Obsidian designer says ‘publisher deadlines’ contribute to buggy games reputation

“We’re not total idiots,” says design director. “We know that we have a reputation for buggy games."

[AK91]

Damn Straight.

[Magog]

Did publisher deadlines keep them from patching and fixing their games after release?

[veicht]

Actually, kindof? Not deadlines exactly but publisher budgeting can largely determine the amount of post-launch support a game gets.

[dreamoner]

Fun fact: Sega sat on Alpha Protocol for 6 months before release, not letting Obs to even patch the bugs out.

[coolbeans]

Considering SEGA was initially onboard with a major re-write, internal gameplay QA, and delaying the game prior to the instance you're talking about, I can see why they wouldn't want to dole out the extra cash.

[mark_parch]

I was excited for the outer worlds when I saw the first trailer but gameplay I've seen since didn't look very polished

[bluefox755]

To the surprise of no one. Publishers are generally out of touch with gamers.

[Lighter9]

Thank you Captain Obvious.

[eddvdm]

Where this people live this isn't obvious enough, true.

But as a developer myself, at least 50% of the times it's the designer/developer fault on giving bad estimates as well. Publishers are "mostly"" bad, yes - as dev people are "mostly" inefficient too. In my 20 years of experience.

[littletad]

Well obviously. Gotta put those shareholders first you know!

[Smokehouse]

Not every publisher can delay their games for 2 years like Sony and Microsoft do.

[godofiron]

this is true, but it's also true that a lack of publisher deadlines would lead to more... Star Citizen.

as with all things, there's a balance to be achieved.