that sort of thing.
As my boss says, you can't be a company based on Quality, Low Cost and Customer Service all at once. Pick two. We focus on Quality and Customer Service. Our products are more expensive that our competitors, but we are highly successful and actually save people money in the long run. Now apply that to games.
Jackwhat, I still think you're thinking my definition of episodic content is small. 30 minute installments would not be worth it and it's not what I've been talking about.
As far as what you alluded to, and what Eld was commenting on about assets, I believe there are several strategies that developers could use to combat the con's you listed. It just takes a new way of thinking and a new strategy for developing.
What's clear is that the way of doing things now isn't working. Releasing games with the amount of bugs in them today is unacceptable. The ship now and patch later mentality has become a crutch and a band-aid to the deeper problem here.
A nice byproduct, I feel, of finding a way to make episodic content to work, is the reduction of developer stress. I'm not yet in the games industry, but I hear about long stressful hours and high octane work environments. I can't help but feel this is partly because there is SO much to do in so little time. And rested/happy workers make less bugs. Perhaps it's that fundamental.
PS: Skyrim hasn't really crashed for me that much. I've had a few crash to desktop cases, but it's never screwed me over. Battlefield 3 was far worse. It's unplayable for me still... on my $1900 rig.
There are still requirements now as there was then, and they are insanely high, if a game crashes a single time on the consoles during its testing runs its a no go.
QA will run through games multiple times, over and over again, running through the whole game is the bare minimum that QA have to do.
But when taking a game series like the elderscrolls, which nearly has infinite numbers of ways to go about it or play through the game, and an almost astronomical number of combination of scenarios, very unlike a linear game like gears of war.
You are bound to run into issues that slip through both QA and the console manufacturers own harsh requirements.
Then there are outside factors like the issues Id ran into with rage, where actual driver issues would compromise the game.
It's not an excuse to release a broken game, but those factors have to be taken into consideration, either we have to accept slightly broken games as long as they are fixed within reasonable time, or developers will avoid complex sandbox games such as the elderscrolls series like the plague.
Do you have much experience developing games?
Do you know how long it would take to test every single possible approach to every single quest?
It's impossible.
You may not buy it, but it's the truth. Testing Skyrim vs any snes game is apples and oranges.
I want you to look at the credits on Skyrim and see how many testers they had. Chances are, those guys didn't come in at the very end but rather were there for most of the project.
Simple truth:
EVERY game has bugs and exploits.
**edit: to add to this, no, complexity should never be an 'excuse'. 'Excuses' come up when you have no better reason for how things came about. Usually because of laziness or cutting corners.
Yes but QA is normally outsourced and/or comprised of people that are highly disconnected from the project itself. Any number of bugs could be missed for any number of reasons when things are done like that. It's fine for the majority of time during a project but as a 'final pass' bug check it should be done in-house by the people that know the game best and have some vested interest in it and its success.
But a full on replacement for a QA-peron would require an AI capable of thinking like a human.
Making a rover that runs around planets, or a space rocket is much easier than making games, but as carmack says, when a game crash you can just restart it, but when a rocket crashes it's spread out in a thousand pieces.
Same thing with rovers, a single tiny bug can be ruin everything when it's out there on some planet.
There are a fair few automated testing setups out there, and I don't anticipate we won't see more of them, but at the end of the day they'll never replace someone sitting there and going through the game by hand.
You can't really compare washing machines with games but many machines are flawed as well. Some machines are "fixed" by releasing new updated versions(if the original version is let's say MX1011, the updated and fixed version would then be MX1011i or whatever) instead of releasing patches like they do for today's games.
As for famous well-established companies making faulty electronic products;
- My previous laptop's model series had faulty mother boards. They would only hold for about a year until they would suddenly just stop working. Whenever I sent it in to HP I got a similar kind of faulty mother board and finally my warranty time was up. The laptop held up for about 2 years... Unless I would pay a cost of about the original price of the laptop itself to get a new faulty mother board
- My creative mp3 player sometimes just freezes without any reason and it's apparently a common error which many owners have complained about. No fix, no returns.
- I recently got an SDD hard-drive and only after 2 months I found out that the whole model series(as well as a few other ones) were all faulty. The computer would suddenly BSOD. The company asked people to send their HDD's back in order to get new better working ones fortunately.
So yes, I'm pretty sure other products than games have similar problems. I'm not sure if Whirlpool has the same amount of pressure to release some new washing machine though, especially not if they've already have similar versions out in the market. BF3 on the other hand was a game that many people had waited for and it required much more people and time to create (And even that amount of testers and developers wasn't enough).
Fact: Games are released with bugs. This is fine. Understandable.
Fact: We've seen a lot more buggy games in recent years upon release.
Fact: This is because platforms have gotten more complex.
Fact: It's also because the scope of the games have increased.
Fact: There are also issues, as mentioned in Haiasi's first post) with simply porting a game over to a different platform.
Fact: There is a proven mentality of ship now patch later in the industry.
Fact: It's all to meet deadlines and cut costs.
Let's be clear. Bugs will always be around. Complex platforms are a fact of life. They will only get more complex. The scope of games will increase. The pressure to develop games faster and better will always be around.
So, taking all of that into account, what can a company do to assure quality in their games?
1) Keep their employees happy and rested. It's proven that happy, rested workers make less mistakes. As a programmer as well as an artist, it only takes a few nod-offs while coding to start writing spaghetti code.
Note: Crunch times are a reality. I've seen debate on here as to whether or not they are a necessity, but it really all comes down to project management and your leaders. Good project management and a health work ethic are key.
2) Increase development time. There is a saying that states that work expands to fill the time allotted. This is so true! Increasing development time needs to be handled like the pipe bomb it is. I think publishers see this to be true and cut development time, putting everyone in frantic-mode because they know it gets shit done. "If the same work can be done in less time, then let's make a tighter deadline!" Well, yes and no. I think keeping a tight leash on this is smart, from a business perspective. But there is a balance. A balance they seem to be failing at it recent years.
3) If you can't afford to increase development time, then decrease the scope of the game. What is with companies and governments writing checks they can't cash? Does no one know how to budget? If I set out to build a new computer, I most likely need a new computer. I'm not going to blow my money on a CPU and Graphics card and leave myself without the rest of the necessary parts... No, that would be dumb. I'd be sitting around for months saving up again in order to buy the rest of the parts I need. In would need to rethink my parts and go with a cheaper build.
Likewise, if you can't sustain development for the length of time needed to produce a quality game... what do you cut? Time or scope? Or a balance of the two? You certainly don't want to cut your play testing. LOL, that would be dumb, HAHA right guys? Well play testing is probably taking forever because the scope of the game is large, right? Dialing back the scope decreases the development time and leaves more time for play testing and bug fixing.
No argument is water tight, and I'm sure if I were in the games industry I would have more perspective to offer, but from a consumer standpoint, and as someone who is familiar with software and art deadlines, this is the logical conclusion I have come to.
And let me take a moment to thank developers. You guys can seriously take it up the ass on some projects, only to hear communities bitch and moan about the very thing you poured your soul into the last X amount of years. It has to be hard, especially with publishers breathing down your neck. However, you guys persevere because you love your trade. You are the spinner of worlds, of realities, and of new adventures that this life will never offer. I know it is never a developers intention to release a buggy game or offer a crappy experience. However, it's happening, you know? As someone who loves games and aspires to work for a game company in the future, it breaks my heart. But things can be done. That is what we should be moving towards, and I really think it starts with my above three points.
Sorry for the wall of text. I pretty much rest my case after this. Feel free to agree/disagree.
EDIT: Semi 4th point I forgot to touch on and will mention briefly is research and experience working on said complex platforms. Talent sometimes needs to be cultivated and simply can't be hired. Bugs are definitely a part of this learning experience, but this should be taken into account by management. And I guess on this same token, it sounds like there needs to be a better understanding between console makers such as Microsoft and Sony, and developers. It's not like these conversations aren't happening, and MS and Sony will do their own thing too so this point is largely out of the hands of developers and publishers, but I guess it's another aspect of this issue and something that hopefully becomes more of a... pleasant process(?) In the future.
I cant think of the last innovative big budget pc game i've played. I mean, yeah, the indie scene wins out, but you rarely need a 'gaming pc' for that.
Big studios make tons of creative, unique stuff. Except for maybe Trine and Arma2, I cant think of a commercial PC-exclusive i've played in recent memory which was really worth my time.
I think people get too caught up harshing on EA and Activision and forget stuff like [ame="
Yes you did, and now, 10 years down the line, if my children ask me "Why you don't love us Papa", I'll tell them a fellow names Sherman made me so jaded, that not even the tears of a child can move me.
Oh, also, I would like to know what kind of bugs out there are game breaking bugs that actually stop a game. The ones I can recall are...oh, wait, look here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameBreakingBug
See, even games as far, long ago, as Atari has game breaking bugs, and the worst part? You. Couldn't. Fix. Them. - Tied. To. Save. Game.