Observing forum topics, Youtube videos and new releases first-hand, I seem to notice a trend of companies releasing games too early, with the games being half-done. A few examples are Assassin's Creed 3, which was broken to a point where I couldn't properly play it, Skyrim, which was so broken it required 4 patches to simply stabilize the game and more recently Battlefield 4 which I hear is rather buggy (I can't honestly speak for myself on BF4, I haven't played it yet).
While Bethesda has been known to release buggy games, I recall Oblivion as being a lot more stable (Skyrim felt like a beta to me, in comparison to Oblivion). To be honest, the Halo: Reach beta felt like a more stable game than a lot of the recent games I've played.
But where does this apparent trend come from? Was it always there, and was I too young to see the bugs in some of the early games I played, or do developers really release games before they are done? Why would they do that? To make more money? I'd figure a properly working game gets more sales than a broken one, due to reviews and word-to-mouth comments, but I don't have insights into the business models of such companies.
Where does #Gaming stand on this point? Do you see the same trend, or was it always there? Do you have an explanation for the (apparent) increase of buggy releases? Please, share your opinions.
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If it takes me the best part of a painful week to debug my measly 1000 - line arbitrary precision calculator, I can forgive devs for releasing slightly buggy games with a million odd lines of code.
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Edited by Banned Shadowz: 2/16/2014 4:32:17 AMHas bitching and complaining become a art form on this forum?
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Halo CE was ... "buggy". If you want to call it that. I remember getting on top of Sidewinder and finding other more crazy things you weren't supposed to be able to do. But part of it is that these games are so - -blam!-ing - big. Companies have deadlines, and after two / three years in development, they need to produce [b][i]something[/b][/i]. Plus, as a fan, are you really gonna wait another six months because they need to iron out bugs? You're more than likely going to say "To hell with this! I'm getting another game!".
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Battlefield 3.5 (4)
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I think you just missed it when you were a kid. I remember breaking the shit out of some of my n64 games. Glitches galore.
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As you said, a developer can release a patch for a broken game. That is a relatively new thing, only happening in the past couple of years. Before, once a game released, that's it. Nothing can be worked on any further. Now internet and gaming are closely linked, so a developer can have a game spend less time in testing and more time on the shelf, with the first buyers being the beta testers.
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The 3 games seemed perfectly playable to me. Sounds like you're talking shit. Skyrim and AC3 had a few glitches, none of which actually stopped you playing the game.
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There have always been buggy games. It's just more common now because most games are vastly more complex and content loaded, that shit becomes inevitable.