DiamanteGeeza said:
Therumancer said:
The part that got me is "must patch any critical bugs in the game within a month of release". I'd much prefer you know, "game must release without any critical bugs". I still remember the days before patching and how companies had to pretty much get it perfect the first time. Seems like a clause for the current lazy "we can always fix it later" generation of developers who want to release and move onto their next project ASAP.
Whilst I agree with your dislike of day 1 patches, I'd just like to correct your 'laziness' comment - developers aren't lazy.
We bust our asses to get titles done and submitted so they can ship on time. The problem with patching is that it's opened the door for extra pressure from publishers (and people within developers) to cram every feature in the entire universe into a game. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of games are poorly scheduled (accurate scheduling of a game is surprisingly difficult), nowadays this results in most games being nowhere near ready for ship when they actually submit - the first parties actually have a process that allows them to say "okay, well, we'll approve your game, even though it locks up at the beginning of level 3, as long as you promise to fix it for the day 1 TU" - that's how commonplace this is now.
What used to happen is that the absolute, final, drop dead, must-have-everything-in-the-game-by date was usually a day or so prior to first sub, but now this cut-off date has moved to the night before ship. And it sucks.
However, please don't think of us developers as lazy - it's rude, insulting, and incorrect.
Please don't take this personally, but while I like video games, I do not think well of the games industry, and that includes both the developers and publishers. I believe both of them represent huge problems that are utterly destroying gaming. Insane levels of greed, laziness, and unrealistic expectations galore on all levels. Publishers point fingers are devs, devs point fingers at publishers... I have gotten sick of it and take the appaorch that both sides are equally responsible for the garbage going on.
When I blame the devs here, it's because these are the guys making the game, in the final equasion what the game winds up like, and what problems apply to it, are ultimatly their responsibility. Pointing fingers at the publishers and their policies is pretty much what Devs do with everything, and the publishers when questioned oftentimes do the same thing right back by blaming devs. I just don't care, or buy into it any more at this point. The buck has been passed so many times that it's lost all relevency as a form of defense as
far as I am concerned.
To be honest, from where I'm sitting it seems that while all devs claim to love games and their products, that doesn't always match the facts and what I see what's going on. Cynical as it might be, I'm quick to point out that nobody who makes a salable product is going to say they hate it and it sucks, or will say "it's just a job" when questioned about their employment in relation to a product. In reality most devs seem all hot and bothered to finish a product and run off to the next paying product, and that (again very cynical) observation probabably has a lot to do with why publishers feel the need to put in a requirement for a dev to patch a game, because if they all run off to their next product getting them to backpedal when they aren't required to can be difficult.
Now, there ARE exceptions, there are ALWAYS exceptions and I acknowlege this in every debate or discussion I'm in (which many people forget) but this is the general rule as far as I can tell... and yes this attitude makes me a cynical jerk, and probably offends people within the industry, but as far as I'm concerned it's the industry that made me this way. I generally don't spend a lot of time considering who the actual exceptions are, rather than those who simpyl claim to be the exceptions (which is pretty much everyone).
So, I am sorry that this offends you, but honestly as someone who has sometimes spend months waiting for patches, sometimes ones that never come, I have little sympathy. In the end all the finger pointing on both sides, and talk about policies within the industry doesn't matter to me. As far as I'm concerned you either get the job done or not. To me there is no excuse for making a buggy game and relying on patching to begin with, as far as I'm concerned blaming publisher policies is stupid, because publishers when questioned are usually going to defend themselves by just turning around and blaming the devs. From my perspective none of that matters. Either the game is buggy or it's not. What's more a dev that screws it up by rushing off to their next project before the ink dries on the packaging for the one they just finished isn't going to say they were lazy or doing a rush job, nobody ever says that about themselves. I personally don't care if that's actually the case or not, I just care that my game is buggy.
Sorry if I'm not explaining this well, or it upsets you... but well, you could say I'm in the odd position of being pro-games, but anti-games industry. On some levels I'd love to see the entire industry collapse in on itself, except for that meaning I wouldn't get any games for a while, do to it needing to recover and reform from that.
I think I started becoming so honest about this about the time I honestly realized I didn't have any favorite game producers anymore, just ones I hate more than others. While I might like the product itself, I increasingly find myself becoming upset the more I look at what's going on behind the scenes, or the business aspects of things.
Feel free to dislike me, and sorry about my bitterness. Not everyone thinks like me yet.
Also in closing, I don't know you, so feel free to consider yourself an exception if your a dev if you want to, since I really don't know the first thing about you or your work to make any statements, and really before I ever formed an opinion it would be based on what I see over a period of time, not based on what you (or really anyuyone) tells me I should think, or any one incident. I tend to mostly look at patterns for that kind of thing, and right now the pattern I see is an overwhelming amount greed, rot, and circular blame passing which generally serves as a way of pretending to try and change things, while not actually making anything change.