STN Opinion: The trial of the day one patch

STN:

Ok, so you've bought a game, you take it home and it's more error ridden than you could possibly have expected. You hear that there's a day one patch, but since you are in the minority which can't connect to the Internet, you're stuck with an inferior product, are you happy about this? Of course not. You wouldn't pay for a leaking bottle of coke, would you?

[dazbobaby]

if you're not connected to the internet, how did you find out about the patch?

[wotta]

Friends, 3G who knows haha :D

[Starfox811]

Really nice piece. I completely agree about how they are generally a bad idea as it means that game development is no longer a finished process. It's also detrimental to the game when you're handed a review copy and it's before release and the patch so you're essentially reviewing a broken game. You have the knowledge that a day one patch should fix these issues, but a finished game shouldn't ship unfinished.

[caseh]

I always remember an analogy a programming lecturer gave me once regarding programming and how its impossible to write perfect code. Just like buildings, we've had experience of building them over hundreds, thousands of years yet even today they still fall apart or require maintenance.

It doesn't matter how well you write or test your code, there will always be something you miss or a part of it that can be improved. As for day 1 patching, most games could live without it and the problems it fixes are probably something you wouldn't have noticed unless raised in the patching documentation...with the exception of Bethesda games. :)

[dazzrazz]

You're not gonna tell me Danger Close studio (in case of Medal of Error) could miss on such a critical bugs in such a simply linear game like unresponsive controls or completely dead AI which stops you from moving forward.... Either way their Q/A team was spending all that time on blow and hookers or somebody told them to not give a fuck because there is a deadline to meet and it can be fixed later or never

[caseh]

@dazzrazz

I couldn't say in all fairness, don't know what their testing methodology is.

Things can be missed quite easily in testing, imagine the difference of lets say 10 people in general testing compared to in excess of 100,000 people playing it on its day of release.

Had a good example of an IP phone that was in testing at an old company I worked for. When you pressed a certain button 1000 times, the display shifted to the right by 1 pixel. 256,000 presses later the display was completely off the right hand side of the screen. How do you knowingly test for something like that and whats the threshold?

Some games are just shoddy builds full stop so I guess no amount of testing will iron the issues out.

[Starfox811]

Oh yeah totally. I'm not expecting any game to ship as perfect. I have no issue with patching a game post-release, especailly as day one patches are actually - in some cases - a month since the game was finished.

But my problem does come when a game is released basically not finished, so the patch can 'finish' it. Thus utilising the time between finishing up the final code and it releasing in stores to finish the game and get it out quicker.

They shouldn't go to press until absolutely ready and the patch can solve some small bugs here and there, not completely sort a game out.

[angelsx]

Any one got input lag on ps3 or just me?

[mydyingparadiselost]

Developers need to start finishing their games or the consumers need to be able to start getting refunds for opened games.On PS3 I had a Mass Effect 2 bug wipe my mass effect saves and then corupt my whole hard drive (which was supposed to be fixed in a patch but wasn't, Skyrim was an awful mess and still is (DLC issues), Borderlands 2 glitched my B.A Rank and pretty much ruined the game for me and so many other awful bugs that DON'T get fixed in day one patches. Even the systems don't work or or have their own internal problems that aren't fixed with patches, like the 360 which wiped my hard drive after signing up for Live 8 months after I got the console. I've stopped buying new releases b/c of these things (Nintendo being the exception b/c of the reasons in the article but even that might change) and I know there are many people who feel the same way. In the end, these patches and the low quality testing done before a game or consoles release hurts the gaming industry by forcing consumers to wait 6 months to a years before buying anything just to make sure it works