6 ms·

> That has never been true. Sure it has. When software existed on physical media and there was a real, material cost with distribution of software, there was a

> That has never been true. Sure it has. When software existed on physical media and there was a real, material cost with distribution of software, there was absolutely a done state. Waterfall software development and actual requirement control would clearly define done states. That's not to say that there weren't bug fixes and updates, but it was (and is) possible to define what an application should do, code it to do so, test that it works, and ship it. But the world has changed, software has become easier to develop and distribute, and software development methodologies have shifted to where we don't have to have a done state in the same sense that we used to. I don't think it's a coincidence that we got agile development after the Internet.

homero 10y ago
Definitely true, now video games on discs are manufactured completely broken or even mostly empty and they make you download 50gb on launch day
- ggregoire 10y ago
  Are you talking about Final Fantasy XV? This case is ridiculous, they are even modifying the story after the launch day. It would be like releasing a movie and changing the end one week after the release because of the bad reviews. Hopefuly the sales of FFXV are relatively bad.
  - shandor 10y ago
    Sorry but why is that a bad thing? I can understand that it's "bad" that their story was lacking at release, but isn't it awesome that they'd go to such lengths to serve fans and buyers and have a good product in the end, if not in the beginning?
    - hfsktr 10y ago
      pretty quick we will end up with nothing but the worst graphics/story when you buy a game because you can just patch it and fix it later.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > It would be like releasing a movie and changing the end one week after the release because of the bad reviews. To me this is not that uncommon. Let me tell you a story (I cannot provide a quotable evidence for a central point of the story except for multiple friends who independently had the same feeling after seeing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets two times in few weeks when it came out in cinema in Germany). At that time when this movie came out in Germany there was a law that "FSK 12" movies must only be watched by people who are at least 12 years old. The problem was: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was rated "FSK 12", while Warner would have liked it to be "FSK 6". So they cut some scene parts out of the movie to get this rating for the German cinema release (BTW: this incident lead to a change in the laws that now children under 12 years old may also go to "FSK 12" movies as long as they are accompanied by a parent). So far this is a story where for every claim I could provide strong evidence. Now the strange part comes: (#) People who saw this movie shortly after release day and a few weeks after (in Germany) all could point out to some scenes (and they were the same) that they clearly remembered when they first saw the movie, but not the second time. So it seems to be that there were some cut alterings done afterwards and there were actually two different versions to be seen in German cinemas. I personally assume that this had to do something with the stated age restrictions (they forgot to cut some scene parts when they initially released the movie in the cinemas, so they hastily changed things afterwards and released a new version to the cinemas). As I said: I can provide no independently verifiable evidence that (#) happened - but I deeply trust the independent persons that claimed so and I deeply trust their visual memory (I would only trust people who have a really good visual memory for such strong claims). TLDR: changing a movie shortly after release is nothing that deeply surprises me.
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    It seems like many movies these days get released with two versions when the theater run is complete; one version that matches what was shown in theaters, and one Director's Cut. The latter often includes scenes that were cut to get a specific rating, but it also often changes things that caused bad reviews. Superman v Batman is a good example; the theatrical release got bad reviews for being confusing, and the Directors Cut includes a lot of backstory scenes which help the movie make more sense. (Can't help the overall plot holes though.)
- SeanBoocock 10y ago
  That is not true. Games released physically for video game consoles must pass platform certification requirements and only then manufacture, distribute, and release the game. The lead time required for this in my experience is on the order of 2-3 months, during which time the development team cannot touch the "gold master" build of the game. The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken or even mostly empty"; it is what the development team and publisher were satisfied shipping as the finished game 2-3 months prior. Any software, and games moreso, can be improved with more time so the intervening time to release day is often taken up with development of a launch day patch to fix bugs that were triaged to be ok to ship with, and/or to add features/systems/content that just missed the cut before. Launch day patch sizes is more of a symptom of the build pipeline (maybe there is some non-determinism that is introducing larger diffs than are otherwise necessary) or late optimizations (to build packing, asset management, etc) that can force you to download the majority of the game again.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    >The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken ...Well, then. Would you care to explain Assassin's Creed Unity, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5? I suppose you classify them as "not completely broken"?
    - SeanBoocock 10y ago
      Assassin's Creed Unity suffered from a lot of bugs for its PC release, namely graphical glitches on some (not all) hardware. Additionally, it had a number of bugs that could be broadly described as "open world jank": funny physics interactions, NPC spawning issues, etc. The game should have been delayed more on PC to allow for better hardware compatibility testing, but no, I wouldn't classify it on release as completely broken. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was a rushed project and generally poor game. It was buggy but that was the least of its problems. Many people considered it the worst, or at least one of the worst, major releases of that year. I don't think it is representative of contemporary games as your comment would imply.
      - 10y ago

homero 10y ago

Definitely true, now video games on discs are manufactured completely broken or even mostly empty and they make you download 50gb on launch day

ggregoire 10y ago
Are you talking about Final Fantasy XV? This case is ridiculous, they are even modifying the story after the launch day. It would be like releasing a movie and changing the end one week after the release because of the bad reviews. Hopefuly the sales of FFXV are relatively bad.
- shandor 10y ago
  Sorry but why is that a bad thing? I can understand that it's "bad" that their story was lacking at release, but isn't it awesome that they'd go to such lengths to serve fans and buyers and have a good product in the end, if not in the beginning?
  - hfsktr 10y ago
    pretty quick we will end up with nothing but the worst graphics/story when you buy a game because you can just patch it and fix it later.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > It would be like releasing a movie and changing the end one week after the release because of the bad reviews. To me this is not that uncommon. Let me tell you a story (I cannot provide a quotable evidence for a central point of the story except for multiple friends who independently had the same feeling after seeing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets two times in few weeks when it came out in cinema in Germany). At that time when this movie came out in Germany there was a law that "FSK 12" movies must only be watched by people who are at least 12 years old. The problem was: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was rated "FSK 12", while Warner would have liked it to be "FSK 6". So they cut some scene parts out of the movie to get this rating for the German cinema release (BTW: this incident lead to a change in the laws that now children under 12 years old may also go to "FSK 12" movies as long as they are accompanied by a parent). So far this is a story where for every claim I could provide strong evidence. Now the strange part comes: (#) People who saw this movie shortly after release day and a few weeks after (in Germany) all could point out to some scenes (and they were the same) that they clearly remembered when they first saw the movie, but not the second time. So it seems to be that there were some cut alterings done afterwards and there were actually two different versions to be seen in German cinemas. I personally assume that this had to do something with the stated age restrictions (they forgot to cut some scene parts when they initially released the movie in the cinemas, so they hastily changed things afterwards and released a new version to the cinemas). As I said: I can provide no independently verifiable evidence that (#) happened - but I deeply trust the independent persons that claimed so and I deeply trust their visual memory (I would only trust people who have a really good visual memory for such strong claims). TLDR: changing a movie shortly after release is nothing that deeply surprises me.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  It seems like many movies these days get released with two versions when the theater run is complete; one version that matches what was shown in theaters, and one Director's Cut. The latter often includes scenes that were cut to get a specific rating, but it also often changes things that caused bad reviews. Superman v Batman is a good example; the theatrical release got bad reviews for being confusing, and the Directors Cut includes a lot of backstory scenes which help the movie make more sense. (Can't help the overall plot holes though.)
SeanBoocock 10y ago
That is not true. Games released physically for video game consoles must pass platform certification requirements and only then manufacture, distribute, and release the game. The lead time required for this in my experience is on the order of 2-3 months, during which time the development team cannot touch the "gold master" build of the game. The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken or even mostly empty"; it is what the development team and publisher were satisfied shipping as the finished game 2-3 months prior. Any software, and games moreso, can be improved with more time so the intervening time to release day is often taken up with development of a launch day patch to fix bugs that were triaged to be ok to ship with, and/or to add features/systems/content that just missed the cut before. Launch day patch sizes is more of a symptom of the build pipeline (maybe there is some non-determinism that is introducing larger diffs than are otherwise necessary) or late optimizations (to build packing, asset management, etc) that can force you to download the majority of the game again.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  >The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken ...Well, then. Would you care to explain Assassin's Creed Unity, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5? I suppose you classify them as "not completely broken"?
  - SeanBoocock 10y ago
    Assassin's Creed Unity suffered from a lot of bugs for its PC release, namely graphical glitches on some (not all) hardware. Additionally, it had a number of bugs that could be broadly described as "open world jank": funny physics interactions, NPC spawning issues, etc. The game should have been delayed more on PC to allow for better hardware compatibility testing, but no, I wouldn't classify it on release as completely broken. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was a rushed project and generally poor game. It was buggy but that was the least of its problems. Many people considered it the worst, or at least one of the worst, major releases of that year. I don't think it is representative of contemporary games as your comment would imply.
    - 10y ago