Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases? 362
An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting:
"As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"
Andy Tanenbaum (Score:5, Funny)
AST:
'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"
Next he will be claiming that it is safer to use a properly modular operating system.
Re:Even *Simple* games can be broken (Score:2, Funny)
You're obviously lying and you don't ever have sex with your imaginative girlfriend, as all you do is sit around on slashdot and call people fucking losers. It's appearent from your chain of logics that it's entirely impossible to ever have sex with ones girlfriend if one ever performs other activities that any given subset of humanity might perceive as a waste of time.
GH is awesome entertainment of the kind that only takes 5 minutes to appreciate (unless struggling with the Wii menu).
A concert, drinks and sex takes way longer (well, I'm sure you can handle the last part in even less time).