release date VS quality

pwarbi

pwarbi

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Mar 9, 2015
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I was just wondering what other peoples views are on this.
Personally I would be more than happy to see game developers concentrate more on getting a game right, than pushing it out to hit a specific release date.
How many times recently have games been released only to find that they either don't work properly, don't play properly or generally just feel rushed and for the price of next gen gaming this isn't really acceptable.
 
Yeah, I think all of us rather have a nicely polished game than a buggy mess. Sadly, most of the time, it's not the developer's call, but the publisher pressuring or ordering them to just push it out, regardless of how finished it is. And that's how we get Unity..
 
I never get games on release anymore unless I know extensively of what I'm getting into. There's no point in getting a game on release when it's buggy as hell.
 
I think a lot of the time a game is released too early because they can now 'fix it' on the go so to speak with various downloads.
Quite a lot of games recently have only been released a dew days before you suddenly get a free update available. Not that this is a bad thing, I just wish they wouldn't rush the games out in the first place.
 
Games shouldn't have a set release date if developers aren't going to meet those deadlines. I'd rather they set a realistic release date and then make the game right rather than announcing a date, figuring out they tried to do things to quickly, and then delaying the game constantly. I don't expect perfection, but I expect developers to be able to know when a game can be made in a reasonable timeframe or not. Delays shouldn't happen if developers plan properly, which they often don't. Issues can come up, but a release date should be created giving leeway for such events.
 
AFKATafcar said:
Games shouldn't have a set release date if developers aren't going to meet those deadlines. I'd rather they set a realistic release date and then make the game right rather than announcing a date, figuring out they tried to do things to quickly, and then delaying the game constantly. I don't expect perfection, but I expect developers to be able to know when a game can be made in a reasonable timeframe or not. Delays shouldn't happen if developers plan properly, which they often don't. Issues can come up, but a release date should be created giving leeway for such events.
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You can't NOT have a set release date, or keep a vague one for too long. Do you realize how much it would screw up the investors' stocks? Only indie companies can do that, and even then it's not the greatest idea.
 
Companies make the call on that, not the developers unfortunately. Generally it's good to have a deadline that way people know when to get things, but the rate that they're not debugging while in development is troubling. I have a feeling that the industry is intentionally not expanding on more staff to cover those areas to keep development costs low as possible. It's not uncommon that developers often work 15 hour days on a game.

Nintendo has the least amount of buggy releases from my experience because they have a pretty hefty number of contractors who go through hours of testing. I know that much because I used to work for them in customer service during the holidays and my cubicle was next to the game testers' room. Microsoft's game testers are a hit and miss. I think the last time I heard about it they moved from actual paid contractors to doing a blind testing with random people and paying them with games, gift cards, Microsoft software in exchange for 2 hours of testing. As for Sony I think they tend to mail out their games to various testers since I've run across beta versions of games in Sony marked envelopes at another job I was at when I lived in Seattle.
 
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It seems to be a lot easier for them to find the bugs with millions of people finding the issues for them. I think the release dates have a lot to do with holiday & competition. What I mean is when competing companies are releasing similar titles & one jumps out in front of the other before they're ready & releasing during the holidays to meet the buyers rush
 
I was wondering that myself. Is it the easier option these days for a xompany to release a title and let the public tell them what's wrong with it, then release a patch or an update than actually doing it theirselves?
 
People get so mad when a game is pushed back though... I'll agree though. Take more time and make a game good.
 
pwarbi said:
I was wondering that myself. Is it the easier option these days for a xompany to release a title and let the public tell them what's wrong with it, then release a patch or an update than actually doing it theirselves?
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Not surprised, if it means that they don't have to pay people to test for issues. Like I said, Microsoft had already started paring down on their bug testing teams a great deal when I was still in Seattle almost 10 years ago. Which is why I boycott paying for early releases or recently released games. Money talks and until more people get it then they'll just keep on releasing nearly unplayable games on release day.
 
Cereus said:
Companies make the call on that, not the developers unfortunately. Generally it's good to have a deadline that way people know when to get things, but the rate that they're not debugging while in development is troubling. I have a feeling that the industry is intentionally not expanding on more staff to cover those areas to keep development costs low as possible. It's not uncommon that developers often work 15 hour days on a game.

Nintendo has the least amount of buggy releases from my experience because they have a pretty hefty number of contractors who go through hours of testing. I know that much because I used to work for them in customer service during the holidays and my cubicle was next to the game testers' room. Microsoft's game testers are a hit and miss. I think the last time I heard about it they moved from actual paid contractors to doing a blind testing with random people and paying them with games, gift cards, Microsoft software in exchange for 2 hours of testing. As for Sony I think they tend to mail out their games to various testers since I've run across beta versions of games in Sony marked envelopes at another job I was at when I lived in Seattle.
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Maybe a little OT, but Nintendo of America (assuming you meant them) sound like awful, awful employers from what I've heard.
 
Ita not helping that when you look at the catalogue of games available for the next gen consoles, there still isn't a great deal ofthere at the moment. WHole I'm sure sony and Microsoft want games to be coming out at a fastee rate, surely the quality of the game has to be important as well.
 
Cereus said:
Companies make the call on that, not the developers unfortunately. Generally it's good to have a deadline that way people know when to get things, but the rate that they're not debugging while in development is troubling. I have a feeling that the industry is intentionally not expanding on more staff to cover those areas to keep development costs low as possible. It's not uncommon that developers often work 15 hour days on a game.

Nintendo has the least amount of buggy releases from my experience because they have a pretty hefty number of contractors who go through hours of testing. I know that much because I used to work for them in customer service during the holidays and my cubicle was next to the game testers' room. Microsoft's game testers are a hit and miss. I think the last time I heard about it they moved from actual paid contractors to doing a blind testing with random people and paying them with games, gift cards, Microsoft software in exchange for 2 hours of testing. As for Sony I think they tend to mail out their games to various testers since I've run across beta versions of games in Sony marked envelopes at another job I was at when I lived in Seattle.
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This. A lot of the decisions for when a game is released is out of the developers' hands. It's usually the company or the publisher that decides when a game is pushed back or when it has to be released.

Triple A games have to fit within a tight schedule, and due to the nature of bugs, it can be impossible to find and fix each one. If I can recall correctly, when the developers don't have the time to iron out all the bugs (in many cases they don't) they prioritize the game breaking glitches and bugs that can be easily reproduced. If a glitch on level 9 causes the game to crash in 1 of 500 cases, then you bet it's not gonna be focused on as much as the texture glitch that happens when you enter level 5. Take for instance, the first Uncharted. Weeks before the game was set to be released, a huge bug appeared: the level would turn purple and be impossible to navigate. Thankfully, the bug's appearance was rare. The developers couldn't isolate what caused the bug, and were never able to find a fix for it. Even when they demoed the game for E3, the bug was still in the code, and they had to use a backup stream just incase the glitch came back. Regardless, the game was greenlit without a hitch and the bug didn't show.
 
A polished game surpasses a rushed turd, no question. Sadly, though, I supposse sometimes that just isn't feasible for whatever reason and games have to be rushed out. At the very least if that happens, I'm glad when developers continue working on the game post-release and solve the issues that come up.
 
While I can most definitely see why video game companies would push to have a game on the market in time for holiday shopping, rushing a game's development to meet an arbitrary release date is one of the primary factors in notable disasters throughout the history of video games. The most famous cases are the Atari 2600's E.T. and Pac-Man games, although there are other examples of far worse, clearly broken and incomplete games being released into the market before they were truly ready.

As a consumer, I would much rather that the development phase be allowed to run its natural course to ensure that a quality product is eventually released--even if it involves pushing back the arbitrary release date. That is vastly preferably to spending good money on a timely release that turns out to be a bad or even broken game. If that were the prevailing attitude way back when, rather than the above: then maybe Atari would have had a stronger library of better games and subsequently a stronger, more loyal fan base and perhaps the video game market wouldn't have crashed at the time. There's a reason why Nintendo developed their seal of quality and were careful to avoid having terrible shovel-ware games swamp the NES market in the next phase of gaming.

Of course, there are extreme counter-examples in which the development phase is extended much too far for whatever reasons--often leading to somewhat dated games that couldn't possibly live up to the hype if and when they finally are released. Duke Nukem Forever is the prime example of this.

However, it does seem to me that the former is far more frequent of a problem than the latter and video games would in general be better if the development phase were given the time it needs to produce quality products that are engaging and free of bugs.

The above is true not just about video games, but about product design in general.
 
It's all a big business and they have their timings, but at the same time I do agree that the game need to have quality before coming out or else it will not be a success.
 
I reckon that developers need to do more to make sure the game works properly and the bugs are fixed before release and there was the Batman Arkham Knight issue which was a problem on the PC and will be fixed before being released again. On the Steam site some games have issues and need to be fixed like there have been some Hidden Object games which cause problems when running the game, and hope they are fixed before they are released and people don't have to stress about them. It is interesting to see what can happen when the quality is overlooked as the games are sometimes rushed and not done properly which can ruin the game instead of the game selling well it is rejected by people.
 
I don't see any point in overlooking quality, I mean, that will just mean less sales in the long run, so it's wise to make it perfect.
 
Some developers put out a date, only to keep pushing the date further ahead so they can get all the kinks out. That's much better than releasing it and having people complain about all the things that are wrong with the game. I wish more developers took the time to do that. It's a win for both sides. Developers can get better reviews, and the customers will be happier with the game.
 
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