What's with the broken games? (Petition)

I've been enjoying gaming for a very long time, since 1996 to be exact, that's the year I first played my Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the first game I played on it? Super Metroid, god how I still love that game, and even though I've came through many glitches on the games I've played, I still enjoyed them, but then we have the game-breakers, read on to understand my prospective.

As time has progressed gaming has slowly taken a down turn and then a new mentality of developers, the "Distribute and then Fix" mentality. What is it and why have developers taken to this mentality with open arms? Simple. It's because it's easier, it's because they can get more sales and especially because developers can now release games on that exact date they promised.

But, what does this mean for the consumer? It mean's that we're given a product that isn't complete, that developers know needs to be fixed. Then after around a month of waiting we get given a patch which will either make or break a game, a lot of the time lately it's broken more than fixed, and then wave after wave of patches have been required to again either fix it or screw it up.

So, we sit, we wait and time after time we get served more and more patches and downloads, and we assume in time things are going to be repaired, but what do we actually get? We get nothing more then a placebo of updates and fixes to things that didn't necessarily need to be fixed. After a while we get fed up and buy another game and eventually BAM! the cycle begins again.

We have some amazing games these days with great potential but a lot of them are broken and need to be fixed but haven't been due to developers laziness and the fact that they've already got that money that they need and wanted while creating a game. Publishers can easily fix this by allowing developers more time on their games so they don't come out broken and require more play-testing so they don't come out playing like fishing-boat.

I for one am fed up with this, and I'm sure many others are too, and when we play games we want to enjoy them and not be fed up with the amount of game breaking glitches and problems that developers are just too damn lazy to fix, if you agree and I'm sure you do then please, sign this petition and comment!

Thanks for reading, and I hope I get support on this.

[PshycoNinja]

As a student going to school for video game development and developing games of my own this blog touches on things that we discuss a lot as developers.

While we believe patches are important to any game(just in case QA looked over something or got a small bug that doesn't affect many players could be fixed after launch) they are something that changes the minds of developers working on a game. I mean as developers we are obligated by consumers and publishers to finish a game on time. If we delay we have to have a damn good reason for doing so. However no developer ships a game going "I'm glad we left that bug/glitch on level 9 in order to get our game out in time". That's not how it works.

Now with that, it is also our obligation to fix as much of the game as we can before we publish it. My personal philosophy is that no game should be shipped broken. You work as hard as you can to iron out the most noticeable bugs/glitches but you never iron out all of them(that's just how games are. As many developers say "There's no such thing as a bug free game.").

I want to stress that it's hard enough to fix bugs without breaking the current game. But shipping a broken game and saying "We'll fix it later" is no excuse for a developer.

[zeksta]

I agree with you where you say "There's no such thing as a bug free game", but that being said though, the amount of bug's in games as of lately are quite obviously easily noticeable, and it's almost amazing that developers haven't even noticed them.

For instance, look at Battlefield 3 on PS3, the input lag and voip issues have been going on for more than 2 months now, a game that hyped and well backed by EA should have bugs and most issues fixed by now. I'm just simply sick of Developers that won't do their job until later.

[SilentNegotiator]

Fellow student of game development here, and I agree. And I would say that it's probably the fault of publishers more often because they wouldn't allow a delay even if the developer asked.

I take pride in finding and eliminating the big issues in a game. But I think it's fair enough to sometimes say "This bug isn't a big deal and most players would rather run into it on a rare occasion and wait for a patch than wait longer for the game to release"

I wouldn't mind honesty from developers. No game is bug-free, but if you're able to fix it down the line, you could have done so before. At least admit that you took care of the big issues (which is hopefully true) and tried to balance fixing the game and getting the game to fans.

[dedicatedtogamers]

In my opinion, it has to do with PC-style games being ported to consoles. I'm not saying console games don't have a lot of glitches, and I'm not saying that this is the first generation where PC games were coming to consoles...

...but when you have glitch-fests like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim all winning GOTY awards and dozens of accolades, it really sends a bad message to developers.

PC gaming has had the ideology of "release first, patch later" for QUITE a long time, and now that's infesting console gaming, too.

[Tony P]

There's some truth here, but it's kind of twisted to make PC development sound like some kind of lazy thing. It's not PC-style, it's consoles coming into their own as media devices like the PC.

What you have to take into account here is the history: console games widely COULD NOT BE PATCHED UNTIL THIS GENERATION. Easy to forget when that kind of thing has become so commonplace so quickly.

But that meant QA had to be prioritized far more than it is now, because reshipping a fixed version of the game was simply not in the cards.

Meanwhile on PC, you had these more complex games taking advantage of better hardware like the first Elder Scrolls game.

And that's a lot harder to QA than Sonic 3 or Super Metroid, which both came out the same year. I mean, it's really easy to think those games games were perfectly coded or something when really they were just smaller and less ambitious.

[dedicatedtogamers]

@ Tony P

Yup, you're exactly right. Believe me, I'm not trying to make it sound like PC gaming is to blame for all the glitches and patches. That's what I tried to say in my post. Rather, it's PC-style development that is now possible on consoles that makes lazy developing more acceptable.

In truth, I think it has to do with laziness and lack of talent, because even in "the good ol' days" of PC gaming, glitches were pretty rare. I don't buy the excuse of "games were just way less complicated back then" because hardware was also way less powerful, so you still had to use a ton of programming finesse to make things work. And old games like the Ultima series still have more content and complexity that 95% of the games these days. So...yeah, I don't buy that excuse either.

[Tony P]

I'm not talking about any kind of obscure notions of quality or indefinable quantities of aesthetics.

I'm talking about code, because that's where bugs come from. And today's games use more than the games of yesteryear.

And more code means more bugs.

[dedicatedtogamers]

I still disagree, Tony P. "Back in the day", many games were coded right to the metal. Developers had to have an intimate knowledge of the hardware's quirks in order to program for said system. Nowadays, even our programming user-interfaces are far more sophisticated (automatically checks for errors, problems in the code, etc). We have better software that acts as the go-between the software and the hardware (DirectX being the best-known one). Plus, there is a much bigger reliance on proprietary engines these days, meaning that games are not built from the ground up usually. "Back in the day", there was no such thing as a proprietary engine. Every game was built from scratch. Right there you have a ton of code that isn't manually written out (it's right there in the engine) compared to how it used to be.

So, no, I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that we have more code.

[Tony P]

Yes, I'm aware of all that, but you're still off.

I agree, it was a lot of work to code games back then. Respect that.

But even recoding the game from the ground up doesn't even approach a fraction of the code it takes to make a game today. Even if it was all done for us with fancy tools (it is not).

Besides, I don't really see what it matters even if all our bugs were fixed for us with just a little time and tools.

Those tools still weren't at all common back then for those complex titles I was talking about like TES: Arena or System Shock. So the point still stands.

Broadly: console gamers for the first time, have to deal with the complexity of game that PC gamers have known for a while now.

[AllroundGamer]

people get lazy, this is the lazy future... back in the days, when you couldn't patch the games the devs were simply forced to look more closely for the bugs.

[Alabaster]

Maybe it's because games back then were much more simpler. Nowadays, games are far more advanced than the simple 16 bit sidescroller. Making a bug free game today is like the quest to find the sorcerers stone. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. I'm sure one day there would be a bug- free game, maybe run the game through a program of some sort to "purify" the game. Until then, I believe it's up to the developer to make sure most bugs are out of the way and realese a game thats playable, enjoyable and beautiful.

[Bladesfist]

Well If people are going to buy these games then why sould the developers stop. If people started looking at reviews and doing a little research before they buy it would force developers into ensuring that their game works on launch or they will loose a lot of sales.

[zerocrossing]

Exactly! this is why day one buyers are idiots! (not all of you of course) devs and the distributors know a ridiculous amount of people will go out and buy CoD3, UC3, BF3 or GoW3 day one! so they'll get a ton of cash anyway, but if they knew consumers where only going to buy their games if it where up to scratch, they'd be forced to polish them more thoroughly before putting them on the shelves.

A little bit of restraint on the side of consumers may help raise the quality of games on release.

[QuodEratDemonstrandm]

The problem with that approach is the reviewers are giving some of these bug riddled games excessively high review scores. If Skyrim is as buggy as people say (I haven't played it.... yet) then it should have been getting 4s and 5s instead of the 8s, 9s, and even 10s that it got. If we're going to wait on reviews to buy these games, then the reviewers need to report any glitches and bugs they find.
And if someone tells you the game has a bug in it, please please PLEASE, do NOT spray RAID into your console to kill it.
Think I'm joking? This has happened.

[Bladesfist]

I havent experienced any issues with skyrim so far on PC but I have heard that some people are experiencing issues. The problem is these issues are not universal. I dont have any problems but loads of people do. And in some games its the other way around, I have issues but no one else does.

[Games4M - Rob]

I dont have a problem with games having bugs if its from a brand new engine but i have a major issue with sequels based on the same engine shipping out with the same bugs that were present in its earlier incarnation - even more so when these bugs had been patched in the orginal but then are not fixed in the new game.

And yeah Call of Duty, im looking at you.

[Crazyglues]

Oh this was a great article, Something we can all understand all too well...

-But the game being broken is maybe an easy way of looking at it.. Today's games are nothing like the games of old, hell back in the day maybe you had one programmer and he worked on the graphics and the story

-finding bugs on those games was lot easier then today's games..

I think people forget this sometimes, that game your playing - (Insert whatever title you like, Call Of Duty, GT5, Battlefield 3, GTA IV, Skyrim )- These Games have huge development teams... well over 241 people... costing over 100 million dollars just to make the game...

That's not something, if broken, you can just fix over night... Let's take BF3 - day one the mics have been a mess as well as a lot of other little things...

-But Dice in a rush to please fans completely changed the game-play to try and fix bugs and correct something people were complaining about... Sadly in the process they messed up somethings that were working fine..

The problem is the code is so massive and so huge, you have to look at tons of code just to try and find out why something that shouldn't be happening is happening..

-no easy task.. So while they would love to fix it 1,2,3.. it's just not that easy anymore...

--But I do feel the pain, I wish we could somehow say this would become a thing of the past, but as we head to the next consoles PS4, and 720, I'm afraid our real pain is only just beginning....
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[smashcrashbash]

If people would call out certain developers on their broken games more often maybe they would try harder to make it better. Instead they pick on the smaller development teams that don't have the power or resources to make the game perfect. ND and Insomniac get torn into and picked on for every little glitch and hiccup in their games. Huge companies like EA and Bethesda who should be better release buggy broken games EVERY year and they get away with it. It doesn't affect sales, scores or award giving. Its like they say 'Oh its you guys. We all know your games are usually buggy'.

But UC3 and R3 HAVE to be perfect from day one or its 100 articles talking about how lazy and sloppy they have become and they are not up there with the 'big boys', while the 'big boys' make the same glitchy messes the small teams do. DI was big mess and people STILL brought it. R3 has a few hiccups and people say it is a horrible game and that Insomniac crapped it out before they go multiplat. Go figure

[dinkeldinkse]

Seriously, the developers didn't know about the game breaking bug 15 minutes into the game? Did you not test the game?

Some developers are trying to get up there with politicians with flat out bullshit promises. I just will not buy games from the developers that continue to do that crap.

I guess I could buy used, but apparently that is evil and only the good online pass can save us from the evil of buying used.

[SilentNegotiator]

Launching a broken game? You'd better believe that's a paddlin'

I totally agree. The "Launch and then fix" model is horrible. I took a stand this year; I didn't buy any games that launched in really bad shape (or with passes). Will it matter to the publishers? Probably not...they'll still rush the game out and sell a couple million copies. But it matters to my self respect.

[FinaLXiii]

What broken games? call of duty? battlefield? lolwut

[Crazyglues]

You know what's crazy too, is people actually called EA and complained about the mic and other issues, and got their money back for the game... ( EA said send it in and they will get a full refund )

Of course not everyone is going to do that but yeah not a good sign if consumers feel like they should be given their money back..

Right after that started happening I notice DICE changed their term of agreement to block further people from doing this..

I just hope they fix BF3 on PS3 because dispute all the problems I still love the game and play almost every day..

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[Nate-Dog]

Doesn't matter what DICE put in their agreement though, you can't ignore the law and the law in most countries is that if a store has sold a good that isn't of good quality or that doesn't do what it's supposed to do then the consumer is owed their money back. Just most people don't think or know they have such rights (or they just prefer to play through the issues and wait for it to be fixed).

[Crazyglues]

Yeah I think it's just too hard to give up playing the game even if some things are seriously broke, but yes I think your right most people don't know they can send it back to EA..

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[s45gr32]

Where do I sign for this petition

[Fairchild Channel F]

There was a time when a petition carried some weight. Sadly that not the case anymore. Every week some idiot is making a petition to complain about this or that and mainly it's ignored. Sure you might get some lip service from the PR department but that's all it is -lip service. Let me give you all some advice. Write your issues down, call the company and tell them your not going to support their next project and why. Be concise and intelligent. Don't go into a curse ridden rant. Ten thousand signatures is going to get laughed at. Ten thousand phone calls is going to look like the scene in "Airplane" when all the reporters run into the phone booth at the same time -panic. Directors and the money guys of companies fear that kind of stuff like the plague. Believe me.

Let me also ask this, and I'll use Bethesda as an example because its so fitting. Did you buy Skyrim knowing how Oblivion played? What about Fallout? Fallout NV? If the answer is yes then you are the BIGGEST PART OF THE PROBLEM because you support them. You pay them money and they hand you a broken game. And they'll do it next time too because they know your a sucker. I mean they're 4 for 4 here....

[Ulf]

Modern game source code == 2 MILLION lines of code, not including middleware. Art can also be buggy -- degenerate triangles, bad materials, you name it. The modelling tools to make that stuff doesn't stop you from creating whatever the heck you want, even if its busted in some way that the artist doesn't realize.

If you expect such a beast to be bug free... you are high. Games are buggy because they are so outrageously complex these days. If you want low bug counts, buy minis, or phone games -- something that is manageable by normal human standards to be bug-free by release.

Game features are worked on until literally the last few months of development. Would you choose to have less features, to achieve your bug-free agenda? Have all the good content be DLC instead? Personally... I'll take the bugs and the free patches, along with the free features that would have otherwise never made it into the product, due to months of scouring for rare bugs.

[Vortex3D]

If you want game publishers to ship more polished, less buggy especially not broken out of the box, stop buying those games. Nothing is more powerful than when the sales drop because only then the publisher will listen.

Problem with what I said is too many (to most) gamers today accept buggy games. I even read said because the game is so good that it's okay to deal with bugs and bugs and workarounds to play the game. Such attitude doesn't help because it tells the publishers that it's okay to ship broken game because gamers will buy it and deal with it. Fix the game as it sells.

What happened to the idea of not give the publisher any money until the product is properly polished? Today is all about pay in full for incomplete, buggy and broken product.

For myself, there are several very buggy games that I haven't bought. A few examples, Skyrim, Dead Island and most FPS. Don't care if it takes months with multiple patches to fix those games because I will not give the publishers my money to buy broken products.

So how, I know I'm talking this to myself since most gamers just can't wait to give their money to the publishers for broken games and rather complain later.