So this has been a topic I've been wanting to discuss for a while, but I'm glad I kind of waited. I wanted to discuss the topic of game patches, performances, and expectations related to it now. Previously I was just going to do another "Mah games must be complete or you're horrible!" rant, but now I've got more to say to the topic, more sides to cover, and more thoughts into it. Its not that black and white as to just complain that developers need to be more responsible. Also I may have missed that golden timing of 2014 where everything big was damn near broken, but we're still seeing and going to see problems whether they be on the scale of Unity and Master Chief collection, or more so on the freak luck nature or silly glitch style of the recently released Witcher 3 or those Last of Us save issues. After hearing the discussions go on for a while I want to cover 3 major aspects: Patches and how the community has reacted to them, The reality of current games and why its not exactly the dev/pub's fault for everything, and of course where it is still the developer/publisher's fault and why there still should be more caution.
Patches & consumer support
I emphasize consumer support and not developer support here, because first up lets talk about how the community has had some interesting binary responses to the subject of patching bugs. On one hand you usually have people that claim they're going to stop or have stopped buying launch day games. You're offering them an incomplete game that wasn't functional, and you're not worth supporting at full price. They may also fuss about how this only happens in gaming, and that this wouldn't go well in the car industry (because that's a great analogy, right?). Oh and mark their words, becuase "the crash is coming!". This is sad in two ways, as one they can have a point (except about the car example, that's still just plain bad reasoning). The second reason its sad is they're so rabid about this half the time that they may go about ripping a game apart for such silly things as a patch note page full of obscure bugs only 1% of the population is reporting and are making a mountain out of an anthill while terrifying people out of a great game. If its not terrifying people out of a good game though, its making the more sane ones laugh and take the side less seriously, which while they've earned that is still terrible because of point #1: they still have some solid ground to stand on, and they're still kind of right to an extent.
The other side you hear is about making sure you stick it back to the backlash. Stop nagging patches because they're here to help you, and save you from worse games. Stop scaring developers, and stop your moaning so you can enjoy a good game. Unfortunately they also tend to use an argument that annoys me worse than anything the anti-bug people say to counter the idea that the past was better: back before patches, a game would release broke and that's it. Entire games were ruined, oh no. Except here's the thing, while that's factually correct so are the other guys... and I'd say they have way more ground to stand on because its also a fact that the past was better for game stability. When you got a game, it worked 90% of the time. Its was so rare that I've only ever owned a single game that was messed up by its launch status, and my dad owned one as well. That's it, two games in my whole PlayStation 2 library (specifically Enter The Dragonfly and Angel of darkness, both were kind of ruined in more ways than bugs before release so I'm not sure a patch would have fixed them) that I've ever truly taken in 1st hand account that they had game halting issues. Anything else was just silly glitches, or freak freeze incidences. On top of that a couple of games with just less happy reception (not necessarily broken in any ways) got enhanced re-releases because it was cheap enough to do so, and in the process they actually made it up to the consumer in a big way like getting some fancy director's cut of the game, so its actually false to just assume there was never a solution.
Today I can tell you ridiculous game frustrating bug or performance experiences from Modern Warfare 2, MOH warfighter, Assassins Creed 3 and Far Cry 3, Ratchet Deadlock HD, R&C FFA's vita port, Skyrim, Rage, Metro Last Light, Two Worlds 2 (well not really frustrating, but damn is it unpolished), Dust, frequent crashes on Trials Fusion, Far Cry 4 (co-op was entirely unplayable), Killzone 3, Bioshock Infinite (weapon switching went completely broken when replaying any old save, I have to restart the entire game over), oh and the infamous PS3 port of Orange Box. Not all those bugs are considered equal with some just being annoyances and others totally killing my mood to play, but they're all there enough to have gotten in my way at some point. I also consider myself lucky compared to what I hear or that I came in after some patches for some of those games, because many of the problems out there are things I've never seen, from games I just don't play, and by far most of my game experiences are still playable. Even Skyrim being on that list took forever until it started crashing frequently, or became hydrophobic and wouldn't like me being in the water, but that was months after other people were in a fit on how terrible it was. I'm not a glitch hunter, or some unlucky guy that just gets nailed with everything, but yet I've still seen an undeniably large increase in game problems.
Today I can tell you ridiculous game frustrating bug or performance experiences from Modern Warfare 2, MOH warfighter, Assassins Creed 3 and Far Cry 3, Ratchet Deadlock HD, R&C FFA's vita port, Skyrim, Rage, Metro Last Light, Two Worlds 2 (well not really frustrating, but damn is it unpolished), Dust, frequent crashes on Trials Fusion, Far Cry 4 (co-op was entirely unplayable), Killzone 3, Bioshock Infinite (weapon switching went completely broken when replaying any old save, I have to restart the entire game over), oh and the infamous PS3 port of Orange Box. Not all those bugs are considered equal with some just being annoyances and others totally killing my mood to play, but they're all there enough to have gotten in my way at some point. I also consider myself lucky compared to what I hear or that I came in after some patches for some of those games, because many of the problems out there are things I've never seen, from games I just don't play, and by far most of my game experiences are still playable. Even Skyrim being on that list took forever until it started crashing frequently, or became hydrophobic and wouldn't like me being in the water, but that was months after other people were in a fit on how terrible it was. I'm not a glitch hunter, or some unlucky guy that just gets nailed with everything, but yet I've still seen an undeniably large increase in game problems.
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| In PS2 land this game happened, and.... well that's about it |
Now add that to the feeling of fear you get from hearing something like save corruption glitches, and the fact that some of these patches (whether you experience what they fix or not) are eating up entire small game's worth of your harddrive space now, and you've got a common mess on your hands. My point is that this is a part of the general gaming industry now. To even imply that pre-patch gaming was anything like this but worse without the fixes, is just downright deceptive or incredibly ignorant. Most of the games broken to this extent were likely shovelware cases, or made by shoddy companies you wouldn't trust anyways, but even then I can't name too many examples off my head without going into the NES era. Bugs have gone from a rarity to a possible risk for every single game you're looking at one the shelf unless it has Nintendo's name on it. So please, stop defending them as this absolute necessity that has made gaming infinitely better. It hasn't, and the proof is all around you. However to give them some credit though, its not necessarily as bad as the anti-patch riot wants to make things seem. That and while patches weren't necessary before, they are now, and that's due to the next subject...
Gaming has evolved, and that has its costs...
So anybody remember what kind of games were always considered buggy just by genre or style back in the days before big patches? Yeah it was open world games like GTA, RPGs, and anything Reality Pump or Bethesda touched. Guess what we tend to have a lot of now? Well no not reality pump stuff, but generally we're seeing a massive shift towards open world games lately. GTA had its share of clones when it started things, but now we've got lots and lots of different games working that formula. Many have even claimed its the next "fps" in terms of flooding the market as the mainstream flavor of the generation. The ridiculous amount of hype behind the obviously mediocre watch dogs helps show that as well. So... naturally put 1 and 1 together to get 2. More open world games, more emphasize on size and interactions, more things to calculate, more challenging hardware to keep up to date with, a desire for online work, and you just have a more stressing and busy making process that is going to be left with some tiny fragments of missed polish. You can't expect them to be supernatural entities printing out perfect massive online worlds. That's also why suggesting "only games can get away with problems!" is a stupid thing to be arguing. Of course they're one of the very few things that can be mass produced with problems, but nothing else out there lets you interact to such a degree, and if there is (maybe an application?) it also has bugs and a support line to help you through them. Surely with enough time almost anything can be sorted out, but where as back in the PS2 days you could have annual releases without a problem, even bigger teams can barely make a polished game in two years. Programming is more demanding at the same time as the people's desires, and as a result you have a stressed time slot to make games. However these larger teams of people still need to be paid, and so the publisher can't give every game the 4-5 years it would need to be perfect. Now of course a lot of times they're still releasing things too early and don't deserve a full payment with their rushed releases, but they still have a time limit and they need to compromise at some point on that and say "this is good enough, we'll let the world figure out what we missed and patch it".
Its not just open world games either though. Call of Duty has at least three different entire modes on top of their big push. Those campaigns we laugh off still take a lot of work even if 1/3rd isn't playable thanks to terrible scripted sequences, then there's horde modes or special side co-op missions (or both), and then there's online mode which in addition to their overcomplicated balance structure (so many perk and weapon combinations and then all that grinding) also means a matter of map work, stability tests, statistic tracking, etc. Its not that they didn't have enough time to think of risks before, its that they didn't have time to sanely program all of it in and still keep up with the old without removing or losing polish on some big part. This kind of mode arrangement has almost become standard, even when its not wanted. Battlefield 3 had an even worse campaign and a tacked on co-op experience alongside its bigger multiplayer package, Space Marines tried to also keep up with the 3 mode standard, I'm pretty sure gears of war does it, Uncharted 2-3 has it, and more. Its so rare that we have a game as focused in a linear level design mode as The Order, Dishonored, and Wolfenstein anymore, and whenever we do see something like that people love to whine and demand more for the sake of it without coming
to understand what the game even is. Meanwhile back in the PS2 days there was usually one mode, and maybe a simpler (and honestly better for it) competitive multiplayer function. Something as big as Timesplitters Future Perfect with medal challenges, story, multiplayer, and a level editor where you could make any of those previously mentioned modes was a rare treasure, and even then it was easier to make there than it would be on a modern system with modern AAA expectations. Actually that game is a perfect analogy when you look at Haze, a game by the exact same people with less modes, and way lesser results in quality of what it did have, and it was all blamed on the new hardware (admittedly this was also PS3's cell in the early stages). It didn't even look that great either, it was made earlier on with visuals that some HD re-releases honestly beat. So yeah something going to give in, and sadly the polish will show that. Meanwhile Nintendo is still making almost exactly what they've been doing their whole 3D career, they aren't exactly matching up to other complicated games and so its easier to see why they come up so clean in addition to their great standards.
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| Focused mode games are becoming rare |
Now I'm not all for forced evolving games and whatnot, and I don't like a lot of the costs, but at the same time simple bugs are easily one of the more acceptable things that make it worth what's being asked here. Servers having problems on launch? Ok, I get that fine. I got stuck in this weird corner for goofing around over there? Yeah, that's frustrating, but alright I wont do that again. That's so much more tolerable and acceptable than plenty of these other crap things, like forced disc installation despite that no it actually isn't universally required (thanks wii U for not treating us like idiots), or how ridiculously over-bloated some companies get with their overspending, or the fact that some aspects have actually gone backwards and devolved for the sake of cutting corners on their irresponsible spending like p2p matchmaking. Those are things that really piss me off about the "evolving" gaming industry. However when I buy a game like Witcher 3, with so many features in a massive open world RPG form being put across 3 platforms, and they somehow made it in 3 years, yes I expect some minor glitches and maybe even a wacky irritating one but I'm not going to cry about it. I'm a little surprised at just how many nitpicks are there, but I'm able to easily accept it and say it was worth all the effort and things they put into the massive game. All the things I can do, all the places I can go, all the great writing, voice work, choices, and small details, its all a great sign of what out latest hardware can put together and it is so worth the occasional pop-in during my cut-scene, or even a slightly disappointing combat system. I didn't need this to be put on hold another 5 months to fix that stuff, I'm fine with them releasing it now. With the reports of save issues or crashes, yeah I can't exactly blame the people suffering for being a little upset, but it was still worth it to put that game out there and I can patiently wait on patches for those to be corrected.
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| A game worth patching for! |
Even given the circumstances, lets face the honest truth that games also aren't even as bad off as a lot of people like making us believe and maybe considering the complications we might actually be lucky. Its hard to say for sure without being an experienced developer. Yes some games are broken in horrible ways and they deserve our rage, but how many people are actually experiencing the worst of Witcher 3's problems? How many people bought Infamous, Shadows of Mordor from last year and got hit with issues? You probably didn't. What about anything Insomniac or Naughty Dog has made (unless you were one of the unlucky few to get the corrupt save in last of us, but I say "few" for a reason)? Wasn't Tomb Raider released in great shape to? I'm just tackling big names as well, we could look at Shadow Warrior, Bullet storm, Wolfenstein: New Order worked well with or without that ridiculously big day 1 patch, and I'm pretty sure most people were doing fine with The Order earlier in the year as well. We still have plenty of great games that release in great condition, and even some of the glitchy ones aren't that bad. Bloodborne had bad loading screens and wall collision issues, but its nothing less than fantastic and it worked well enough for anybody. On top of that, its worth noting to that even some poorly polished or glitchy games are still amazing to play. Two Worlds 2, Postal 2, and pretty much any Bethesda game (any arkane game as well, even before bethesda acquired them), and just some obscure B grade games that might just click with you.
I think the internet just loves playing up how bad something is, and with our wide reach and connections we may also be highlighting little minority incidents that rarely happened. I mean just look at the PS4's launch, people jumped on a new red ring of death faster than one could possibly be proven, and that's because it didn't actually exist. Over a year later and the PS4 has what appears to be a fairly normal failure rate, although oddly enough the controllers have a much higher problem considering rubber it was originally made with, but that's not what the internet choose to talk about. They instead wanted to hype up this rare hardware error as an epidemic, and for the first month of release it was treated like one. I'm kind of seeing that happen with the witcher 3 right now, I can't go to a website without hearing about these rare problems blown up in my face. Its important to get that information out there of course, but some people take it way too seriously and go on their boycott tangents on why gaming is in the ditch because a few players had to re-install the game to get it working. It can get a little silly, and going back to what I said earlier it can make people start to lose faith in the subject of backlash when at times it might be needed.
...and speaking of which...
I think the internet just loves playing up how bad something is, and with our wide reach and connections we may also be highlighting little minority incidents that rarely happened. I mean just look at the PS4's launch, people jumped on a new red ring of death faster than one could possibly be proven, and that's because it didn't actually exist. Over a year later and the PS4 has what appears to be a fairly normal failure rate, although oddly enough the controllers have a much higher problem considering rubber it was originally made with, but that's not what the internet choose to talk about. They instead wanted to hype up this rare hardware error as an epidemic, and for the first month of release it was treated like one. I'm kind of seeing that happen with the witcher 3 right now, I can't go to a website without hearing about these rare problems blown up in my face. Its important to get that information out there of course, but some people take it way too seriously and go on their boycott tangents on why gaming is in the ditch because a few players had to re-install the game to get it working. It can get a little silly, and going back to what I said earlier it can make people start to lose faith in the subject of backlash when at times it might be needed.
...and speaking of which...
There's still a mess to clean up
There's a line to draw with what is an is not acceptable, and yeah I'm fairly sure quite some games have crossed it. I'm looking at you Ubisoft and all those black screens (even after patches) I got in co-op FC4, all those images around of Unity, and then I'm also looking at a few other interesting examples. How do you mess up a remake of a game so badly that people still can't play it long after patches, reports, and complaints? Ask 343 studios, they managed to screw up one of the best potential values of last year with the Halo Collection, which from what I still hear was broken enough that even after months they had to cancel some kind of contest or competition event because of how bad it worked. Bethesda, why did you release Skyrim with a near game breaking problem you knew about but couldn't fix for months and months (and even then some say it still doesn't totally work)? Battlefield 4, you're in the same bin as Halo here, how do you keep something messed up for that long? Why did a re-release of GTA5 go gold when they knew it still needed basic optimization forcing a day 1 patch, and then months later are still tweaking the damn thing? Oh and Batman Origins, nice to hear the team directly come out and say that you released the game broken and were going to leave it that way while you make DLC. Also, sorry wii U owners you're not even getting that.
We're at a point now where its apparently clear that publishers will not stop trying to find ways to cut corners and make a game for profit before fun or common decency. Its hard to come across ones that will show proud respect their consumers, or even be subtle about their greedy intentions. Releasing
complete games just isn't on their biggest priority list at times, and one of several things indicated by this is within the way they're made incomplete, poorly tested, possibly ignoring the tests that they do run, and naturally buggy as a result. At least they make sure their companion apps, in-game DLC store button, pre-order bonuses, and season passes work are there in full order and support on day 1.
The anti-patch people do need to be taken seriously at some point, and if you're dismissing them all then honestly you deserve what's coming to you from that. There really is a problem with some publishers in gaming, and we have to actually stand by something like the Battlefield series, or the next 343 game and say "prove yourselves". Don't buy it in masses, wait for the super fans to go in first and then buy it 1-2 months down the road if things look clean. Even if it released perfectly, it still sends the message that they're to pay for what they did before, and that people wont just trust you. If they swear up and down it works and you just buy into it day 1 over that, they see you've learned nothing and are completely gullible. However I'm also going to say its innocent until proven guilty. That's what the extreme boycotters don't get. That's where you have people making paragraphs ranting about how Witcher 3 or a simple re-balancing patch is somehow the embodiment of every gamer's suffering, and they get rightfully laughed off. Many games are still working just fine, or just doing their job, and yes sometimes they do need patching but its a quirky little hole found in your typical video game, and you don't need to lose sleep over it. However just know that this isn't a universal case. If a game fails to meet decent quality, or even manages to get bugs mentioned in reviews (I know, a miracle that a critic would actually do their job right), then avoid it or don't go rushing for its sequel if its already too late.
As much as I hate to be that guy the gaming crash was in large part caused by broken games, alongside games too close to each other, and over time they just stopped buying them enough to cause a big scene. Maybe that wont happen again, but just in case the threat is real... well, we've got quite a few symptoms of another one coming. Asking that just enough people don't pre-order or day 1 buy Battlefield 4, the next AC, the next COD (ha! Like that'll happen), and the next Halo, and maybe some will start to wake up. Like I said, super fans will still be there and there will still be there alongside honest youtube critics to test it for you. Let them take the blow, and see if things really do work right before sending them your money. Don't reward poor work. Just don't get carried away and ignore brilliant games with tiny flaws. Heck even dig up the heavily flawed cult hits, they're usually interesting.
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| even some indie devs rush their game out |
The anti-patch people do need to be taken seriously at some point, and if you're dismissing them all then honestly you deserve what's coming to you from that. There really is a problem with some publishers in gaming, and we have to actually stand by something like the Battlefield series, or the next 343 game and say "prove yourselves". Don't buy it in masses, wait for the super fans to go in first and then buy it 1-2 months down the road if things look clean. Even if it released perfectly, it still sends the message that they're to pay for what they did before, and that people wont just trust you. If they swear up and down it works and you just buy into it day 1 over that, they see you've learned nothing and are completely gullible. However I'm also going to say its innocent until proven guilty. That's what the extreme boycotters don't get. That's where you have people making paragraphs ranting about how Witcher 3 or a simple re-balancing patch is somehow the embodiment of every gamer's suffering, and they get rightfully laughed off. Many games are still working just fine, or just doing their job, and yes sometimes they do need patching but its a quirky little hole found in your typical video game, and you don't need to lose sleep over it. However just know that this isn't a universal case. If a game fails to meet decent quality, or even manages to get bugs mentioned in reviews (I know, a miracle that a critic would actually do their job right), then avoid it or don't go rushing for its sequel if its already too late.
As much as I hate to be that guy the gaming crash was in large part caused by broken games, alongside games too close to each other, and over time they just stopped buying them enough to cause a big scene. Maybe that wont happen again, but just in case the threat is real... well, we've got quite a few symptoms of another one coming. Asking that just enough people don't pre-order or day 1 buy Battlefield 4, the next AC, the next COD (ha! Like that'll happen), and the next Halo, and maybe some will start to wake up. Like I said, super fans will still be there and there will still be there alongside honest youtube critics to test it for you. Let them take the blow, and see if things really do work right before sending them your money. Don't reward poor work. Just don't get carried away and ignore brilliant games with tiny flaws. Heck even dig up the heavily flawed cult hits, they're usually interesting.
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| Like this magnificent train wreck, deadly premonition. |
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