GamesIndustry.biz - Broken & Bugged Games

Couchpotato

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Well to continue my hatred of all broken and bugged games it seems Rob Fahey of GamesIndustry.biz has posted a new article that talks about both problems.

Given that we could all probably agree that a piece of hardware being faulty is utterly unacceptable, I'm not sure why software seems to get a free pass sometimes. Sure, there are lots of consumers who complain bitterly about buggy games, but by and large games with awful quality control problems tend to get slapped with labels like "flawed but great", or have their enormous faults explained in a review only to see the final score reflect none of those problems. It's not just the media that does this (and for what it's worth, I don't think this is corruption so much as an ill-considered aspect of media culture itself); for every broken game, there are a host of consumers out there ready to defend it to the hilt, for whatever reason.

I raise this problem because, while buggy games have always been with us - often hilariously, especially back in the early days of the PlayStation - the past year or so has seen a spate of high-profile, problematic games being launched, suggesting that even some of the industry's AAA titles are no longer free from truly enormous technical issues. The technical problems that have become increasingly prevalent in recent years are causing genuine damage to the industry; from the botched online launches of games like Driveclub and Battlefield through to the horrendous graphical problems that plague some players of Assassin's Creed Unity, they are giving consumers terrible experiences of what should be high points for the medium, creating a loud and outspoken group of disgruntled players who act to discourage others, and helping to drive a huge wedge between media (who, understandably, want to talk about the experience and context of a game rather than its technical details) and consumers (who consider a failure to address glaring bugs to be a sign of collusion between media and publishers, and a failure on the part of the media to serve their audience).
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Given that we could all probably agree that a piece of hardware being faulty is utterly unacceptable, I'm not sure why software seems to get a free pass sometimes.

I have something to add on this matter.

Most of regulars and lurkers here probably didn't nor will play Sims 3 or Sims 4.
Back in the day I didn't care for Sims 3 forums as I didn't have problems (apart from obvious unoptimized code in Pets and Isla Paradiso expansions, plus coding crime on savegames that had a 3rd party "savecleaner" fix).

But then Sims 4 got released, I "joined the club" on the new forum. The game was buggy as hell and still is. Of course, I became tech section and troubleshooting regular, helped many, sadly, noone can help me (critical gamebreaking bug not fixed till this day).

I'm talking too much, eh?

But now comes the most important thing.
Apart from me there, everyone is behaving as the game is top notch polished and patched, and everyone is suspecting faulty hardware first. I mean… WTF.
I did argues, fights and even flames about it. People are not normal. They actually refused to believe obvious bugs exist and blamed it on hardware! When it was obvious hardware was not the culprit, then they blamed it on mods even in cases when players said initially they didn't put any mods.
EA is a holy cow there. Unbloodybelievable.

Just so you know a certain clique out there exists that refuses to believe some games are broken. You can upload your savegame with the bug or where anyone can reproduce some bug quickly, but no, they refuse to try it because, dunno, it might hurt their belief into EA's sacredness or something.
And those people, deliberately chosing to be ignorant and refusing to accept the reality, are IMO hurting the industry just as much as publishers/developers themselves.
 
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No distinction between broken games and broken pieces of software.

The Sims 4? They admitted the software is riddled with bugs. In all likelihood, that is what sank the developpment. Weird bugs to say the least. Uploading a save is not enough, telling how to reproduce the bug helps much more.
 
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Sadly, seems it doesn't work like that in case of EA.
So called ghosts patch introduced a new bug, you can find it described as solid purple lens. It was me who discovered what causes it and how to workaround it (till it gets fixed). I've reported it on EA answers HQ, wrote on sims 4 tech section, finally posted all details with screenshots included directly to devs and they did see it, even thanked me.

To this day, and it's now two months passed, to this day they didn't fix it.

Oh and the same devs have all my savegames. I did the game so thoroughly that from just my last save they can see every bugged achievement, every bugged trait, every bugged dialogue, etc.
But they don't care. Instead, they're onto some DLC that will be released in january, $20. I'm not buying ofc.

Which brings us to another branch of the story.
No making patch, but instead making and selling DLC on a broken game. Why are people buying it? It's DLC, it won't fix the base game bugs!
 
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Thank the increasing bugs to all kinds of Wifi routers, microwave emitting shiny crap, etc.. these literally dissolve mental focus and add errors to thinking resulting in more bugs.

Companies, who have offices outfitted with wired-only network and have no WiFi devices present are probably a lot more accurate creating less bugs.
 
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Welcome back Couch! Should have said that before now…

An now onto topic; many thanks for highlighting this article. I agree that broken and bugged games are on the rise; and both quality and quantity of breaks and bugs are much higher. Broken quests is one thing; but bugs like shaking graphics that extend across all quests and game aspects is another issue altogether. But that's what we're getting these days.

Looking back to Bioware's DA2; I didn't much care for the game, but one thing that game did have was polish and minimal bugs. Indeed that used to be a hallmark of BioWare games. And when BioWare used contractors such as Obsidian for their games, BioWare insisted that BioWare have input and control on Quality Assurance.

The quality rule at BioWare is no longer in place as is apparent from DAI. Graphic issues essentially across the board; m&k issues that can only be missed by willful ignorance ala the fabled head-in-the-sand-ostrich.

Ubisoft's AC Unity — another totally unreal example of how the industry simply no longer cares what they sell to gamers -- and the damage to their own franchises.

Is this hurting the industry? How can it not be hurting the industry?

It's a wonder that CD Projekt Red has the wherewithal to force themselves to wait for a quality game before hitting the retail outlets.

__
 
What I have NEVER EVER seen are replies from Publishers why they did press the dev teams into releasing such bugged games.

I've NEVER EVER seen anyone asking the publishers these questions, either. It is as if gaming journalists were part of a mafia structure that collaborates with the publishers - hence no questions asked.

I just wish that BIG ONES in the gaming journlism would ask the those who are RESPONSIBLE For actually releasing games in such buggy states a few very nasty questions where the Responsibles actually have to defend themselves.

But that will never be. Both parties hug each other just too much.

Ubisoft's AC Unity — another totally unreal example of how the industry simply no longer cares what they sell to gamers — and the damage to their own franchises.

I fail to see the logic behind those business decisions : They want SMALLER revenue by puiblishing game in such buggy & unfinished states ?

The only logic I could assume there is,
that they (those decision-makers) believe that they could make get enough profits even in buggy state through the sheer mass of buyers - and that especially with extremely well established Franchises …

It goes like this :

Original estimated profits : 500.000 Dollars
Minus losses because of buggy state : 100.000 Dollars
Remaining profits : 400.000 Dollars

A very nasty thi8ng would be that through fishy contractes the publishers 1. FORCE the devs to publish games in unfinished states and in the second step 2. SUE THEM BECAUSE OF the games' unfinished state !

The result would be DOUBLE PROFITS for the publishers !

Wasn't one of the very first blog entriesof Sven Vincke about such a case ?

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/10/the-publisher-takes-all-the-risk-and-other-lies/

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/12/tricks-of-the-trade/

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/07/why-so-many-developers-close-their-doors/

These blog entries really opened my eyes, then.

From the Gamesindustry.biz article :

Game companies, by contrast, seem to feel unpleasantly comfortable with releasing games that don't work and aren't properly tested.
 
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What I have NEVER EVER seen are replies from Publishers why they did press the dev teams into releasing such bugged games.

I've NEVER EVER seen anyone asking the publishers these questions, either. It is as if gaming journalists were part of a mafia structure that collaborates with the publishers - hence no questions asked.

I just wish that BIG ONES in the gaming journlism would ask the those who are RESPONSIBLE For actually releasing games in such buggy states a few very nasty questions where the Responsibles actually have to defend themselves.

But that will never be. Both parties hug each other just too much.



I fail to see the logic behind those business decisions : They want SMALLER revenue by puiblishing game in such buggy & unfinished states ?

The only logic I could assume there is,
that they (those decision-makers) believe that they could make get enough profits even in buggy state through the sheer mass of buyers - and that especially with extremely well established Franchises …

It goes like this :

Original estimated profits : 500.000 Dollars
Minus losses because of buggy state : 100.000 Dollars
Remaining profits : 400.000 Dollars

A very nasty thi8ng would be that through fishy contractes the publishers 1. FORCE the devs to publish games in unfinished states and in the second step 2. SUE THEM BECAUSE OF the games' unfinished state !

The result would be DOUBLE PROFITS for the publishers !

Wasn't one of the very first blog entriesof Sven Vincke about such a case ?

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/10/the-publisher-takes-all-the-risk-and-other-lies/

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/12/tricks-of-the-trade/

http://www.lar.net/2011/12/07/why-so-many-developers-close-their-doors/

These blog entries really opened my eyes, then.

From the Gamesindustry.biz article :

I used to believe Publishers were evil and responsible for all of the unfinished or bugged games that have been coming out.

But I've changed my mind, and Kickstarter and Early Access has shown that many times the blame can actually be laid square at the feet of the developers.

Some Developers must have been nightmares to work with for Publishers. I don't doubt some have swindled or lied to publishers like they swindle or lie to backers now. With the former there would be consequences, with the second there are none since they now are the major party in the relationship.

I have no doubt there are bad publishers but the truth will be somewhere in the middle and to absolve developers completely seems very naive.

I do agree Publishers should cancel unfinished or broken projects outright more often instead of laying the financial burden at the consumers by trying to recoup development money from uninformed consumers.

I also agree hard questions are rarely asked by journalists (probably because they don't want to burn any bridges with PR departments.)
 
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