Are Games Ever Released Complete?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I don't really get it these days.

 

Game producers seem insistent on releasing "early alpha" games.

 

Planet Coaster

Rollercoaster Tycoon World

Forest Village Game

 

All three (although two are similar) are released as "Early Access".  I don't really understand.  Why release details about a game if you're going to take 5+ years to actually make it?  Surely details should be released when it's in Beta stage so people aren't waiting an age for a completed game?

 

I could download/play all three but I don't want to be saddened by the lack of extras in the game, because they're in pre-testing stages.

 

There was a game I played years ago that a guy was producing an addon for - eagerly awaited by the community.  Months rolled on, screenshots every so often, but those months turned into years - even now, over 10 years later, the addon has never been released and now nobody plays the game anymore because others have superseded it.  What a load of pointless work

 

Mini-rant over.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

The real issue is retail games being released incomplete and requiring day one patches (especially this gen where they can be 10's of GBs in size).

 

Early Access has it's place in the gaming world though, but is not a flawless dev model. Early Access is not a way to play a completed game early. Steam's definition says it best "Get immediate access to games that are being developed with the community's involvement. These are games that evolve as you play them, as you give feedback, and as the developers update and add content." Minecraft is the best example (if it were on Steam and if the term early access had been coined back then).

[The Evil Overlord]

What's worse if game devs come up with a concept and alpha of a game some (I) will be extremely interested in, only to abandon the whole thing

(Babylon 5: Into The Fire, for example)

[Danielx64]

18 minutes ago, Andrew said:

The real issue is retail games being released incomplete and requiring day one patches (especially this gen where they can be 10's of GBs in size).

I honestly don't see anything wrong with day one patches, if you download the game on steam you wouldn't notice that a patch is being downloaded but if you install via DVD then it could be annoying for some people.

[ZakO]

55 minutes ago, Sir Topham Hatt said:

I don't really get it these days.

 

Game producers seem insistent on releasing "early alpha" games.

 

Planet Coaster

Rollercoaster Tycoon World

Forest Village Game

 

All three (although two are similar) are released as "Early Access".  I don't really understand.  Why release details about a game if you're going to take 5+ years to actually make it?  Surely details should be released when it's in Beta stage so people aren't waiting an age for a completed game?

 

I could download/play all three but I don't want to be saddened by the lack of extras in the game, because they're in pre-testing stages.

Why wouldn't they release "Early Access" games? Free QA, extra funds to help continue development, gauge public interest to see which parts are/aren't worth expanding/improving.  There's plenty of benefits to the development studios, the only drawback is the people who don't understand early-access games are inevitably going to have bugs and start posing negative reviews everywhere.

 

Are you really suggesting (early access or not) game studios should keep completely quiet about games until late in the development cycle just to keep impatient people happy?

[Emn1ty]

On 8/7/2016 at 2:27 AM, Danielx64 said:

I honestly don't see anything wrong with day one patches, if you download the game on steam you wouldn't notice that a patch is being downloaded but if you install via DVD then it could be annoying for some people.

The issue is games these days are getting released with game-breakingly bad problems. Batman: Arkham Knight is a good example of a game that was so terribly built on launch they never released it on PC again after pulling it. Other games include several Ubisoft titles and even some Dice games. It seems that despite all the extra money being dumped into games these days, the focus is going into marketing and carving a game's content up into little sellable bits rather than delivering a product that's refined. The smoothest game in years was Doom, which had virtually zero issues running on every platform. That's how AAA titles should release. Not chopped up and contentless or so buggy you have to wait for not only a day one patch, but a one week patch and a one month patch to try and fix widespread bugs that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

15 hours ago, Emn1ty said:

The issue is games these days are getting released with game-breakingly bad problems. Batman: Arkham Knight is a good example of a game that was so terribly built on launch they never released it on PC again after pulling it. Other games include several Ubisoft titles and even some Dice games. It seems that despite all the extra money being dumped into games these days, the focus is going into marketing and carving a game's content up into little sellable bits rather than delivering a product that's refined. The smoothest game in years was Doom, which had virtually zero issues running on every platform. That's how AAA titles should release. Not chopped up and contentless or so buggy you have to wait for not only a day one patch, but a one week patch and a one month patch to try and fix widespread bugs that shouldn't have been in the game to begin with.

Worse. They did make it available for sale again after patching it, but it is still buggy for many people.

 

WB at that stage said they are done with PC ports (and around this time MK XL was announced for consoles only). WB have kind of gone back on their previous statement and I believe Ed Boon wants to port XL with GGPO support. Whether WB allows it or not, who knows.

[exotoxic]

Lets go back to the days where you signed up to beta test.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Guess you're to young to remember games before the internet then? Games were rarely released bug free and completely finished. 

 

I remember the glory days of popping down the game shop to pick up a new release and then popping back six months later for the 1.5 version that fixed bugs and added a few levels. Games these days are vastly more complicated than back then, but we now have the internet and we should embrace that rather than bemoaning all the time, it's an evolution.

 

Of course this doesn;t count when it comes to games like Batman that was just plain broken, that needs to be pulled in to line and voted against by wallet. 

[Nick H. Supervisor]

2 minutes ago, MikeChipshop said:

Guess you're to young to remember games before the internet then? Games were rarely released bug free and completely finished. 

Phew, I was getting worried there. I thought, "I can't possibly be the only one to remember those days?" I miss those days.

[Emn1ty]

Just now, Nick H. said:

Phew, I was getting worried there. I thought, "I can't possibly be the only one to remember those days?" I miss those days.

I'd rather those days than today; where 20-80% of the content promised ends up being sliced up into paid DLC later down the road (Destiny) or not delivered on at all. Back then, developers supported their game because they wanted to provide for their community. Today, publishers have pushed things to monetization.

Games are definitely more complex, and bugs always happen. But content getting shifted back that was previously promised at launch only to have a $10 to $40 DLC price tag slapped onto it later is something we also need to try and speak against with our wallets. I remember back in the days of Halo 2, when new content was added to the game for free just to keep the community alive.

[MikeChipshop Member]

16 hours ago, Emn1ty said:

I'd rather those days than today

 

I don't. Many, many games were broken on release and you pretty much had to wait 6 months for the 'fix' which was then sold to you pretty much as a full priced sequel. Give me day one patches and constant bug fixes over that any day.

[compl3x]

Why bother completing a product or doing your due diligence in the testing stages when you have imbeciles pre-ordering the game months and months in advance?

 

Pre-Order culture is indefensible and has had an almost irreversible negative impact on games' quality.

[madd-hatter]

On 8/14/2016 at 0:04 AM, compl3x said:

Why bother completing a product or doing your due diligence in the testing stages when you have imbeciles pre-ordering the game months and months in advance?

 

Pre-Order culture is indefensible and has had an almost irreversible negative impact on games' quality.

This is a poor argument.

 

Online pre-orders can be cancelled with ease, you aren't charged until the product ships. This allows ample time to confirm the title meets your expectations through review websites.

 

I have participated in select pre-orders because I wanted to ensure that I locked up a limited/collector's edition before it became sold out, which does happen.

[compl3x]

On 8/16/2016 at 0:15 PM, madd-hatter said:

This is a poor argument.

 

Online pre-orders can be cancelled with ease, you aren't charged until the product ships. This allows ample time to confirm the title meets your expectations through review websites.

 

I have participated in select pre-orders because I wanted to ensure that I locked up a limited/collector's edition before it became sold out, which does happen.

 

And you're countering an argument I never made. I never suggested it wasn't easy to cancel a pre-order I am arguing it is a pointless exercise which overwhelmingly benefits the makers. If it is good, buy it on release (or a few days before to pre-load if your Internet speed is garbage.) If it is bad or average don't buy it or wait until it ends up in the local bargain bin. Why is pre-order a desirable opinion in this equation? You've likely:

 

A. Wasted your time pre-ordering then cancelling.

B. Paid too much because another seller might have it cheaper.

C. Forgot about the pre-order and are charged for a game you now don't want.

D. Reinforced the idea to publishers that pre-ordering culture is something they can use to diddle consumers through ridiculous pre-order bonus nonsense, much of which becomes free down the line leading to a bunch of whining pr-order babies yelling about how they feel cheated when they should have known better.

 

Collector's/limited editions are an exception because they are finite. 

[murat]

PC gamers are getting very alienated in the gaming industry and some of the practices of game companies are simply insulting.You pay 1000s of dollars just to play games as they're intended for consoles today.

 

Sometimes no keyboard or mouse support,usually limited frame rate,no fov option or AA settings..etc.I remember in the late 90's PC gaming was amazing.Nowadays it's sometimes very broken,unfinished and i feel pc gaming is not cared as much as before by the industry anymore.

[The Evil Overlord]

8 minutes ago, murat said:

PC gamers are getting very alienated in the gaming industry and some of the practices of game companies are simply insulting.You pay 1000s of dollars just to play games as they're intended for consoles today.

 

Sometimes no keyboard or mouse support,usually limited frame rate,no fov option or AA settings..etc.I remember in the late 90's PC gaming was amazing.Nowadays it's sometimes very broken,unfinished and i feel pc gaming is not cared as much as before by the industry anymore.

What pc game are you playing that is costing you 1000's of dollars?

in fact, list them for me, I'll buy them, sell them to you, and you'll only have to pay half that  

[murat]

3 minutes ago, The Evil Overlord said:

What pc game are you playing that is costing you 1000's of dollars?

in fact, list them for me, I'll buy them, sell them to you, and you'll only have to pay half that

i mean the pc system not the game.You build a PC to play games at 60+fps with like 8XAA and pay sometimes 5x as much as a console just to play that said game even worse than the console version

[Xilo]

No piece of software is ever complete.

[Melfster]

No man sky doesn't feel like a complete game at all it more like demo then anything else and I hyped to hell.  I wish developers would another year to produce a much better game.

[madd-hatter]

On 8/19/2016 at 11:10 PM, compl3x said:

stuff

...

Dude...

[compl3x]

????

[soniqstylz]

http://kotaku.com/why-final-fantasy-xv-was-recently-delayed-1785884394

 

Quote

According to Tabata, one of the big reasons for this delay, however, is that not every everyone who is going to play FFXV has their console connected to the internet. They may have a console, they may have the internet, but the two are apparently not connected. (Data Tabata sourced said that number is over twenty percent of Japanese gamers!) Thus, there actually might be players who do not download a day-one patch. The delay is to get the game in good shape for all players at release.

 

[FloatingFatMan]

On 8/15/2016 at 10:15 PM, madd-hatter said:

I have participated in select pre-orders because I wanted to ensure that I locked up a limited/collector's edition before it became sold out, which does happen.

You do realise that, once upon a time, nearly all that stuff that you're paying extra  for in your "collectors" edition, used come completely free, until the publishers realised they could actually SELL this stuff to the <snip> gamers?  

[FloatingFatMan]

On 20/08/2016 at 4:44 AM, The Evil Overlord said:

What pc game are you playing that is costing you 1000's of dollars?

Flight sims & train sims will easily cost you that for all the DLC needed to actually make a game worth playing.  And then they release a new version on a new engine which isn't backwards compatible...