4 ms·

Exactly. Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copie

by imiric 2y ago

Exactly. Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copies were ready to be manufactured. Since that involved significant costs and physical logistics, companies certainly didn't want major bugs shipped at this stage. There were some exceptions, but ultimately this led to much higher customer satisfaction. Removing this "inconvenience" for companies and allowing them to ship updates and fixes at any point is a major reason why most modern game releases are a clusterfuck at day one. They treat it as public betas, and day one customers (or, worse, preorder suckers) are testers and a replacement for a QA process they don't have. It's essentially crowdsourced development. This also allows them to hype the game up to boost initial sales, and then go "oops, sorry" while they finish implementing it. This scam has been pulled numerous times over the past decade+, yet these companies keep doing it because it's profitable and there's no legal accountability for it. The fact these practices are now seeping into software on which human lives depend is criminal, and should be prosecuted and strictly regulated.

thrw42A8N 2y ago
I get it's wrong in cars. But who the hell cares about games? So your game updates after a month with a fix. So what? It's not like you pay for the update.
- imtringued 2y ago
  There are lots of studios who just run away with your money and never deliver the fixes.
  - r2_pilot 2y ago
    I'm still deeply disappointed about Kerbal Space Program 2,for that matter.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program_2 I had no idea. That sounds like fraud.
- brookst 2y ago
  It’s bad business because it gives your most enthusiastic customers the worst experience. It’s good business because it pulls revenue forward and sometimes pulls revenue into higher seasonality. Those two somewhat offset and you end up with the classic business decision of whether quality is important.
- lancesells 2y ago
  People who pay for a working game to play probably care. I'm not a gamer but I occassionally will try to pop something in every six months or so. Two hours later after I have to sign in from a controller, update the OS, then update the game I'm over it. I can't say that's all from shitty software development but some of it probably is.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  Who cares about a $183bn industry, indeed.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > So your game updates after a month with a fix. Tell that to your kid this December, when you gift them a new console and a newly released game. Watch the wonderful experience of it taking forever to download a few gigabytes of patches from overloaded servers, and then not starting anyway because auth/billing/DRM/other bullshit server couldn't handle the demand. Game studios love releasing around Christmas. I'm surprised they're not being held accountable for ruining that holiday for kids year over year.
liontwist 2y ago
It’s also bad for preservation because the disc doesn’t actually have the playable game anymore.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Indeed; at this point, a disk is just treated as a cache for speeding up the initial installation.
- imiric 2y ago
  Physical media is almost entirely dead, and will not exist in a few years anyway. So, yeah, the move to digital releases, pervasive DRM, and live service games make preservation difficult. I hope industry heads realize that they're actively pushing consumers towards piracy. These days you often get a better experience with a pirated game than a legally bought one: it runs better without DRM and doesn't infect your system, you can play it offline, and no license change will take it away from you. At least GOG seems to be the only store giving you DRM-free and offline installers, but not all games are released on it.
  - liontwist 2y ago
    Right but physical media is not dead because of consumer demand. PS4 physical games were huge. In the US there are still a lot of regions where a 50-100 GB download is just not reasonable. I know console manufacturers hate retail and the used market, and want that sweet direct income. but it would be a powerful brand move to set higher standards for the physical release. I believe Nintendo has gone this direction.

by imiric 2y ago

thrw42A8N 2y ago

I get it's wrong in cars. But who the hell cares about games? So your game updates after a month with a fix. So what? It's not like you pay for the update.

imtringued 2y ago
There are lots of studios who just run away with your money and never deliver the fixes.
- r2_pilot 2y ago
  I'm still deeply disappointed about Kerbal Space Program 2,for that matter.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program_2 I had no idea. That sounds like fraud.
brookst 2y ago
It’s bad business because it gives your most enthusiastic customers the worst experience. It’s good business because it pulls revenue forward and sometimes pulls revenue into higher seasonality. Those two somewhat offset and you end up with the classic business decision of whether quality is important.
lancesells 2y ago
People who pay for a working game to play probably care. I'm not a gamer but I occassionally will try to pop something in every six months or so. Two hours later after I have to sign in from a controller, update the OS, then update the game I'm over it. I can't say that's all from shitty software development but some of it probably is.
ssl-3 2y ago
Who cares about a $183bn industry, indeed.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> So your game updates after a month with a fix. Tell that to your kid this December, when you gift them a new console and a newly released game. Watch the wonderful experience of it taking forever to download a few gigabytes of patches from overloaded servers, and then not starting anyway because auth/billing/DRM/other bullshit server couldn't handle the demand. Game studios love releasing around Christmas. I'm surprised they're not being held accountable for ruining that holiday for kids year over year.

liontwist 2y ago

It’s also bad for preservation because the disc doesn’t actually have the playable game anymore.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Indeed; at this point, a disk is just treated as a cache for speeding up the initial installation.
imiric 2y ago
Physical media is almost entirely dead, and will not exist in a few years anyway. So, yeah, the move to digital releases, pervasive DRM, and live service games make preservation difficult. I hope industry heads realize that they're actively pushing consumers towards piracy. These days you often get a better experience with a pirated game than a legally bought one: it runs better without DRM and doesn't infect your system, you can play it offline, and no license change will take it away from you. At least GOG seems to be the only store giving you DRM-free and offline installers, but not all games are released on it.
- liontwist 2y ago
  Right but physical media is not dead because of consumer demand. PS4 physical games were huge. In the US there are still a lot of regions where a 50-100 GB download is just not reasonable. I know console manufacturers hate retail and the used market, and want that sweet direct income. but it would be a powerful brand move to set higher standards for the physical release. I believe Nintendo has gone this direction.