Devs Feel Like Sh*t When They Deliver Games In Poor State,Dying Light To Push All Platforms:Techland

Recently, a lot of AAA games arrived broken at launch. 2014's biggest games such as Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed Unity, DriveClub and others were almost unplayable for certain players.

[gangsta_red]

I think some devs feel less sh*tt*er than others, given some track records lately.

There really isn't a good excuse to releases a phenomenally broken game other than they are trying to hit their release date and take advantage of sales for a given date.

We should hold devs accountable and not let them off the hook so easy.

[blakstarz]

This is the only thing I can think of as well, they must be under pressure to get the game out by the release date that was contracted, and they probably know this and that why we are seeing these "Day 1 patches" a lot lately.

[MoonConquistador]

Drive club is peculiar in this regard as they changed the release date and developed the game for a further year (even if it was right back to the drawing board).

But yes, there should be better protection for the consumer in this regard. A game with multiple glitches, or performance issues such as huge frame rate drops should be returnable, no questions asked. Not quite sure the sale of goods act or equivalent laws do this currently. Some of the issues are subjective and annoy some people more than others.

I'd take a delay to a game every single time as opposed to a game riddled with quality issues that should have been sorted before release.

[iceman06]

As I said above, devs don't have as much say in when they release a game as we think. It's the publishers that set these strict dates and often remain staunch on changing them (unless the game is in a totally unplayable state). Either way, we DO have to start holding them accountable for completely broken releases. I love the fact that devs can patch games to get them working better. However, I HATE the fact they are now relying on this too often these days.

[EinRobot]

Whatever. It happens far to often for me to believe that developers feel bad about it. Try and sell your bridge somewhere else. I'm not buying it.

[ziggurcat]

Then devs should spend more time fixing bugs, and less time closing bugs as known shippable...

[qwerty676]

what can they do really, they get pressured by publishers to put the game out at a certain time

[MoonConquistador]

Maybe its not so much what the devs can do as what we could do as gamers and end users. Refer to gangsta reds point above about us holding them to task more about it.

If publishers were forced to recall games and do another run of disks or offer refunds, and took a dent in profits, they wouldn't be as keen to put release dates ahead of quality control as a priority.

[blib]

The problem with the game industry is that gamers cannot unite to demand fair treatment, and at the drop of a hat can be turned against each other. If goods were delivered in the real world that reflected their digital counterparts, you'd see a lot of people going to jail for fraud.

[WeAreLegion]

I imagine.

From a personal standpoint, it's disappointing that a project you love and have worked on for years is completely broken at release due to greedy publishers/managers.

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to release broken games. Sure, you can sucker people into buying a broken game once. But what happens next time? Look at Call of Duty. Ghosts was a joke and a half. That's why pre-orders for Advanced Warfare were significantly lower than Ghosts. Consumer trust was broken. (It should have broken after the original Infinity Ward split up, but still.)

[iceman06]

I fully agree with this. I can't see anybody with true passion being happy with releasing broken games. But, I would say that the publishers are more than eager to risk doing it. They pretty much know their profit margin from the get go. Sure, from our point of view, it might seem like they would lose money. But, how much would it cost them to continue to develop vs. the potential extra sales. That's what is on their minds. To the business heads, it's probably not a worthy investment. Especially for an annual franchise that still sells in the top year in and year out despite it's own community screaming about various issues.

[TheGamingArt]

It's usually management's fault and it reflects on us. So yea... it sucks a lot and makes something we were originally excited about not so glamorous. Especially after putting so much time into it >.<.

[theXtReMe1]

It's actually a chain of command that's at fault. Investors want to see more and more profit, publishers want to give them that profit so they continue to invest in the company to keep making better games... from Fall to Christmas, you get the best sellthrough of the year. The best time to regain lost profits and increase that bottom line that investors seek.

Who gets hurt in this process? The developers and gamers. No developer wants his name on any project that fails or is completely broken, especially at launch. Gamers are ultimately the most important people that publishers want to impress, Because they are the ones who forward the money that impresses the investors. The problem is, investors don't care. They want profit, profit, profit and they want it now. The best developers and publishers are those who arent publicly owned, as they are the ones that can make their own decisions as to when a game gets released and in what state. The problem is, especially in this day and age, it's so expensive to make a game that you need investors in order to get the initial capital to get things started.

This vicious circle is what is ruining gaming. Not developers or gamers. Yes, gamers may be buying broken games, but when that's a good percentage of all that is being released… What else can they do?

The bottom line… Blame investors, because they are the ones who don't care what state a game gets released in, just as long as it is released and money starts coming in. Publishers and developers do not want to release games in that state. What good does it do them? They end up losing the very people they are making the games for and therefore lose those investors because the money is not coming in to support making the next AAA project.

Games aren't getting any cheaper to make and one bad project can bankrupt any one studio. The best thing that could be accomplished for the entire ecosystem of gaming is middleware that makes development easier and faster, with less instances of issues.

[crazychris4124]

This is why I now play the wait and see game with new titles. If gameplay and the reviews are great and there are only some minor bugs in the game then ill buy it. If not then I hold out until the game drastically improves. Tired of buying new games only to put them back on the shelf because its broken and I have to wait for patches to fix it.

[MultiConsoleGamer]

Yeah, sure they do.

[kenwonobi]

If its unfinished and released early how can they feel bad about it? They literally made a decision to do so knowingly. If they decide to gimp one version to make the other versions on par how can they blame anyone else but themselves for a poor product across all platforms?

[RedDeadLB]

Oh well then all is forgiven. Oh wait. No. It isn't.

[Roccetarius]

Techland haven't exactly given me reason to believe them. I'm glad i passed on the Dead island games, considering the poor state they were released in as well.

[thexmanone]

So what happens when the Xbox one`s version is better. The fans are going to make them feel like sh*t anyways.

[Enigma_2099]

... and yet you STILL do it.