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The Rise Of Bugs In Console Games 132

Posted by simoniker from the not-the-armorines-kind dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for posting a column discussing the increasing prevalence of serious bugs and glitches in console titles, especially in relation to several of this summer's 'blockbusters'. Singled out are Enter The Matrix: "Even if you enjoy the game.. you can't ignore the fact that all three console makers let Atari have a 'get out of final approval free card' when it came to testing...", as well as the new Tomb Raider title: "AOD froze up on me at least half a dozen times... Lara fell through invisible gaps in the street, walked through invisible gaps in walls, and refused to walk up stairs that she was supposed to be able to climb." What's to be done when, as the author says, "judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"?
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The Rise Of Bugs In Console Games More

The Rise Of Bugs In Console Games

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  • whats to be done? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mutewinter ( 688449 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:04PM (#6514301)
    Buggy games certainly have to account for a portion of "piracy" out there. A few bad experiences of dropping $50 for a piece of trash can make individuals who aren't quite in the middle-class less than eager to take the risk again.

    Consoles are even worse. At least for PC games we can anticipate patches, which generally tend to do a pretty good job fixes bugs, especially if its a big game (or an online one.)

    • Re:whats to be done? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Muerto ( 656791 )
      that is total crap. Just because a game is buggy doesn't give you the right to steal photoshop. Regardless of bugs, people spend time and money on making these applications... you have no right to steal from them.
      • and the parent is modded Flamebait because.... (?)
        • Because someone obviously feels that theft is right. Nothing justifies stealing. Noone ever decided to start stealing software because of a bug. It may make someone not buy that companies products in the future, but not buying and stealing are quite different.

          That flamebait is just someone fulfilling an agenda and should be removed.

          • Re:whats to be done? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Zelet ( 515452 )
            I don't buy games because of bugs. I steal them and if I really like them and play them for more than an hour I buy them.

            Buggy software pisses me off. How many car companies could sell a car whos door falls off when you drive off the lot? Even if it does, you can take the car back for warranty service and it is free to get fixed.

            Try buying a game from Best Buy and trying to take it back because of bugs - they will laugh you out of the store.
            • Well you can't actually take the car back because it has a defect. If a major defect is discovered, then a recall is issued. Wow, that sounds alot like a patch. Thanks for proving MY point. There is no justification for stealing. It is just wrong.
              • So you can patch a console game, huh? That is news to me.
                • You should keep up better with current events then. I will leave the discovery of the numerous titles that have been patched and that some even receive free added content as and exercise for the reader. You can take your foot out of your mouth and admit you were wrong now.
              • A recall is only issued if there are enough complaints AND if the auto manufacturer feels kind enough to issue it. Remember the Ford/Firestone debacle? The laws vary from state to state, but within a certain period, I can bring my new car back to the dealer and they will fix any (reasonable) problem free of charge. If the tranny blows or the door moulding falls off, they fix it, but they won't paint the car if it doesn't match your new shoes. Also, in NY for example, if the problem repeats 3 times and disab

            • Re:whats to be done? (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
              Yes, and in laughing you out of the store they open all sorts of doors. First of all, you can reverse the credit card charge (or stop payment on the check, or what not) from when you bought the game. Secondly, they invalidate any sort of EULA, allowing you to do all sorts of neat things with the software that you wouldnt have been able to under the EULA.

          • Re:whats to be done? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
            Because someone obviously feels that theft is right. Nothing justifies stealing.

            Speeding in your car isn't a right either. Matter of fact, it puts human lives at danger, not just a pizza for the software developer.

            Do you ever speed?
            • I fail to see how this post is insightful. So because someone sometime somewhere did something wrong, that means nothing is ever wrong? Because people will continue to get away with murder and rape we should consider it ok to murder and rape? You need a little something called perspective. Stealing is wrong. Speeding is wrong. Murder is wrong. They hurt people in different amounts, but yes they are all wrong. I think its cute that you can spew some basic philosophy 101 crap back in the thread and
              • Because people will continue to get away with murder and rape we should consider it ok to murder and rape?

                No. I didn't say that it was ok, and I doubt that you personally have murdered or raped anyone.

                You need a little something called perspective.

                No, this is exactly what my post was intended to do for you. I didn't say that you were wrong, or say anything about whether speeding or pirating software was wrong. I'm really not interested in getting into a long, drawn out argument over something as un
      • I don't believe that's what he's saying. No you don't have the right to steal the game, but you may start looking to download it and try it out instead of paying $50 for crap.
        • sure.. but who does that... who actually downloads a game.. plays it... decides they like it.. and then actually goes out and buys it. Very very few people actually do that. It's a good idea and a good defense.. but it's not true.
    • Yes, consoles are worse in terms of allowing patches, but, as this article implies, they are fantasic generally for squishing bugs before they get out. I've only ever played two games with showstopping bugs (Metroid Prime froze, but only once, and Mortal Kombat II for SNES wouldn't let you play pong). Everything else is so minor as to be something that you have to make effort to trigger (the minus world in Super Mario Bros.). In fact, this was also the state of affairs before the internet. Software just
      • Armored Core: Master of Arena for PS1, second sequel to the innovative Armored Core game, had a real showtopper. The splitscreen multiplayer mode didn't work. The designers never noticed that the second player's HUD was broken, making his radar unreadable and giving the first player a massive advantage. This is a crippling bug.

        The reason was totally understandable - AC:MA came on 2 CD's - while they were different parts of the single-player campaign, they were the same CD for multiplayer. This meant if

  • too much pressure to rush to market? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jdvernon1976 ( 242485 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:05PM (#6514316)
    I'm betting on "We HAVE to get this game on the shelves, otherwise we lose money because of X"

    X = in time to be released same weekend as movie
    X = it's already been delayed and it's killing us

    Don't the publishers realize that releasing sub-par games on schedule is MUCH worse than releasing excellent games behind?

    Look at Blizzard - standard-bearer for "when it's done, it'll be fabulous" - Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 are prime examples

    Gamers are lenient on deadlines when the game exceeds expectations, but I'm betting that Matrix Revolutions (if they make a game) won't have quite the same reception....
    • This is not insightful, I'd prefer to mod it naive. The complexity of modern games means there will be some bugs. Everyone here has been saying how great Blizzard is for waiting to release, but have any of their products not required a patch? I think they all have. Didn't Diablo II have a huge problem when it came out that had the potential to burn up a user's CD-ROM? I can quickly browse the Blizzard support pages and find lots of wonderful bugs that the game was shipped with including crashes, progre
      • I think we're all missing the point. Blizzard can release a patch, while a console publisher CAN'T. So while Bliz can release a relatively bug-free game, then release a couple patches while the obscure bugs come out (personally never experienced a bug in a blizzard game, not counting D2 1.10 beta). While people who buy ETM for whatever console it came out on are stuck with a buggy first release.

        With PC games you can compromise on the overhead, make the game good enough so there are no obvious bugs, and
        • Too bad you can't retract your entire statement. Console games can and have been patched. It is 2003 you know.
          • Really? Let's say I have a GC, last time I checked they really didn't have any online capability of note, much less patchability, or even an HD. Put a large patch on a memory card isn't viable, too expensive.

            Now I have a PS2, and enough disposable cash the connection kit. K, now I'm looking for patches... Oops, there aren't any, nor any way to store then, unless I have a crap load of cash for memory cards galore, but then again there are no patches.

            Now maybe if I really wanted an Xbox I could patch th
    • My website published an article a while ago about this phenomenon, and it's not limited to consoles either. Here's an exerpt (please note that part of this article is a bit dated):

      Nearly two years ago, Civilization III was released for Mac and Windows. Since then the game has gone platinum, and hundreds of 3rd party maps have been released.

      However, none of these maps were made by Mac users. This is because Infogrames has only one person working on a map editor, and though many copies were sold under th
      • The same thing happened with Global Operations--It was released unfinished. You see, Global Operations was going to be the counterstrike killer. It had guns modeled more realistically than any FPS, even to this day, it had spectacular visual effects and creative and strategic maps.

        The publisher tanked that game. The developers admitted it was unfinished before it was even released, and patches weren't funded (iirc, of course, I don't pay much attention to the 'realistic FPS' genre). Nothing new, just lik

  • Lara Croft (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:06PM (#6514324)
    "Lara fell through invisible gaps in the street, walked through invisible gaps in walls, and refused to walk up stairs that she was supposed to be able to climb." "

    Let me know when you get the buggy one where Lara has invisible clothes, right buddy?

    • Re:Lara Croft (Score:3, Funny)

      by BTWR ( 540147 )
      I guess you never downloaded Nude Raider, the naked patch to the original Tomb Raider

      Mmmmm.... pixelated boobies...

  • Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by icemax ( 565022 ) <matthew_d_stone.hotmail@com> on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:07PM (#6514331) Homepage
    Enter the Matrix was a rush job by a studio that never should have gotten the contract. Shiny's biggest accomplishments (Earth Worm Jim, MDK) are no where near the great games put out by the first two studios contracted by the Matrix producers (SquareSoft et al). Also, Tomb Raider was an abomination to let out the door. The controls are terrible, and the game is buggy. A beautiful looking game however. Even with that said, these games are in the minority. Alot of good bug-free games came out this year
    • Yep, certainly agree with you on ETM. Shouldn't have been released on the date it was, and yea probably shouldn't have been given to Shiny anyway, who even with good ideas (Messiah) failed to make great games post Earthworm Jim.

      I just hope the next Matrix games will work out.
    • For that matter, ETM was in this neat little spot where the Wal-Mart crowd went and snatched it up en masse as soon as it came out. Wal-Mart of course has no take-back policy on games. You bought it, you keep it (unless it's defective, in which you trade it for a different copy of the same game). So it's impossible to punish the game companies by demanding their money back (or at least not through most retail channels), and most people won't bother anyway.

      • Wal-Mart (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Nakanai_de ( 647766 )
        Wal-Mart of course has no take-back policy on games. You bought it, you keep it (unless it's defective, in which you trade it for a different copy of the same game).

        You've never worked at a Wal-Mart electronics section, have you? Sure, that's the stated policy. However, in reality, the policy is "do whatever the customer wants you to" (at least at the store I worked at, it was). If you whine and bitch and moan and ask to see a manager, they'll take your return. Hell, most of the time, you just have

      • For that matter, ETM was in this neat little spot where the Wal-Mart crowd went and snatched it up en masse as soon as it came out. Wal-Mart of course has no take-back policy on games. You bought it, you keep it (unless it's defective, in which you trade it for a different copy of the same game). So it's impossible to punish the game companies by demanding their money back (or at least not through most retail channels), and most people won't bother anyway.

        That's not just Wal-Mart, it's every game retaile
    • MDK was a great game.

      It was one of the first 3D games that had real character, really imaginative level design, and an overall 'feel' that made it really fun to play. It was in the spirit of great SNES and NeoGeo games - a crazy adventure/platformer with lots of different enemies, amazing level design and most of all fun gameplay.
  • Well, most people don't realize that the game is buggy as hell until they've already dropped money down on it.
    Now that Electronics Boutique [ebgames.com] (among others) have started revoking their return policies you're pretty much screwed if you purchase a lemon.
  • How many of us have ever bought a game on the PC and the FIRST thing we do is check for patches?

    Yet we still buy them the first day they are out, accepting this as common practice.

    Is it any REAL surprise that companies would start pushing games such as "the matrix" (der, people bought that because it was THE MATRIX, its not THAT good, although I wouldnt call it "bad" either... its just, "meh") with bugs? These games will sell, and sell well, based on name alone.

    I have 0 faith in all companies, save Blizzard. At least they havent completely fscked me yet (although the latest ACCESS VIOLATION error from WC3 TFT is starting to REALLY piss me off)...
  • the main reason there are so many bugs in console games lately is because budgets are getting slashed... A company has less time to get a game out and is forced to do it with less employees who are getting paid less. Those employees are not going to work as hard as they would if they felt that they were getting paid what they were worth. The economy trickles down.
    • Isn't it also because the games are being written in much higher level languages, nowadays (C++ as opposed to straight assembly), so the coders usually aren't as l33t as say, the original NES coders? That's the idea that I've had lately.

      am I wrong?

    • I am in the video game industry, and I have to say that the development teams themselves are not the ones at fault. If I am working on a title, its not left up to me when something is considered done and when its not. I keep submitting it to a test department, and I keep getting a list of bugs that I fix in the next release that then goes back to test. This cycle continues until some producer says "Ship it". In the highly competitive video game industry, where development teams are the critical path
      • Thanks for clarification.. It is good to know that the developers are not at fault, and that they are being well paid. Games are getting more complex and developers should be paid accordingly. I am not suprised that things get out the door before they are complete. I work with a development team and we are often forced to implement projects that are not ready to be implemented. Our sales force also sells products that don't exist.. and we have to scramble to produce them.. sigh..
  • 1) The increasing complexity of the games on consoles means more opportunity for bugs. Any programmer knows that the more complex a program becomes, the more likely bugs are.

    2) With Enter the Matrix, there finish date was not determined by the status of the game but by the realease date of the movie (they were meant to come out at about the same time). I suspect the release of the Croft title corresponds to the new movie, though I am not sure.

    3) Consoles have never really been bug free. Granted, they ha

    • Heh heh, it was so fun running around SMB with Mario being small, but with fire power. Anytime you shoot, he'd grow big, shoot the fireball, then shrink again. :) Sucked that you couldn't break blocks though.

      Oh, and having bowser kill you, but not losing a life and still finishing the level was always fun. :D
      • You didn't want to mention getting too many lives using the turtle shell exploit then dying results in a crash?

        100% repeatable and with no saving, thats just brutal.
        • Right, forgot about that one. First time that happened I flipped. Had umpteen lives, then died ... Game Over. WHAT!! :)

          Had to try and figure out just how long to stay on that turtle to get enough lives to find everything in the game, without getting so many the game would end.

          There are others, too, like World -1, the underwater level that never ends.
    • I suspect the release of the Croft title corresponds to the new movie, though I am not sure.

      If that were the case, they would've had at least a couple more weeks to work on the title. There is an older Slashdot story that gives the reasons for it's rushed release:
      http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?si d =03/06/18/ 067235&mode=thread&tid=127&tid=186&tid=206&tid=212

      Already delayed twice, 'Lara Croft: The Angel of Darkness' is slotted for a release on June 20th. But that's looking les
  • Recently I read on the box for Knights of the Old Republic that if you have Xbox and the components to connect to the internet with it, you can get patches and updates with it. Seems to me that they will just let flawed games out and expect users to fall into thinking the same as PC gamers, that a patch will come out and we can get a fix that way, instead of actually buying a game worth the $50.

  • Steps to a buggy game (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1) Make game announcement at E3 before the game has started
    2) Promise un-realistic features and an un-realistic release date.
    3) Push back release date about 5 times.
    4) Publisher forces companey to release now so they can get their cash with half of promised content.
    5) Profit.
    • I think you mean:

      Business plan for console games

      1. Make game announcement at E3 before the game has started, promising un-realistic features and an un-realistic release date.
      2. ???
      3. Profit!

  • Join me my brothers and sisters (Score:3, Funny)

    by ArmorFiend ( 151674 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:19PM (#6514455) Homepage Journal
    I hereby boycott all non-GPL'ed console games that I haven't already bought. I'm out of the console market. I'm applying the same logic to MS-hosted systems. Until I get my $ back, or I get Freedom of the source, I'm out of these propritary shit-holes.

    mmmm.... apt-get install copter-commander [sourceforge.net]...

  • bugs and features (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i0wnzj005uck4 ( 603384 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:20PM (#6514496) Homepage
    I'm surprised the XBox hasn't had more buggy games, considering the ability of games to save patches to the hard disk. I think that was the first thing people feared when they heard that MS was putting a hard disk inside.

    Unfortunately, this may be the way of the future. The PS2 has a hard disk attachment that Sony has yet to push, but you can be sure the PS3 will have one bundled in, along with some sort of subscription service to go along with it a la XBox Live. Of course, this service will provide new levels along with patches for poorly-done games, just as XBox Live will eventually do.

    The unfortunate side of things is that most gamers don't finish games, and only get to see the single, linear quest the developers set out for them. Developers don't test the side quests or places out of normal reach because they rightly assume those places aren't as important. Even in the original Tomb Raider there were a number of places Lara should not have been able to hold on to, but could, and places that looked like handholds which weren't. Those weren't bugs; just design flaws.

  • bugs are inevitable as complexity rises (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pezpunk ( 205653 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @04:21PM (#6514515) Homepage
    look, we're not talking about pac-man anymore. every year the games and the systems involved get more and more complex, and the potential for bugs increases geometrically. consoles have been able to keep major bugs from becoming common by limiting the variables -- that is, using a standard system to play the game on -- but the system is getting very complex. it used to be, a game developer team had to write all their own code. nowadays, they use drivers and game engines that may or may not have major bugs or incompatibilities built in, even on the consoles they were written for.

    show-stopping bugs like crashes or even just annoying gameplay bugs should never make it to the final product, to be sure, but crappy games based on a movie license are certainly not a NEW phenomenon. anyone remember E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial for the 2600? of course you do.

    there are plenty of console games out there that are basically (major) bug free, and economic darwinism is still at work weeding out the crappy titles from the stellar ones, except where an established license gets in the way.
    • I understand the games are getting more and more complex. I think its more a culture of the publishing house.

      For instance take something like Mario Sunshine or Zelda WindWaker. These games are quite complex (sure nothing like morrowind) but they look great and are bug free.

      I really belive it to be a culture of the company rather than the complexity of the game.
      • Um, those are very simple games you name. Simple in terms of difficulty and simple in terms of design. Not that that is a bad thing necessarily, but there just isn't that much to do in those games. Why do you say they are "quite complex" then qualify it to say they are not complex?

        If you don't believe that all Nintendo games are simple games, why did they make the controller have one main giant button? Again, not that simplicity is bad, but those are poor examples of complex games.

        I don't happen to li
        • You piss and moan a lot, don't you? Just calm down pal. Nothing reported on Slashdot should make you this (and by "this" I am referring to your numerous posts concerning this article) upset. Have a beer, get a girlfriend, calm down. You sound like the type of guy to really just lose it one day because I am sure that in real life, you walked around with all your witty little lines bottled up and neither the nerve or will to let them out at people. It's sad really.

          Let's hug!

        • If you don't believe that all Nintendo games are simple games, why did they make the controller have one main giant button?

          The more I use the Nintendo controllers, the more I realize this is just good design, and has nothing to do with whether or not the games are simple (though I'm sure Nintendo has a philosophy of making simple games, or at least games that are simple to learn).

          If you keep your thumb over the A button (the giant green one), you can basically roll it to any of the other buttons on the f
        • Anyone who claims GC games are not complex has never played Metroid Prime. Arguably the single best console game EVAR, IMHO.

          My tastes may not agree with yours. Don't mod me down for that. =P
    • Plain and simple:

      With the ubiquity of the Internet, game publishers have become far too addicted to patching. That phenomenon is starting to spill over from the PC market into the console markets.

      Only the publishers with the discipline to look at their long-term interests will expend the proper effort to ensure a quality product.
  • This is not a new thing, guys. Atari had a trillion games released for it from krap developers. Result? Krap and Bugs. This is what happens when you let everyone and their mother license your product.
    • That's why today's console makers don't let everyone and their mother produce games for their consoles. They haven't since the NES days just after the Atari crash (remember the Seal of Quality?). So why are they relaxing their standards now, and why are we letting them?
  • Store policies prevent users from being able to return opened boxes.

    You can't test what you can't open.

    Any boxes someone doesn't buy are assumed as lack of interest not displeasure.

    Every game involves different situations so there are no trends such as shoddy coding to be gleaned.
    • This is why I tend to a) check online reviews of games and b) rent a game from Blockbuster before purchasing it. Of course it gives more profit to Blockbuster and doesn't really hurt the game sales much since Blockbuster will tend to buy more of a frequently rented game, but it does save me $$'s if the game sucks.
    • You can returned opened games, just tell them it wouldn't work on your machine and that you think it might have been a bad copy, and want an exchange, then come back the next day/later in the day and return it (unopened of course). I know this works, I have done it with games(Tribes2)/oses(WinXP,Redhat 6.2 Pro,OS X.1) (and no, I DIDN'T burn a copy of them while I had them)
  • all that there is to it.

    it's pretty easy to test a nes game in and out totally.

    but when the engine is a patchwork of glue and butter mixed with cardboard and some carrots, it's no wonder there's bugs, maybe they're even found that they are there but because the complexity it might not be very simple that where the bugs really are, especially if the engine was bought from another company and some other company is doing the artwork and some monkey is doing the scripting and the mentality of fix later is in
    • the modern games companies would be in great need of 'this sucks' testing department that would test the games after the 'final' gold version came bout, and have the absolute power to say that the product sucks and should not be wasted any money on bringing to the market

      The gold version is considered final because it's sent for production. The 'this sucks' testing department has to approve the title before it hits gold. Some companies just don't have decent testing, or bypass it to meet a date.
  • The fact of the matter is that developers know they can get away with releasing buggy crap products. Sequels that have built a huge name-recognition factor will sell miullions to people who get their gaming news only from PS2 commercials. They run out and buy Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider 12, Army Men 14, etc. The devs know that cutting the debugging and QA budget will save them more money than the remaining bugs will cost them in lower sales.
  • how some bugs exist and to a certain extent I sympathise with developers. The range of not just hardware but also drivers available for each piece of hardware, make it simply impossible to guarantee a bug free game, something that can be said for any program but I think multiplied in the gaming industry.

    But saying that I have to agree that lately some appalling games have made it to the shelves, with Enter the Matrix leading the way. I have never been as disappointed with a game as I was with EtM, I am a
    • Dude, the article is about CONSOLE games not PC games. PC games I can see giving slack due to drivers/lack of consistent hardware platform.

      The whole point of a console is that there is no variation and it's a frozen patform. No excuse for bugs there I'm afraid.
      • I know, sorry for getting a bit offtopic, just got to reading some of the comments and thinking about EtM(which I have for the PC) and had to have a rant :)

        There is as you say no excuse for bugs in console games, but it is going to happen more and more from now on, especially with the rise of internet enabled consoles with integrated hard drives. The only console manufacturer that truely cares about game quality is Nintendo, but it results in fewer games and higher prices, therefore they cannot perform a
  • "..judging from the sales of these.. titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"

    Yeah, damn us for not identifying bugs with clairvoyance!
  • Since the newer console games seem to be buggier than usual I realized there could be a reason for this happening.

    Xbox and PS2 are now network capable and you can dl new content for games and such so what about patches to fix games that were released and will be released in beta or even alpha states? The companies now have this option unlike the past so why don't they use it? Do they already use it?
    Maybe this is the reason they released their software before it was ready since they have the option to patch
    • "Xbox and PS2 are now network capable and you can dl new content for games and such."

      Question - short of releasing a version with a DVD burner, how can you patch PS2 games?

      • You could write your game to download and self-patch every time it starts up, even cache the updates if you have a disk in your console.

        Not saying it's a good idea, but it could be done.

        It might be simpler to just have valid purchasers get a new disc mailed to them--surely pressing a new disc can't be that expensive. I for one would pay a nominal additional fee for a bug-fix release of AoD.

  • Bugs & Politics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by starlabs ( 610056 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @05:03PM (#6515254)
    Don't forget that publishing games on a console platform has as much to do with politics as the game itself.

    Many big publishers (Eidos, Acclaim, Activision, etc) are given what I call "slack points". Basically these are allocated to them for a few games that they can use to push through QA on a "fast track". They typically use these on big-name games (Tomb Raider, anyone?) and *especially* if these big games need to be out by a hard date, such as quarterlies, Xmas, license coincide launches (ie moveies) or console launch dates. (Launch dates are a little bit different because QA is a bit tougher than usual - you don't want your launch titles to be too buggy!!)

    In addition to slack points, these big publishers will also use whatever else influence they have to push a big game through. Nowadays it's all about $$$ - if a bug is not a showstopper, well lots of people are willing to look the other way (anyone remember Digital Polyphony's GT3 not being 100% finished? Lots of examples).

  • Take it up the wallet.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"?

    You better believe I'm punishing the companies in the only way it can hurt -- $$$. The last game I bought was Moo3, and what a freaking DISASTER that's been! It took, what, five months before the game was (challenging/enjoyable/playable)!?! As far as I'm concerned, I'll try before I buy from now on, mkay?

    (Well, judging from Gamespy's review of KOTOR,

    • Awesome game, just going through the main quest and rushing it took me 30 hours, my friends at 55 trying to do every quest. AWESOME game. Couple slowdowns on xbox, and one major glitch I found, but easy to fix. Really great game. I'd go so far as to say best game I've played in the last 2 years.

  • Punishment? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TTop ( 160446 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @06:30PM (#6516274)
    "judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"

    How do you know a console game is buggy before you buy it? Okay, maybe you know a good website or something, but does the general public? No. The general public buys a console game expecting it to work without bugs.

    So how do you punish the gamemakers? Chances are you probably can't return the game -- it's considered software, so most major retailers won't accept a return unless it's defective and in that case will only exchange it for the same item -- which doesn't help because all of the same title will have the same bug.

    So what do you do? Don't buy that publisher's next title? I suppose, but then it's a little harder to make a linkage between the original purchase and slow sales on a subsequent title. Maybe just write a letter to the publisher complaining and letting them know you won't be buying their next title. But a letter isn't exactly punishment, is it?
    • Yes return the game. I have returned games in the past. You may only get store credit though.
    • Chances are you probably can't return the game -- it's considered software, so most major retailers won't accept a return unless it's defective and in that case will only exchange it for the same item -- which doesn't help because all of the same title will have the same bug.

      Under your local laws, perhaps. The UK's consumer protection laws let you make this sort of return, and I've done it several times.
    • Quoth TTop
      How do you know a console game is buggy before you buy it? Okay, maybe you know a good website or something, but does the general public? No. The general public buys a console game expecting it to work without bugs.
      This is why I love MetaCritic [metacritic.com]
  • would it be possible to file a class-action suit against EA (or similar) for selling defective products?
  • When the Matrix game was released, I was dissappointed, not at the game but at the developer Shiny Entertainment. For those who don't know, Shiny has brought us such games as Earthworm Jim and Sacrifice, both which were and still are great games. When I heard that Matrix sucked, especially due to major technical issues, I wondered why Shiny would do such a thing especially since they've never slacked on a project before. If you look at the schedule however, it explains a lot. Look at it this way: movies are

  • same as it ever was... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @06:54PM (#6516476)
    And here we have a case of the "good-old days syndrome"

    "When I was your age.... All our software worked! There was no patching and freezing or any of that! None of this 6 years in development crap you kids today put up with"

    While I won't argue for the quality of a lot of the games that get put out (3DO and Acclaim, I'm looking at you two) I would hardly say that the games of yesteryear were bug-free or really any more functional than the games of today.

    Are games buggy? Yes

    "But super mario brothers never froze when I was playing my NES" you say. And I ask "How many of Nintendo's games today freeze up all the time? Zero" The companies that produce crap, have produced crap since the dawn of time. Those that have been commited to quality, have for the most part stayed with that creed.

    Is this a new phenomenon? No, we are just a lot more likely to notice and or hear about it from others than we used to.
  • As an avid programmer I believe there is no excuse for major bugs in console games because they can't be patched. This doesn't mean that its allowable for PC games to have major bugs either, but at least those can be fixed. Console games need to have an even more rigorous testing process then their PC counterparts for that very reason.

    I've had my own experience with defective console software: NBA 2k3 for the GameCube. 2k3 freezes without warning in the middle of a game. The worst part about it is th

  • Ummm... (Score:3, Funny)

    by erydo ( 620806 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @08:34PM (#6517266)
    ...walked through
    invisible gaps in walls...


    Many of us refer to those as 'doors'.
  • There's a major bug in the 5th (maybe it's the 6th, I forget) palace where you step on a button but it doesn't push. I spent 4 days trying to pass this palace to no avail and have given up on it. It royally sucks. I'm upset. I love zelda and looked forward to beating it, especially since this is the first zelda title I've played since the NES's Adventure of Link.

    Anyone else have that problem?

  • Industry correction needed (Score:4, Informative)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @09:48PM (#6517742) Journal
    The gaming industry needs to "correct" itself and enforce much tighter quality control on their products.

    Imagine if movies hit the theater with scenes missing, or even just sections that don't display right, or have faulty audio, etc. Moviegoers would revolt.

    As gaming heads more mainstream, the tolerance of the public to deal with technical failures will drop.

    I'm currently playing Midtown Madness 3 on the Xbox. Great game, but the custom soundtrack option has HUGE bugs (one involves a failure to randomize - playback just goes in reverse order through the playlist on some occasions, and another bug involves the soundtrack getting "stuck" on a single song). What trade school dropout programmer can't implement a simple randomizing algorithm?

    Luckily, a "fix" is supposedly coming (downloadable through Xbox Live). But it shouldn't come to that.

    In some cases, with games like Enter The Matrix, the push to release a game on 3 or 4 different platforms at once is a fool's quest that leads to crap like this. Any game that tries a simultaneous multiplatform release in a short dev time will end up like this.

    Of course, the biggest problem is a million or so idiot customers bought it anyway.

    • Agreed, but the problem doesn't necessarily lie in the QC process, the whole development process needs looking at.

      Compare with 1993. As others have pointed out, the hardware and software complexities have increased massively over the past ten years. Processer speed, graphics rendering abilities, memory and storage media sizes, and - more importantly - games players expectations are all much, much higher.

      Development team size have gone from 1 programmer and 1 artist to teams of 30 or 40+. Here's where the
    • The funny thing is that you are wrong about moviegoers. I am not really a movie buff, I don't watch that many movies and usually do it only once. However, there are examples of bugs almost as serious as missing scenes.

      Enter The Two Towers. One of the most expensive movies ever, right? One of the most quality films? Wrong. Even if you forget about unbelievably crappy script, it has bugs. :) After the Helm Deep battle and the Isengard battle were won, we are treated to the scene of Eowyn jumping on Aragorn a
      • None of those even come close to being as intrusive as the bugs that plague many games.

        Sorry, but I don't think your comparison holds. A winshield remaining intact is in no way even close to being comparable as, say, a scene of the movie entirely missing, or one part of the movie that causes the reel to fall off the machine.

        • You must be careful when using analogies. The end result of the movie creation process is a film that is shown from start to end on more or less standartized equipment. The game, on the other hand, is extremely interactive and plays on extremely varied hardware. So the nature of "bugs" is completely different in two cases.

          What is the same is the attitude of the producers towards the customers - they don't give a shit about quality, they treat consumers like idiots and all they care about is money (yeah, th

  • Patch it later. MUCH later. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @09:55PM (#6517776) Homepage Journal
    I've noticed this becoming an increasingly alarming problem on the Xbox, and part of it is due to the PC port mentality they seem to have. This was especially apparent in games like Morrowind and Ghost Recon. We're talk roach motel. Live games have seen this problem with a vengence as the "patch it later" menatlity of the PC is taking increasing hold. Not only are they shipped with obvious bugs, but timely patching is a fanciful illusion. Honestly, I laugh everytime I hear somebody mention a patch for a Live game.

    I wish I could say it was getting better, but this is one area where the PC seems to be overrunning the console and not vice versa.
  • But unfortunately, I agree that the blame here lies solely with the consumer. Not YOU, reader, but just the average consumer -- the same one who goes to see the latest idiotic "blockbuster" movie without having read any reviews.

    Game companies are businesses, and they don't have any obligation to make awesome games. Their obligation is to make games that sell, and to sell, they sacrifice everything else: time, money, quality, anything.

    To the people who say that delayed games that are great sell better than
    • I remember when "Enter the Matrix" was first released (a friend had rented it) and my initial thoughts were that it was a pretty cool game...though I had only played it for about 5 minutes. I went online to try to find reviews and guess what? Couldn't find any. When the reviews did start pouring in they weren't very kind to the game. I own a few games that have various bugs in them (like GTAVC) but none that will cause the game to freeze or not do what it's supposed to do when I tell it to do it. It's not
  • Ah, games have had bugs for years... and it's definitely not a NEW thing to have video games development cycle shortened in order to get a product out by Christmas. I have Atari games with bugs in them too, and when you compare things, games these days probably have LESS bugs per unit of code than they used to. I mean hell, Mine Storm (the game built into the Vectrex) screws up if you beat level 13, because it tried to load information that isn't really there.

    Obviously, some games have some pretty major bugs that stick out like a sore thumb these days... especially since imperfections aren't tolerated as well (sprite corruption in an Atari game isn't as bad as broken polygons, or a complete crash on a PC game), but I hardly think it's enough to warrant any major action.
  • judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference

    Oh. Right. So it's supposed to go like this?

    1. buy game
    2. play game
    3. game locks up
    4. don't buy game
    Hmmmmmmm.
  • I realize that Infogrames aka "Atari" is not the Atari of old, but let's put it in perspective. I went through 30 cartridges of "Air Sea Battle" on my Atari 2600. That game never worked on my system. Then on the Atari 7800, "Impossible Mission" lived up to its name to the tee; there was a bug in the game that prevented you from beating it. I guess that means there was no issue of false advertising. Come to think of it, same goes for the Matrix. Can you seriously complain about that title when the movi
  • I only saw ONE game freeze (Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge), for some reason if you played the game very well, and got 3 stars by the time you reached the train level the game would just stop.

    On the other hand, during the early NES years in japan they had to recall some systems and games, that's when things got tough

    Besides that games usually froze because of dirty connectors (and the 'great' tradition of blowing air to the game paks)

    Can you guys think of other games that froze?

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