Developers getting lazy?

[Jason]

So, with CoD Modern Warfare 2 now on its second patch for PS3, less than 48 hours after release, some gamers are understandably angry about the apparent dip in quality testing that appears to be the norm these days.
Perhaps it's just me looking back with rose-tinted spectacles, or perhaps it's the massive increase in scope of today's games, but there does seem to be a huge increase in the number of massively-budgeted games that are shipped with practically game-breaking bugs in.
Yes, with the explosion of the internet, it's easier for developers to patch their games than it was 15 years ago, but surely that's no excuse for shipping a shoddily tested product and using the paying consumers as glorified beta testers?

[MyNameDidntFit]

Developer 1:
This developer sets a date for their product and ensures they meet it. Thus there are bugs in the game and the community bitches, whines and otherwise opines*.

Developer 2:
This developer does not set a date and goes with 'when it's finished'. Thus they take a long time to develop their game. Thus the community complains angrily.

It's a lose-lose situation for developers, really. It's just a matter of choosing which thing they want the community to be angry about.





*damn I should be a poet.

[Jason]

You're a cynical (and also very correct) guy, MNDF.

The obvious example of 'When its done' is Duke Nukem Forever, which became the least funny joke in gaming, and eventually dragged down the company with it. Probably for the best, as the game could never have lived up to the near 15 year development time.
As for setting a date, I dislike the trend of setting a November release date in January as seems to be the trend these days - the gaming media are so desperate for exclusives and snippets of news and so on, the developers feel pressured into putting a 'confirmed' release date in, which they're then tied to.
What this sometimes ends up as is that you end up with a game like the PS3 version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which has been patched three times in three days, and the invite system is completely broken, effectively preventing friends from playing together, or Spore, which had several huge bugs in it, rendering the latter stages of the game almost impossible.

Someone needs to find a happy medium between the two - setting an approximate release date and saying that this is the date they're aiming for, but they want to make sure all bugs are ironed out before release, so if it changes, they'll inform people. A lot of the time, gamers are angry because they feel that they're being kept in the dark or out of the loop.

Of course, then there's the permanent nerd-ragers...

[BannanoPeel]

I think that the developers put a lot of pressure on the developers to get the game done by a deadline. This of course leads to glitches/bugs, but I think that's one of the good things about the internet world that we live in today is that hopefully most glitches can be fixed with a patch.

[Impulse]

At least they're fixing the glitches, there's some companies out there like EA and Konami that never do anything about it.

[Jason]

That's a good point, although it does appear that there is a dramatic increase in 'game-breaking' glitches that really should never make it past playtesting, particularly as the 'closed beta' is becoming an increasingly popular method of getting games extensively tested. I mean, how do you ship a game without checking something as central to the multiplayer experience as the invite system? :-/

[Landy]

Some game developers, if not all, tend to push the games forward to the release date, even if the game is not even near to being finished. Just take Battlefield 2 as an example. How many patches did they release and each patch fixing a problem, created another. In the end of the day, not much we can do about it.

[dimples]

There is no making us happy. So as long as they do fix the bugs, I'm happy (sorta)

[Jason]

I think a good example is Team Fortress 2 and Valve, actually.
The Valve boys have been tweaking and adding to the game so much since it launched in 2007, you could repackage the whole thing, call it Team Fortress 3, and no-one could really complain in the slightest - the game is so different to the one that was released as part of the Orange Box as to be borderline unrecognisable.
However, that still doesn't stop the fans raging uncontrollably every time a new weapon has balancing issues 'in the wild', or people complaining that just about every single class is overpowered or underpowered depending on who you speak to at any given time (although anyone complaining that the Soldier or Demoman are underpowered should be taken out back and shot, if you ask me... :p). You're never going to please everyone, particularly on the internet.

However, to be honest, this wasn't really levelled at Valve. It was more aimed at those developers who churn out games with glaring flaws that are widely picked up on in reviews and by the community, yet never bother to do anything about it.