As gamers which would you prefer.....

A: Games been released early and in turn needing constant patching to get playable to a satisfactory level (Stalker , Crysys , BF2/2142) Mostly EA games...coincidence???? I think NOT.

B: Games released late..or even put back, but released to a much higher near perfect standard. Dare I say as games you PAY for should be......

Is it our own fault that Developers get away with churning out half finished titles that the end user snaps up and does not bat an eyelid....this has gone on for far to long. In fact when we buy a game now if we do indeed buy as many as we did before its is almost associated with a PC game now that a patch will surface not to long after.....

I mean would you buy a film on Blu Ray/DVD that to your horror only played 3/4 of the film and you had to wait 3/4 weeks for a PATCH to see the end of the film....LMAO.

Some games are playable even if pushed out early... like HGL but the patches do help a lot.

But as a general statement, game devs should take there time and make the games perfect.

EG) Darkfall, anything by Blizzard.

Blizzard seem to be very high up in alot of peeps books....I dont think I have played a game from them like WoW etc....I was going to buy Diablo 2 the other day but its not really worth it with 3 on route.

back on topic.....

I cant understand why dev's cant do it right first time around....i mean its a win win situation, the longer it takes the more hype is created and the faster the game sells in anyway and with positive feedback from media etc the game will sell more aswell......

I'm don't think I've ever played anything from Blizzard, since I'm not into RTS games or anything with magical elven swords.

I'd rather have option 2. For multiplayer games released early without much testing, there's usually a boatload of cheap hacks that people can use to cheat and pwn everybody online, thus making it a boring game. At least until a patch comes out, by which time I've lost interest.

And as far as single-player games, if there's bugs but the game is still playable, I'll play it anyway. Then by the time a patch comes out, I've already finished the game and I'm not in the mood to play it again right away anyway.

McFly said:

Pfft, you should try Blizzard games.

Plug & Play said:

Sometimes (usually) it's a budget issue that causes them to release it so they don't overspend and giving them a bigger budget (based on early sales) a game that this happened to was Vanguard.

Check out http://darkfallonline.com/, they've been developing for like 6-7 years, maybe even more and people still are relivantly hyped.

And what am I going to play ... ? Looking at their list of titles I don't see any on there that interest me. Unless they come out with an FPS I'm unlikely to give them a go ... an RTS can't hold my interest for more than 20-30 seconds and I usually point and laugh at the RPG/MMO crowd.

But back to the topic ... I don't know when the last time a game came out that didn't desperately need a patch within the first week.

McFly said:

Heh... D2, LOD, W3, TFT, SC, anything by blizzard OFC

Please don't blame the developers. They're just employees, especially you're talking about big and well known game companies.

Not just for the gaming industry, but also for many other industries, often there are two contradicting groups and goals: one, the business group's goal is to be competitive to other competitors, the faster the product can be pushed out to market, the faster the company can make money; two, the technical group's ideal goal is to make a perfect, complete, and quality product, the more time and resources they have for R&D the better. Who usually wins? You guessed it, most company are owned / managed by people who have little or no technical knowledge of their products, with the sole purpose to make money, so business folks win most of the times. Technicians, engineers, scientists, developers are often the ones that have to cut back because of business needs, work under constraints of personnels, finance, and time.

I am speaking with personal experience.

defenitally B
i pay for a finished product, i want a finished product
or they should make games cheaper to begin with
an uncomplete price for an unfinished product

What Doc said. I tend to blame the suits responsible for making it profitable. Granted, they're necessary, but I think a lot of times the pressure to get it release so it can start selling overpowers the dev's need to get it done right.

This is a common problem in any software environment; check out thedailywtf for lots of stories of upper (business) management demanding untested software be put into production, because it's "cheaper" to not spend time/money on testing it.

It's maddening to the customer to get unfinished or just not fun games, and it's shortsighted of the company to release an inferior product. Not everyone will bother to patch it, some will just say, "oh, this sucks" and drop their opinion of that company a notch or six.

There's too much of an emphasis on marketing and flash. You see this in bands, too; Tool has always done what they want to do and have grown huge by consistently creating quality, instead of "staying hot" or something ridiculous. If a game creates a large splash but doesn't stick around in terms of fun, marketing thinks "oh, we need to put out the next big thing! Stat!" instead of thinking "we should have made that better. Let's make the next one twice as good." They'd rather put out two pounds of shiny s**t than one pound of tarnished silver.

I hate when games come out too early, i prefer to wait for an amazing game like what Valve and Blizzard usually do.

Dr. Peaceful,

I see your point but what self respecting "Employee" would continue to work for a compmany short changing the end user. I mean I know if I was a game designer and my boss wanted me to half do something I would walk at the 1st chance I got.

EA I think are the worst at this.....they clearly do not learn from their mistakes.

thats because people still buy their games, Plug and Play, so they feel why bother to change whats working for them?

Plug & Play said:

While you're righteous to quit your job for the stand of moral, keep in mind that the next sucker that replace your job may very well willing to do what he/she was told even it's against his/her conscience. Unless you have a very good opportunity waiting for you, the loss is always on your side for such act, unfortunately.

B, without a doubt. Broken games are worthless games.

It is quite an unethical business model - but it works, and the games still sell.

They use up their budget (or most of) to get a game out by a particular deadline, which may be extended once or twice, but MUST come out at the eventual date chosen.

Game comes out.

Initial revenue from sales of said game are used to fund the patching [read: final development] of said game, so the publishers dont lose out.

Its typical EA style BS - but nonetheless it works, and the game still sell.

One of the main reasons behind this was the advent of the internet - games can be updated/patched so easily, why not?

Before the internet, fully finished games were the norm, as you literally couldnt patch the game.

Also, games these days have budgets similar to movies, yet require a hell of a lot of complex work for them to complete, and generally take a LOT longer to create than your typical hollywood blockbuster.

And about the point of the employee??? Maybe he/she is working his/her ass off, doing a great job, but the game has to be at least at a playable (not necessarily finished) state by a certain date.

Whether the employee thinks its right or not, it still comes down to the main driving force - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

From what I've heard, game developers are just about the most overworked employees out there logging the most overtime person of any career. It is not uncommon for them to be working 60+ hour work weeks for months leading up to the release of a game. The nice thing is that they get a week to a month off after their work is done.

EaGAMES might be notorious for this, but I find the EaSports branch is always on time ;O

The internet is a GREAT point dubs, any way to slack and were there!!!! But its not just games really...its all things personnal computers....not just software i.e games and windows...how many times have you bought a mobo that needed a bios upgrade within weeks. And the common complaint and general rule of thumb that you NEVER buy a new board when it first comes out to let the BUGS settle.....Crazy?

Plug & Play said:

Yep, internet makes it easier to release unfinished products - it never used to happen, as games literally could NOT be patched before, so they had to be finished, or at least as finished as any piece of software could be.

Per your statement about mobo's etc - I never opt for brand new tech, least not within 3-6 months after release, it just causes headaches (apart from maybe vid cards)

Waiting for a few months for a new mobo is grand if you can wait....but if you are in the middle of getting a rig then you cant really wait can you....

Remember me and the Gigabyte mobos LMAO...and the Asus Commando with the Adata RAM....OMG....

You pretty much bought the Abit mobo straight away all the same did you not,.... but I think you knew one of two guys who had it.