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Games Entertainment

Sierra recalls Game on Account of Integrity 79

Posted by sengan from the does-windows-qualify-too? dept.
Isaac-Lew wrote in that Sierra has recalled all 50000 copies of their NFL Football Pro '99 game, and the company's presided apologized: "I want to apologize to all our loyal customers for releasing a product before it was ready," They will be offering a full refund and a free game to anyone who bought this game. Is this the end of the proprietary software industry as we know it?
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Sierra recalls Game on Account of Integrity More

Sierra recalls Game on Account of Integrity

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  • Remember Birthright? THAT was a cool game, and Sierra killed it. The fact that YASSG (Yet Another
    Stupid Sports Game) was released is proof that
    Sierra's marketing dept. needs therapy.

    --------------------------
    Your Favorite OS Sucks.
    ^D

  • I can see it now..

    ZDNet news flash: Microsoft recalls entire product line claiming severe harm done to people that use the products on a dialy basis, company plans to only sell Microsoft ActiMates Barney toys in the future

  • To say this is the end of proprietary games is nonsense when we have yet to see one modern blockbuster game that was developed under (L)GPL. I mean, even games like Golgatha has a great deal of work done on them when they were proprietary software.

    ----

  • Sierra On-Line's 'Mystery House' (what you'd call low quality shit? Doubtless) was THE FIRST COMMERCIAL GAME EVER!!
    Geez- you're comparing stuff from the peak Apple II/TRS-80/Commodore era with the _first_ stuff released back when there was only Apple II and nothing else (for a few months) and nobody had ever sold software in stores before?
    Spacewar wasn't sold in stores. Adventure/ADVENT wasn't sold in stores.
    I will admit I have _no_ Sierra games currently, nor can I think of a single one I even vaguely want- but have some historical perspective, man! Sierra On-Line were the first commercial game company _ever_, _anywhere_.
    Of course, open source predated 'em >;)
  • Sierra has a dismal track record and has inflicted numerous "finished products" that were really just betas.

    Hopefully this will be the beginning of a trend that other companies will follow. They're almost all guilty (Blizzard is the only company I can think of that doesn't charge gamers 50 bucks for the privilege of beta-testing).
  • Putting all the sound, music and images in one large obscure 600M file making it impossible to even listen to the music without playing the game.
    Other games don't do this? Besides, there are programs that will unpack those gigantic files.

    Want to play multiplayer? Buy more CD's!
    True for Diablo. False for Warcraft and Starcraft. Only one player needs the CD.

    Want to use TCP/IP? Sorry, only through expensive battle.net!
    Huh!?!?! Battle.net is free!

    Require that damn CD to be in the drive all the time
    Once again I ask "Who doesn't?".

    A you sure we're talking about the same thing?

  • Proprietary software may be strengthened by this kind of move, yes.

    Should it actually start happening elsewhere, proprietary software might become a somewhat different (more dangerous?) animal than we know it to be, as the incentive to handle the debugging in-house would be far greater.
  • Posted by The guy in the next cubicle:

    Software is too complicated to ship without a major collection of bugs. Bugs are so insidious and skilled at hiding that many only become known over the course of long use by large numbers of people.

    Gee, now if there were only a way for a large group of people to look at the code, test it, and find all of the bugs before an official release.... ;-)

  • Posted by deskjock:

    Barney is the only solid product Microsoft has
    put out the door. My kids love it, and I have not
    had to apply any service packs to him.

    DeskJock
  • I agree here...ever since they switched to the "ergonomic" design from the Windows 3.0-era straight design, they've had a funky feel to them.
    All the computers I use on a regular basis have Logitech mice on them; I got the First Mouse+ I have at home in 1997 or so (may have been last year), and never looked back.

  • Several hundred dollars a seat?

  • Very nice move, Sierra. I'm impressed.
  • Is completely rediculous! The nerve... :)

    I hope they didn't want bug reports too...

  • Time and time again, I've seen (from the inside, at various companies that I've worked for in the past) software that was released without adequate testing. Instead of stressing those parts that are particularly sensitive, and seeing if they break, all too often, some "magic" number of tests are run, under normal operating conditions, to see if it works. When it passes that number of tests, it's time to "ship it".

    When a problem is encountered in the field, those same tests are run in field conditions (which, admitedly may not permit stress testing), to see "how many" fail.

    Theories are advanced, one is picked by committee, and a change is made. If the same tests now succeed more often, progress is declared to have been made, and again, we "ship it".

    Of course, the test sample is usually too small to come to any meaningful conclusions regarding improvement, but when the customer complains that the problem remains, we can say, "But look, we did 'stuff' and it got 'better'".

    The advantage (?) of this approach exists purely in the mind of marketting droids for they can promise "a fix" by a certain arbitrary date.

    On a related note, I've seen people in the business rewarded for "trying hard", instead of producing robust software, and staking their reputations on it.

    Root cause analysis is often a tedious, time consuming, and painful task, often with little to show for the effort until the very end. (Somehow, "we don't know what it is yet, but we know what it isn't" doesn't count as progress. However, it is the ONLY way I know of to find and kill bugs once and for all. Unfortunately, this approach means that, "yes, we WILL find it, but it might take a day, or it might take a month." This isn't good enough for the marketting droids who's hollow delivery promises have come home to roost.

    Recall? I guess, but it's tough to recall a solar powered weather station at the top of a mountain that requires access by helicopter. Multiply by several hundred.

    Of course the silver lining to this particular cloud is that open source software results in such high quality that proprietary software companies will have to eventually meet the same high standard, one way or another.

  • Golgotha (Score:1)

    by gas ( 2801 )
    Golgotha.org [golgotha.org]

    It was on /. yesterday (or the day before).
  • We can combine the traditional 3d first-person shooter with a symbolic algebra package like Mathematica. We could call the game Wolfram 3D.

    (Waits for about 3 people to get this joke...)

    -Eric
  • Hmmm... I wish some day I'd read a news article like:

    Microsoft has recalled all copies of their Windows'98 program, and the company's presided apologized: "I want to apologize to all our loyal customers for releasing a product before it was ready," They will be offering a full refund and a free Linux to anyone who bought this program. Is this the end of the proprietary software industry as we know it?

    ;-))
  • While I don't have a very high opinon of Sierra, cuz of things like Outpost, etc, I must say that I was suprised by their handling of the Outpost fiasco: they _mailed_ me, _without_ me having to say a thing or even know about the opportunity an apology letter and upgrade disks, and I recently played the game again just out of curiosity (I don't think I ever played the patched version after I got it) and most everything promised was there. That's the only time I've had a company actually follow up on a"free product update" or even inform me of a product update just cuz I sent in the registration card...
  • Before the Brood War expansion, you could do the spawn install and run 8 people off the same disc, and everything was cool. Now after Brood War EVERYBODY has to have the full original version AND the Brood War expansion disc. If you try the disc-swapping trick, whoever doesn't have the disc at the end of the game gets a nice bluescreen. Whatta bunch of blood sucking pricks! And half the new units in Brood War (all the new air units) suck my ass. Why do we put up with this crap? And of course we'll NEVER get a Linux port either.

    The TCP/IP thing is pretty stupid too; it's Win-don't, and it's supposed to take care of all that stuff FOR YOU. Whatever your default transport is, Starcraft should just shut up and use it.
  • >Console games have bugs too... Geeze, look at >Super Mario Bros... It had some weird ones... >Coins that would sporadically fall from the sky, >springboards that would stop working... Most of >these games have (at the very least) small >glitches. They usually do not get fixed either.

    Really? That's the first I've heard of any of those bugs. Are you sure you're not getting secondhand crack fumes from sen"death of the software industry"gan?
  • Who knows, maybe if you hit the right combination of buttons at just the right time, the players strip down and have an orgy on the field. Or something.

  • Well... (Score:1)

    by jmpvm ( 6160 )
    This is a great move for sierra. It is good that they realize that they do not have a finished product and are fixing that. OTOH, I worked for a company that was working on a software project, and they wanted a perfect product, and had fixed SO MANY of the minor bugs in the software that by the time the software was 'ready' for release, it was behind in features compared to the competitor's products, and therefore killed before release. Millions of dollars and years of development down the tubes. There has to be a happy medium. There WILL BE bugs in software, and EVERY product is released with known bugs, some serious, some cosmetic. Its a balancing act that not too many companies are good at. From one extreme (My previous company) to the other (Microsoft).
  • Ugh, I played PSX Final Fantasy 7 for about 36 straight hours, only to have it lock up consistently while I stayed overnight in the Gold Saucer. Bgs always slip through, but at least with PC games a patch is possible.
  • ?!??!

    Want to play multiplayer? Buy more CD's!

    Wha? Warcraft II, Diablo and Starcraft all have multiplayer built in...And except for Diablo, you can run multiple players off one CD.

    Want to use TCP/IP? Sorry, only through expensive battle.net!

    Uh...last time I checked, battle.net was free. (unless they've changed it in the last couple months.)

    Require that damn CD to be in the drive all the time.

    I can't speak for Diablo or Starcraft, but I almost NEVER played WarII with the CD in the drive. (Orcs are so much more fun when stomping to Megadeath)
  • Not to mention that even WITH the final patch, it's still rife with bugs.
  • Oh gawds yes. I was GIVEN Outpost for free, and STILL felt ripped off.

    And LOM...Well, that was just insanity. I still remember the first time I finished the game. (After they released the 1.2 patch...anything below was frankly unplayable) The main bad guy just sat there like a lump because he'd given his super-neato-weapon away part way through the game!

    Great AI code there.

    But, at least they made amends by putting assigning enough developers to FIX it.
  • Good. More and more games are requiring extensive patching after being purchased.. Pretty soon I expect to see software companies selling alpha versions of their software for 49.95 at EB. "Well, sure there is only one texture, but we got it out in time for Christmas!"
    When something odd or obscure slips by(ie Bungie Software and the problem with uninstalling Myth II from a userdefined directory,) I can totally understand that. Thats what they have car recalls for...something invariably goes wrong.
    But when halfbaked software is released as a full, complete version, come on(Uh, Rainbow Six is a great game, but geez guys, how many patches did it take before one could adjust mouse sensitivity? And I've never seen a game crash or show weird bugs as much as R6 does(and this is on 4-6 separate machines!))... 4 or 5 patches just to make the game relatively playable? Hm.

    C
  • Honestly, I do not want to have to download patches and screw around with drivers just to play a stupid video game. The whole point is instant gratification and relief from stress.

    So I bought a Playstation. Buy game, put game in Playstation, play game. No muss, no fuss. The games are generally free of serious bugs; in fact, if a game has a bug, it's news. Plus, the cost of the system is so much lower than building and rebuilding an acceptable game system: I bought the whole Playstation for less than some PC joysticks cost!

    There are still a few games on the PC that I like (Warcraft II), but by and large, give me a Playstation every time.

    Jon
  • They're in business because of:

    Caesar 3
    Half Life
    King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
    Return to Krondor (DON't buy this title though)

    And I don't remember anyone but EA ever distributing the Ultimas.
  • When I can get a mouse and a keyboard for a playstation so that I can play halflife, lemme know. Or when I can use my trackball to play Caesar3 on a PSX. How about Longbow 2, I'd really love to see all those controls on the pad.

    Not to mention that I like crisper graphics than what my TV puts out.
  • I just can't see Sierra recalling 50k copies of a football sim because it sucked. Sierra has been unrepentantly making suck games since the 80's. What was *really* on that disc besides the game? South Park videos? Nude photos of the Sierra engineers? Plans for the neutron bomb? The truth about the Kennedy assasination? UFO guidance/navigation software? Or was it just a really bad football game?
  • Does this mean that Sierra is breaking its trend for releasing what are barely beta games as final releases? I remember the first release of Lord of Magic was so buggy, I spent most of my time just seeing what was broken, it was almost a game in itself.
  • If you want a lot of people to start seriously thinking about open source games, then the Windows platform might be a better choice - There are many more people who use it.

    Of course, an even better idea might be to try and write a game that works on both...
  • It seems to me that you're confusing 'free software user' with 'free OS user'... Being a 'free software user' is not mutually exclusive with being a 'commercial software user' I use several pieces of free sofware at the same time as I user several pieces of commercial software. I would also argue that as the userbase of windows is larger than the userbase of linux, you isolate more users by choosing linux.

    By trying to make free software only for free operating systems (but okay, we're basically talking linux here) you may be condemning free software to be used only my the minority of users who can cope with the complexities of linux, never to escape to brighten the lives of those can't.
  • And that Mystery House game? I loved those games where you could tell what objects to pick up because they were the last things drawn on the screen...

    Sigh... "sneakers" for Apple II is still one of the best games ever. H-wings rule.

    W
  • And that Mystery House game? I loved those games where you could tell what objects to pick up because they were the last things drawn on the screen...

    Sigh... "sneakers" for Apple II is still one of the best games ever. H-wings rule.

    And what about "Lemonade Stand?" That rocked.

    Ok, enough reminiscing...
    W
  • how about an Ender's game style space combat sim, where you strategize in true 3-space against an enemy (neural-net, perhaps?) which can learn from your strategy...
  • All their adventure games were that stupid "guess the right keyword" or "go through the maze" type crap. No thinking involved at all. I guess they wanted to make money selling Hint books or hint hotlines.
  • Not to mention it takes at least 10 seconds for the page to render, locking up netscape in the process :(
  • Uh, nearly every game these days has a free beta. Even some microsoft games! Blizzard is lame, unless you like having your registry sent around the internet w/o your permission.
  • I stopped buying Sierra games awhile ago (except for the Caesars, they have been pretty stable)...but the biggest game heartbreak has been from Bethesda Software. Daggerfall is quite potentially IMHO one of the coolest games ever released....but it never reached a point where it was playable. I was excited about the multiplayer options in Battlespire, but it simply sucked so bad I frisbeed it. Annoyed me too, as I had responded to a Bethesda add about beta-testing it (Battlespire) and they never even bothered to e-mail me. At this point, even though bethesda has made some great games, I refuse to buy them unless I hear from multiple people that they are stable.....I'm still waiting.
  • I think someone may already be doing this.

    Check out http://www.altima.org/ [altima.org] (saw the link originally in a /. poster's sig file).

    =moJ
    - - - - - -
    Member in Good Standing,

  • I have Need For Speed III for my playstation and it crashes all the time.
  • dos is beta win98 just before they added all the gui
  • if only interplay wouldn't be so greedy. They release MAX2, the sequel to one of the best strategy games ever, and it was a complete dud!

    If any game deserved to be recalled it was MAX2. Hopefully the industry will follow the example of Sierra.

    Joe
  • if anything, i think Sierra's move strengthened the reputation of proprietary software, by actually putting the customer first. that's a rare thing these days, especially in the software industry.

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