Column: Developers rely too much on patches

Gran Turismo 5 is a great game that recently received a brilliant patch. Too bad it came well after the reviews were written.

[aviator189]

Well, that is true. I wonder how finished games would be like if there wasn't such a thing as patches or ways to remedy games after they've been released.
Boy, that would be quite different than today.

Games that mostly come to mind are the Call of Duty games...

[ChristianGamer]

...and most recently Fallout and GT5...how many patches have released already and how many more are said to be coming? Why not just release the game whole? You had 5 years

[DigitalAnalog]

The game is complete. People didn't like the unpolished extras. He could've ditched the 800 standard cars, removed the rally, go-karts and the like and it would've more content than most racing games PERIOD.

Moreover, other patches were there to address people's REQUESTS. Who would've thought a "no-HUD" would be popular amongst sim fans, does this mean the game should've come out with a feature they aren't aware about? You're comparing a buggy game to one of the most stable ones and you're complaining about completion? By retrospect, Alan Wake is the most guilty of this releasing 2 DLC's after making a linear, short yet developed in a similar time frame as GT5.

[MicroSony4Life]

Yes but you have to take in to consideration that Poly has over 200 staff members when Remedy is a small team of about 50 - the budget for GT5 was very much higher than the budget for Alan Wake as well.

[nix]

i know.. people are gonna talk about how GT5 phails because it keeps updating. well.. one thing people need to understand is GT5 was not a BROKEN GAME when it released. whatever updates we are getting is just making the game experience better. THE GAME RAN PERFECTLY BEFORE IT GOT ANY FIRMWARE. so that's that!

and for that 800 'standard' cars that everyone keeps complaining about... does anyone even think that all those 800 cars drive differently! like which freaking 'simulator' on consoles is gonna give you 1000+ cars that run differently??!

@microsony: you know... the PSP GT game didn't come out of thin air.

[PirateThom]

Exactly, Gran Turismo 5 wasn't patched because it was broken, the patches all added new features and applied minor fixes. In fact, the patches haven't been applied to fix graphical glitches or freezing or anything like that, no, rather the patches have been things that have been requests and some thing that weren't (like the seasonal events, which are awesome).

[Active Reload]

"You're comparing a buggy game to one of the most stable ones and you're complaining about completion? By retrospect, Alan Wake is the most guilty of this releasing 2 DLC's after making a linear, short yet developed in a similar time frame as GT5. "

You criticize that person for something, then go on to do the exact same thing, lol. I don't remember downloading any patches for Alan Wake, just more game. A patch is something to fix a problem. Did Fallout: NV and GT5 not have any problems? From what I can see, the Christian gamer seemed to get defensive about COD being pointed out to draw comparisons to what this article is about. Then you, Digitalanalog, get defensive about GT5, so much so, that you bring poor defenseless Alan Wake into fanboy buffoonery.

[nickjkl]

i can think of some ps2 games that could of used some patches

[DigitalAnalog]

You're taking my comment out of context. ChristianGamer gamer complains about GT5 not being completed because of patches. Hence, according to his logic, Alan Wake is even worse off because in order to get the most experience out of the game - you need to BUY said DLC and not merely download a patch upgrade.

@MicroSony4Life:

PD has 140 members, not 200+ which you claim. Also, having XX team members has nothing to do with said subject. Point being is that ChristianGamer ignorantly insinuates that GT5 is an incomplete and broken experience along with thepoor reasoning to back those claims.

-End of Line

[Dee_91]

Yea but .. who gives a shit about reviews ? lol

as long as the game is gettin better is all that matter to me

[Clarence]

Gears 2

[kinf-of-zon]

@ active reload
I think what digitalanalog was getting at is, Alan wake spent as much time in development as GT5 but content wise did not have all the "bells and whistle" GT5 had.

[Christopher]

I think it's easy to say this sort of thing from our side. People would quickly change their tune if they understood the requirements from the other side.

Specifically, I think people need to understand that it's very rarely developers who cause a situation that is reliant on patches so much so that it is product managers who force deadlines to projects that don't leave enough time to fix many of the issues that tend to make it into the gold disc. In fact, most developers have to manage their bug fixes in the last two months so that the bugs that they do leave in are non-game breaking compared to other bugs.

If management wasn't strict on setting deadlines specific to a budget (and assigning a budget to match the project needs), we'd see a lot less bugs. But, development as it is is already very expensive to the companies.

[iceman06]

Exactly what I was going to say. This is more so an issue with the publisher and management than with developers. I am SURE that most devs want their product to be as complete as possible when shipping. After all, it's their name and reputation on the line. I can't count how many times devs speak a year after a game is released or when a sequel is about to be released and they say "well, we wish we had more time with the first game...or these are things we wanted to perfect in the first game...etc."
At any rate, I just thank goodness that we actually have patches...otherwise we would be just stuck with an incomplete game or even worse a "broken" one.

[The Lazy One]

It's not that big an issue. People just don't remember that when a game used to be buggy it stayed buggy. Now a buggy game can be fixed to actually being decent instead of being a good game that's just unplayable.

If you look at it from the development side, you will either get less content and no patches (to release an immaculate shippable build), or you will get a game that needs patches down the road. There's even good games that get patched now anyway. If the ability to patch is there, there's no reason NOT to make your games better over their lifetime.

[showtimefolks]

even without its patches it was the best sim racing game on the market. we all complain too much the devs are trying to improve their product after launch for FREE

i mean come on what about new vegas that game was broken and yet most place gave it 8.5 and it sold really well and now we are looking at few upcoming patches to fix some issues

that's the best thing about this gen at least we know if a AAA game problem it can be fixed GT5 is the best racing game on the market even the sites that gave it low scores said TWO GREAT THINGS ABOUT GT5

A LOT OF CONTENT
THE FEEL OF DRIVING IS THE BEST OF ANY RACING GAME PERIOD

[AEtherbane]

Well, I'd imagine it would be difficult to find every bug, and every issue, and balance every aspect of a gamer perfectly. It's irrational to believe game developers, with even rising budgets and colossal amounts of money being spent into developing a game, that they can account for millions of different people all trying to exploit every aspect in the game. Patches is something that has just happened because of the growing technology, scale, and availability of games. I see nothing wrong with them.

[Ilikegames76]

Software are easily patched unlike hardware. Take for example Windows OS, the amount of patches I need to do in order to make my PC safe. Do you complain about the patches in the OS you are using? Same with console games, if the patches can make the games better, than I'm not complaining.

[louievillalobos]

I totally agree that patches often make games better and that is a great thing. What I'm saying is that developers rely too much on it and ship broken games that then get reviewed that way.

[velocitygamer]

This article is stupid. Name me ONE game that has been perfect upon release. MGS4, Halo Reach, SMG 2, they were CLOSE to being perfect, but they weren't flawless. We need PATCHES, it enhances the gameplay and quality.

[Daz]

Yes games do need patches, some more then others but thay should'nt need 4 patches in the first month of realese. No game should.

But if it adds more features to the game i think its welcome, like the last patch for gt5. Added features for free you carnt complain about that. MOst game get dlc which you have to pay for.
GT5 gets features added for free which is great.

[ChristianGamer]

That's retarded. People aren't complaining about patches, people are complaining that there's a need for patches. Gees this site is sickening. Mention sony or ps3 and the defenses will come flying. A game shouldn't rely on patches to make it work like it's supposed to. It should ship complete.
It would be silly to complain about a patch, its the fact that developers release half baked games and people take it because a patch will fix it later

[AssassinHD]

If you really find the site so sickening then you are welcomed to leave. No one will miss you.

[Daz]

:P Carnt compare an os to a game :P

[DontShoot-Me-Bro]

Look at your dispay pic. :P

Thats one game that as far as i can remember didnt need any patches for the single player experience...not to sure about multiplayer though.

[visualb]

people also forget games now days are a tad bit more complex than previous games, thus, patches are a consequence

more ambition : more broken games xD

[SnakeMustDie]

Game Programming becomes more complicated and thus it is near impossible to make a glitchless game. In the case of GT5, PD added more cars and features although in expense in having more problems. People also need to realise that Developers can easily fix the game by judging player feedback. The problem from this is that devs can rush to release a buggy game where they could just fix the problems after its released.

[jay2]

I agree that games should work and not ship broken; it also annoys me that we can see how PS3 games can run, and yet multi platform games are normally terrible.

Now go and look at the GT 5 patch notes, see all the improvements/new features? Now, I wonder why they're there. Oh yeah because A. People want these features, B.Polif are letting people play their WORKING game in 2010 and adding/ improving features they and fans want. They’re not releasing them because you can't get passed the main menu

[Trroy]

New features that "show up" in patches were simply disabled in earlier versions, because they weren't fully tested.

In other words, the features were there in the shipping product, and when the developer/publisher felt comfortable with their level of quality and lack of bugs, they unlocked them.

Developers are often working on the second or third patch for a game, by the time it hits the shelves. It takes that long for publisher QA to sign off on the first patch.

[arragionthegreat]

GT5,..

I think Sony just said ,.. guys we need to ship this,.. people are getting angry and we will miss holiday season,..

There is nothing wrong with day-1 GT5,.. Things were so overexerted, it is beyond belief,..

Bdw,.. has that 680MB- addon-patch already been released?

(where they change around menus, add events.. and you get hot-car-dealership)Because I was preoccupied with DC Online the last few days,..

[makingdamage]

It doesnt always work to fix the game after release. Fallout new vegas is one example. I've played maybe 50 hours or so and i've made a lot of choices. I dont want to start from the beginning again, and have to make the choices again just because the game is broken and wont let me do the missions I would like to do.

[DA_SHREDDER]

LOL! Xbox fans arguing about games/patches again? Get a ps3 and you will know what it is to have a variety of fully supported games. For example, take a look at DCU, an online only game. It got patched like 3 times last week with all noticable fixes. Not like the other kiss ass devs that are only in it for themeselves with their game breaking "hot fixes" that are biased towards certain consoles. Lets face it, games are online now. Its about the quality and work in those patches. I totally undestand how you guys feel though, I just thank God that I'm able to play first party games that are made by AAA devs.

[FantasyStar]

Patches should be a convenience for devs, not a crutch. It's obvious some games weren't ready to be released.

[Trroy]

I agree.

But... which games were released in a manner so unplayable lately that your comment applies? Was it one, out of.. what a couple hundred this holiday season?

[Trroy]

Modern day games are incredibly complex, relative to their previous-gen cousins.

We're talking 500K - 2M lines of code here (according to GamaSutra). Over 50 engineers can often be involved with making a game, over the first-game development cycle of 3-4 years (sequels take less time, and are somewhat less buggy, typically... although Treyarch CoD games certainly stand out as an exception). This is like 2-4 times as many people as last gen.

There are *thousands* of bugs in any shipped game (I'm not exaggerating here). Sure, a lot of them are typos or localization errors, but EVERY game ships with bugs, and modern games ship with more due to their much more elaborate nature than previous generations.

Games publishers spend MILLIONS of dollars on marketing, and this like reserving spots at disc manufacturing plants for disc printing, manual and cover printing, etc. That money is TIED to a shipment date, and shipping late costs HUGE amounts of money. Developers don't ship games in unplayable conditions, but if they ship with lesser bugs in a patchable system, that's okay, in my book, because otherwise we'd never see the kinds of games we see.

Multiplayer bugs are inordinately hard to catch, particularly without a public beta. Networking architectures are unbelievably complex, and covering all the bases before ship basically requires three things: a previously working engine, a phenominal network engineering team with experience with the networking code, and a mountain of testing data. There are VERY few games that are ever able to put that kind of work into fully debugging network code. Many of those bugs CANNOT be caught in a regular development environment, and reproducing them in a debugging environment is often next to impossible.

Moral of the story: Don't shoot your mouth off about how modern games should or shouldn't do this or that, without knowing what you're talking about. Saying "They should just do it better" just makes you look like a fool to anyone who has ever participated in software development.

You want fewer patches? Go play some games with tiny budgets and tiny teams -- like DS games. You want the high-end experience? Deal with the fact that its made by humans, and developers sink their lives into these things, often only barely able to recover the investment, because at some point, they had to ship their product.

It's disgusting to hear gamers whine about how "devs are lazy" and the like. The same people who put in regular 50 hour weeks, and 60 hours for the final 6 months of development, to make a game they feel they've put their heart into -- are "lazy" in the minds of some gamers. Game development is not a high paying job, nor are there royalties to speak of, except in very rare situations. These jobs are done by people who sink their lives into making great games (and many great games have tons of bugs -- workable bugs, but bugs nonetheless) for the sake of making something cool and fun only.

Divide the price of a video game -- a new one even -- by the number of hours of enjoyment you get out of it. Now do the same for a football ticket, or a movie ticket, a music show ticket, a night out at the bar, or heck, almost anything. The ignorance of some people is... astounding.

[mc-fine]

well said man

[N311V]

I assume it is more the publisher making the devs release the game before it's completely ready.

[btk]

Well - it is not a 16KB ZX Spectrum game anymore you know.