"It's just impossible": Devs explain why big online games always seem to break at launch

Developers from EA, Massive, and more explain why and how things go wrong.

[ziggurcat]

because the testing environment does not adequately simulate the real-world environment. I know they do network stress tests, but even those aren't big enough to simulate the amount of traffic that occurs once the game is released to the public.

[Cobra951]

That may excuse the connectivity issues, not the many bugs that have nothing to do with servers or online functionality.

[Cmv38]

The 10 qa testers can't do nearly as much as the millions of users. That's why open beta testing is important.

[ziggurcat]

sometimes not even that is enough.

[rainslacker]

The stress tests actually tend to throw more data at the servers than you'd see in normal day one launches. The problem is is that they can't always account for real world application of the game, where you have players doing unexpected things, which may not line up with expected results.

Sometimes the stress tests aren't adequate, but it's usually more that you go from 40 game testers, to a couple million users, and it changes the dynamics of the net code interaction on the servers.

The bugs are quite another issue though, and more because of the aforementioned fact that they may have 40 game testers at the peak, and while they may find a lot of bugs, a great number of them never get the chance to get fixed, and sometimes, those bugs can compound when applied across millions of players.

[Name Last Name]

Sorry, but its not my problem that publishers want to push games out fast and devs have no time. I feel for the devs but as a consumer my wallet will talk.

[sprinterboy]

Really interesting article, especially explaining the servers, like too much traffic on a motorway.

[Futureshark]

Which means as a customer, I should wait 6 months for all the issues to get patched out? If everyone does that you will have zero sales and no player base, which in turn will mean no point to support the game and it will get pulled.

Bit of a vicious circle really, early adopters who pay full price effectively get an unfinished game, so why be an early adopter?

[Cobra951]

I was an early adopter when I was young. Now I'm not. I have a feeling most of us are similar. We start out with a lot of eagerness and impatience. Then we mellow out as we age, and we make more considered decisions. We wait until things are right.

That works all around. There are enough early adopters to make the whole thing viable; and the more experienced among us avoid the early issues altogether.

[sprinterboy]

Well said, gaming since the early 80s

[BQ32]

Because if its a multiplayer game you will be way behind in the skill gap and find it hard to compete with top players. If you a sp gamer than those types of games dont typically suffer from the same types of stress issues anyway. Im a very competitive mp gamer and would never consider buying a game i am hyped for late.

[BQ32]

Lmao off at the down votes on a perfectly reasonable position. This site is chalk full of multiplayer game haters always whining that devs should only focus on sp because your too afraid to compete, or just think how you enjoy games should always be the epicenter of gaming. I have news for you guys, you may be the majority on n4g, but you are quite disproportionately in the minority of gamers as a whole. You don't see a bunch of multiplayer gamers always crying that all the time and investment is being wasted on sp. Pansies.

[nibblo]

I agree and it doesn't usually take 6 months as the OP said maybe a month if they have done a beta stress test. People here are so anti MP because they tend to be PS players and bend their knee to everything single player. I like both so don't care.

[Cmv38]

If I like a game and see potential in it, I have no issue being a day one buyer. But its up to the developer to put out something people can believe in. That's why open beta is important. Helps the potential consumer and the developer. I don't mind bugs as long as the fun is there. Bugs can be fixed... lack of fun can't. Example fallout 76.

[CP_Company]

excuses, nothing more.

i remember when i played Diablo 3, they had testing server, in that server sometimes came big patches and they tested those patches sometimes over 6 month. that was just for patches.

now we have million dollar companies testing their new games 3 month before release, even less, you never going to release good product with such little time, that is a fact.
Sony and very few others takes the time and puts some effort into their work to release finished product, not half asssed.

[princejb134]

What did you expect is EA. They love making excuses

[Felix_Argyle_Catbro]

It's not just EA. Plenty other companies also gave their answers. They're all excuses to you? Why do you pretend that you know more about the products than the devs do?

[princejb134]

@felix no one is pretending. My answer is based on their track record. When was the last time EA released a product with no issues?

[Cernunnos]

Diablo 3's launch was a complete disaster though!

[Felix_Argyle_Catbro]

Why does an average consumer (you) pretend he knows more about the product than the devs do?

[Activemessiah]

Stick to linear games then...

[ArchangelMike]

Yeah, that's all bullcrap. Very informative and technical - but still bullcrap.

2011 - EA/DICE release BF3 beta test. The game however launches with lots of connectivyity and network issues
2013 - EA/DICE release BF4 beta test. The game however launches with lots of connectivity and network issues
2015 - EA/DICE release BFH beta test. The game however launches with lots of connectivity and network issues
2015 - EA/DICE release StarWarsBF beta test. The game however launches with lots of connectivity and network issues
2017 - EA/DICE release StarWarsBF2 beta test. The game still launches with lots of connectivity and network issues
2018 - EA/DICE release BF V beta test. The game still launches with lots of connectivity and network issues
2019 - EA/DICE Anthem beta test. The game however still launches with lots of connectivity and network issues

How many beta tests does it take before you learn from the past and make the adjustments necessary to prevent server overload at launch? Surely you've done it enough times now to know exactly what's going to happen when 2 million peolpe try to log on at the same time? If you haven't learned yet how to deal with that then don't ask for my money on day 1.

[ziggurcat]

"How many beta tests does it take before you learn from the past and make the adjustments necessary to prevent server overload at launch?"

It is literally impossible to adjust for that in the beta testing or general QA phase of development. It's not specific the EA/DICE, either, this is something across the whole board.

[ArchangelMike]

It's not impossible. With the basic advances in modern technology - especailly where everyone is claiming that cloud based gaming and streaming id the future - this should have been cracked after the second or third incident. They even addressed it in the article you simple rent more virtual servers for your launch window. Publishers don't want to fork out the extra investment, that's why.

[Dragonscale]

So they're basically charging people 60 bux to be beta testers lol.

[Cobra951]

Oh yeah. That has been the case for quite a while. I never buy new games at launch anymore. I wait until they get straightened out.

[DarkKaine]

The real problem here is bandwidth.
Most players play for a week at best, and it's unfeasible to pay for all that extra bandwidth in the launch window.
Tl;Dr it's all about the money.

[Cobra951]

That's pretty much the position of the guy getting interviewed in the article. Paying for enough servers to cover the launch window would mean a lot of them would be wasted afterward--his claim is like 50%

[Angelin]

If you would have read the article it says that it’s not that anymore as servers scale (aka you spin up servers in virual machines on demand). Connectivity issues can arise also from bad memory management on the server side. Ex: one faulty line of code that fills the ram

[chris235]

so why trying it time and again? ah, to rip off the gamer that still believes in hype. way to do business.

[devind]

"If every games company out there bought the hardware to cover everything they needed within that initial burst, two weeks later they'd have 50% of their hardware sitting there never used."

Yep.

[franwex]

I’m not sure if I agree with the excuse. Servers are scalable, if they do not own their servers, they could simply rent some for a week. To ensure a good experience the players that pay the most for the product.

[devind]

I'm just pointing out an obstacle. Solutioned or not, it's a logical explanation for 1 of the 100's of reasons for [see article title].

[kayoss]

Developer Mentality: Pay us first, and we promise we will fix the game when it is released.
"its just impossible". You guys seems so confident during the reveal of the game. Why wasnt this at all mentioned?

[Thundercat77]

They give you an unfinished game.
You pay full price to be a beta tester.
And then there is no guarantee the game is going to be fixed.

This is not a deal for me.

[Einhander1971]

This is the big problem with online gaming to many variables. It’s getting more and more difficult to iron out the issues when these titles go live. Thank God for immersive single player experiences hey.

[TheGamez100]

Its been a few weeks and servers are still trash at times.

[TheGamez100]

Its been a few weeks since launch and servers are still trash at times. EAs a freaking multibillion dollar company, there should be no excuses for this since everyone knows launches always have a problem like this for every game. Smh.

[MoshA]

World at War had like 60 players easily with tanks and stuff. So why does Apex Legends stutter.

[trouble_bubble]

Some games never get fixed.