The recent topic of film hot takes has been the news that pulpy Netflix horror show Stranger Things has been retconned in post-release edits, with the directors admitting to tweaking older episodes to keep everything plot-hole free.
An article on British GQ tackled the topic by immediately throwing video games under the bus, as the most egregious users of post-release patches:
"Innovation is so often fuelled by laziness, and now even the biggest gaming studios could afford to be negligent. Day-one patches have become the gaming industry standard; games are typically shipped in working condition but in need of a post-purchase zhuzh."
It's not that there aren't examples of games being released in sub-par conditions, as the cautionary tale of the studio who cried Cyberpunk 2077 could tell you, but it's certainly a leap to ascribe post-release patches (and innovation?) to laziness.
It's generally known that developers are overworked, underpaid, and experience a multitude of negative experiences at work, from crunch culture to harassment. Patches are often a symptom of what's really going on at these companies — mismanagement, rushed deadlines, understaffing, layoffs, mistreatment of part-time and contract workers, upper management refusing to delay the release, and QA testers not having enough time to find every single bug in an 80-hour game.
But don't take our word for it. Many game developers and writers have weighed in on GQ's choice of words:
But really, the best part of the whole story is... well, this addition to the end of the article:
Further Reading:
[source gq-magazine.co.uk]
Comments 90
While there is certainly a problem - one that is often self destructive like Cyberpunk 2077 - it has nothing to do with laziness, and everything to do with inflexible deadlines set by executives with no expertise in software development.
I agree it is laziness
Calling unrealistic expectations by vacuous suits laziness is, funnily enough, lazy.
It's just boycotting. But people are still not ready for this practice.
It is definitely laziness from the company that doesn’t want to push out a fully completed product. Why are these Twitter randomers getting offended on behalf of individual game developers? If you criticise EA or Ubisoft, are you criticising ALL the devs?
Oversimplification of a multifaceted problem. They're not wrong, but it's not the whole picture. Patches are fine, but they've definitely become too much of a crutch for the industry.
I’ve been saying this for years and everyone just complained at me and harassed me for it. But I’ve been part of this game business for 45 years. What they do now is indeed laziness and nothing more, when they make these incomplete games and worse - charge full price for them!
@Ashunera84 This. The real issue in most cases is greediness, most likely from executives or something.
more stability incoming!
I'm glad the game developers are speaking out. That said, don't tell me that there aren't millions of gamers calling these patches "lazy" or "fixing it later". Folks will nod their head at this, but then go after games like Animal Crossing for patching things in as "free updates".
patches, are meant to fix issues, that they missed, or to improve an experience, because, there going to miss something if they have to have it by a deadline, question, was 06 lazy or rushed? It was rushed, sega rushed the dev team and that why it turned into a buggy mess, it’s not the devs fault if the company forces them to have something out in a short amount of time, that’s why I indie games get delayed so much, they need time, that company’s just don’t always give.
So i'm sorry but to just to call patches lazy, is just something I cant agree with, like how are day one patches lazy? In what way? And the comparison in general just sucks.
Yah, this is just idiotic. Journalism has had retraction, corrections, etc. These exist because people are not perfect, and allowing people tp improve their work after the fact is valuable, not only to the consumer but also their creators - what would No Man's Sky be without patches?
The Stranger Things comp isn't even apples to apples. Editing previous episodes is a creative choice, while most patches are technical updates. If Netflix crashed every time you watched Stranger Things, okay, I'll bite.
‘Laziness’ is a shaming word and always been. Nothing more. It is not constructive criticism or helpful in identifying what the actual issues and needs are. It avoids understanding, not embrace it.
@RudeAnimat0r No man sky is perfect, thank you for bringing that up! Look where the game is today, without patches, it would have never became what it is, the devs learned, and they slowly, turned what was an ok game, into a great game!
Excuse the PS examples but In the PS2 era, a game had to be tested and pressed in time for a certain more realistic deadline as there was no way back from what went out on a shiny platter.
PS3 era and games got bigger and bigger and buggier and buggier.
Start of the PS4 era and sometimes we get Day 1 patches which are a complete overwrite of the stuff you installed from disc, sometimes in the region of 30-40GB of data.
Games are more complex than ever and bugs will fall through, but I do feel like the testing has gone from intense attempts to break a game (aka fat fingers) to a pure reliance on human written unit tests and they've never been good enough.
It has nothing to do with laziness. People are just impatient. If the game doesn't have enough to keep the player busy, they complain it's too short or unfinished. They rather complain then wait for the mentioned patches that were already announced in the first place.
I understand the problem with day one patches and the like, but "laziness" is simply the wrong word. Heck, the word "laziness" is getting used inapropriately most of the time at this point, seems like...
As others have already pointed out, it is because the management on top wants to make more money more quickly. That is also why crunch is a thing.
The vast majority of game developers work extremely hard to make their games as polished as they can be. The problem is that executives force games to come out to meet a deadline. I can appreciate the culture at Nintendo of generally not releasing a game until it's complete. Recent exceptions are the Mario sports games on Switch. Those needed more time to not launch in such a barebones form.
Video games have had bugs since they've existed.
But then there is poorly managed ideas such as that Tony Hawk game were the "patch" was practically the entire game content. (Where execs had a dormant license for YEARS and then suddenly decided to rush out a game to beat the expiration date.)
You see, the kids these days don't know what the jazz, is all about!
With their hipping and a hopping...
Indeed, it was way more fun when bugs and other hijinks were just as abundant, but you were stuck with what you got on the cartridge, with fixes either absent or exclusive to a later release in a different region.
Mismanagement = lazy administrators.
Rushed deadlines = lazy time management.
Understaffing = lazy hiring practices
Layoffs = lazy cost-cutting
Mistreatment of part-time and contract workers = lazy people skills.
etc.
I can understand someone preferring the word "greedy" to lazy in these instances. I may, myself. But I have no real objection to using the word lazy to describe capitalists. Lazy has only become a shaming word because we apply it almost exclusively to the producers of value when they don't produce that value exactly to our liking. On the other hand, I feel it's entirely appropriate when we use it to describe a culture of management and ownership that's become defined by inertia in every meaningful respect.
I both agree and disagree. I miss the old days of a 1.0 version and it stays that way forever. But given how fast paced Game development is now. With studios working up to and four-times past the release date, while knowing the amount of bugs need fixing, I can honestly only empathize with the developers who HAVE TO put out a product by XX release date and continue to fix it with patches. For production of carts and discs, marketing and a myriad other reasons. And then you get into piracy prevention tactics with Day 1 patches.
And even still, I would love for a new standard to be set, specifically with physical releases, to include the Day 1 patch. Some buy them specifically for the non-internet component often associated with physical games.
The entire opinion comes across as 'get off my lawn' from someone long disassociated from modern gaming.
Probably not laziness, but it is a lack of respect for the consumers.
As opposed to glitches and bugs that remained unless multiple versions were pressed or expansions with bug fixes baked in, back in ye olden days? Dev work is glitchy even more so when you have large swaths of people working on it. At least things can be fixed more easily. And some patches are to keep leakers/cheaters/pirates out as well. And laziness is a poor descriptor; almost every job does things for efficiency’s sake because nobody has the time, money or workforce to reinvent the wheel each time. Sometimes it works out and sometimes things are missed because humans are making these products.
Most people can’t keep a job being lazy or get a new one with that type of rep. Meanwhile people that don’t make anything rake devs over the coals and still demand bigger, better games in half the time. Devs can’t win.
It seems like the people replying are taking it the wrong way to me. I'd say it's a complaint more towards the incompetent execs leading the projects than the people getting crunched into oblivion on the lower levels. And he's absolutely right about the state a lot of games launch in. Nintendo's always been pretty good at quality control, but there are plenty of other companies whose games are a buggy mess or literally unplayable out of the box. Obviously, some things are going to slip through no matter how thorough you are, and it's good that patches exist to deal with that, but way too many companies use that as an excuse to release incomplete products.
Some people just can't take any industry criticism. Just because you might happen to be a hardworking employee doesn't mean the standards and practices of these corporations as a whole is ethical or respectable.
Lazy if you ship a game with a day one update.
Lazy if you ship a game with a day one bug.
Only not lazy if no bug and no update, though this normally leads to crunch.
Then its an entirely different issue with crunch.
Cant win.
Having the option for patches is still better than not having the option.
Sure, thanks to patches, many games were shipped full of glitches because they can be fixed later, but don't blame developers, don't call them lazy, it's all the fault of executives, producers and publishers who want everything to go fast and don't care about releasing products that are incomplete.
However, even games that had a lot of love, still had glitches, Cuphead and its DLC had many delays, the developers refused to crunch, and while the game and DLC were great products at launch, they still had glitches that required patches, because it doesn't matter how much you test, the best person to find glitches is the final customer.
Well it must not be that big an area of concern because people keep going out and buying these games. It's like every game is setting new sales records because people are buying the ever loving **** out of them, enabling the execs who make these decisions in the first place. If you're mad about it, then how about don't buy the damn game and put some time into your other hobbies.
Honestly the biggest problem lies with the publishers*. They push the developer to make the game as fast as possible and let it make the most money as possible. This puts many devs on major stress.
*) Not all publishers are like this.
Give me a single game in the past 5 years that hasn't had a day one patch
As others have said, "laziness" may not be the perfect word, but it's not a blatantly incorrect word either. It certainly is an oversimplification of the problems. Regardless of how specifically described, the general sentiment that "Day 1 patches shouldn't exist" is reasonable in my view.
At least, try to make a game as full content + less bugs as posibble.
If I might interject here. It's so annoying to hear people who work tirelessly on projects branded as lazy. It's not laziness that companies are displaying. It's a lack of dilligence. Precisely because they have such an easy saftey net. So please. When a game overlooks something, it's not laziness. It's a lack of dilligence. Probably because they are all out partying on the silly money the industry makes lol (ok, games are huge these days and would take forever to catch everything!.) But, I'm sure there has been instances of high up decision making calling for a game to be released by a certain date no matter what due to obligations, licensing yadda yadda blah blah comercial spiel...causing crunch.
Thank you.
Define "people". I think you mean "small minority of people from twitter"
Whether or not a day one patch is 'lazy' or 'bad depends on how the game holds up without it. If the game is content complete on launch, and the patch just optimises a few things like performance and fixes bugs then it's no problem whatsoever.
If the game is a broken mess without a day one patch, or lacking content that should have been included on the cartridge/disc (Pokemon BDSP comes to mind) then yeah, I think we need to be more critical of that so big publishers don't rush games to market (which is NOT the developers fault by the way) and patch the problems afterwards.
When the online servers for a console get shut down in the future, and patches are no longer available then anybody who tries to get ahold of the game legally by buying a used copy at that point will never be able to have the complete/optimal version.
At that point, you're just encouraging people to pirate to get the 'true' experience.
It's stupid to try and label the practice of post-launch patches as either good or bad, helpful or lazy. It is inherently none of those things. Anyone with a little sense knows it is HOW these techniques are used that defines their value. So, can patches be used as a crutch that incentivizes laziness or fast, low-quality, launches? Of course. Can patches also be a quality-saving last resort miracle after genuine attempts at quality fell short? Also of course.
Anyone arguing for one of the extremes is either ignorant or just trying to get clicks and likes.
Yes. GQ for all your gaming news... do people even read GQ still? Clearly their editorial has taken a nose dive because "laziness" is entirely the wrong word. It has absolutely nothing to do with laziness.
Platform holders are to blame. Why are they allowing unfinished games to go Gold on the promise of a day one patch? Tell the publisher it is NOT going Gold and they can try again in 3 months. Development teams would welcome the support I am sure.
Laziness. The only laziness on show here is the GQ editor not opening a dictionary.
Even back before the days of patches major glitches and oversights in games happened all the time, and it wasn't unusual to have revisions for later printings.
Few examples off the top of my head - the numerous ways Twilight Princess can become unwinnably corrupted, WWF No Mercy routinely wiping your data for no reason, some versions of Harvest Moon: Back to Nature not tracking your Power Berries in your completion percentage, the utter disasters that are something like the early Pokemon games or the first two Paper Mario games if you poke at them too much... I love all those games mentioned and they all had issues like that.
Well... those responses do put a bit of a new perspective on those day 1 patches and the dreaded 'fix it later' updates. I'm still not a fan of especially the latter of those, and I'm still gonna go out of my way to support any bad example of it from here on out because it's just not very fun. But it does make you feel for those poor developers who have to go through this stuff.
I really hope for something to be done about it. But I don't even know what could be done about it.
"It's generally known that developers are overworked, underpaid, and experience a multitude of negative experiences at work, from crunch culture to harassment."
Someone please explain why they should be exempt from the same crap the rest of us endure/have endured in just about every other possible field of employment? Try working in Big Law during the 80's, 90's, and 2000's (and now, quite frankly). It was soul crushing - both in how they treated us and the billable hours they demanded. No, I'm not saying they should endure the same, but comparatively they lead charmed lives. And make more money.
I find their complaining exhausting. Suck it up, it could be much, MUCH worse.
While Nintendo Life and Twitter would like to focus on the word “Laziness”, it would be better if the NL author didn’t jump on the Twitter hurt pile and simply said it as it is, the game industry, like most employment situations, treat their employees like slaves. The fat cat Master is who makes the decision to release games half cooked. Those twitter users linked in this article whom are defending their employer’s decision to work them in crunch time are like slaves who thank their Master for mistreatment. It would be best if there were serious talks about work reform.
Anyone who thinks it's possible to find all the bugs that pop up in 1 million usage cases by assigning it to 10, 20, 100 or even 10,000 play testers has simply never played a video game or been anywhere near game development. Anyone who thinks patches are the reason we get bad games is under 20 years old, because MAN, games absolutely shipped in unplayable states before patches existed. They just stayed that way.
This ***** players decide to do is insane. You're game is fair, balanced, and bug free, then some YouTuber figures out you can use bombs to fly or something and a billion code exceptions come out of nowhere.
It's just part of the process.
I'll also NEVER understand how anyone could have a problem with a day one patch and consider themselves a thinking human being. Your release date isn't flexible 99% of the time (you don't have unlimited money), and to get all the production and distribution done, the game that gets onto shelves is about 3 months old.
So what do you want developers to do? Tell everyone to go home for 3 months, or keep some of your team around to fix known issues over that 3 month period so you get to play a better game on day 1?
This is a double-edged sword, but NL already talked about the term "laziness" being inaccurate.
I think the problem with unfinished/broken games releasing is mainly an issue in open world games, because they are so extremely multilayered when it comes to content (one action in one quest affects another quest/quests and so on).
Games like Monster Hunter Rise, the Nintendo sports games etc. are having content added after launch, but are not per se broken; it's probably more a question of stretching out development to make a more effective use of the developer teams while they are "into the depth of it" or "at it" so to speak.
(and of course sometimes to see if a game is successful enough to warrant further investment in it - game developing/publishing is a business after all)
@Atticus-XI
Because the poor work practices people had to put up with back then weren't ok then and they still aren't now.
So yes, people should be exempt from crunch, harassment and just generally crap treatment in the workforce. Especially those who have to work their asses off to at least put food on the table. Unlike execs earning hundreds of thousands per hour just for sitting at a desk.
No-one is saying bad workplace treatment was fine when you were young. We're saying it simply isn't improving still.
I mean...they're not wrong. The guy can complain about "impossible schedule" all he wants but EVERY game gets delayed multiple times now and somehow still ships needing fixes.
Then there are games like Mario Strikers where they sell you half a game at full price and promise to add stuff later (but it's FREE!!!).
Maybe I just miss buying fully finished, completed games? How silly of me.
They have a point. Okay, it isn’t entirely accurate to say “laziness” is the issue but it isn’t worth any outrage either.
Laziness can mean “lack of effort” and there is definitely a point to that. Not that the devs themselves are lazy but the business practices are.
Those pushing out games early do so because of multiple reasons: Deadlines and money are a key issue. A lack of care for the customers and the product is another. And part of that is a lazy attitude towards the art form of games.
I think it’s a bit stupid that people are attacking GQ for using a word that isn’t quite right. When the problem is an industry that accepts not just day one patches but multiple patches and bug fixes way beyond the release window instead of releasing completed games that require minimal patches.
Anyone who cares for gaming and particularly game preservation must understand that.
In 20 years time when game servers are shut down, the only way to play is off the discs. We will then be left with glitchy broken games and only have ourselves to blame because we allowed companies to have a lazy attitude when it comes to quality control.
Honestly, patches and fixes are the the 'inconvenient convinience and also a convinient inconvenience' as I like to put it. It's annoying to update the game day one but thank goodness those issues can be sorted with a download.
It would be like me posting an unfinis
hed comment but then add another comment to make my point a bit more coherent. Even if it is for a cheap joke
Removed - unconstructive
The industry needs to be honest and start labeling 80% of the big budget games coming out as “early access” but instead they’ll stay tight lipped about this and bait anyone who speaks out against them into invoking the L word so they’ll get dogpiled.
I would say that overall, patches are not a bad thing, but nowadays large game companies use it as an excuse to launch unfinished games. They save a lot of money by launching it unfinished and having players do a good chunk of bug testing. What’s worse is that only the companies with money can get away with this as they’re the ones with the big ips that consumers will buy anyway.
@NinChocolate Obviously it’s a shaming word, and if people are lazy then they should be shamed (not commenting on the veracity of the accusation in this particular case).
Reminds me of the disastrous Cats premiere and later re-edit.
It's part laziness and part disrespect for both the developers and customers. Especially when they are pushing pre-order bonuses as well. Sorry, but when I'm about to play an unfinished, buggy mess of a game, I expect to be paid for it, not pay for it.
This is a bit a ironic as most of the people that now call themselves journalists are just giving hot takes, and not doing real, boots-on the-ground journalism. Nothing wrong with doing hot takes, but that's not the same thing as journalism.
@Ashunera84 Exactly.
I believe ‘laziness’ is the lazy way of referring to ‘inflexible deadlines set by executives with no expertise in software development’.
It identifies that there is indeed a problem, without putting in the effort to work out what the cause of the problem actually is.
The fact that many games are released in an unfinished and sub-par state is evident. The lazy way of conceiving of this issue is that ‘Games are made by devs. If the game isn’t done, the devs are lazy.’
It ignores the entire rest of the system for ease of conception.
I’m thankful games got patched quickly instead of games left still a mess with no patch in sight. Let’s not pretend the gaming era where no patches for games was a brilliant age lol
The real “lazy” are “lazy” arm chair “expert” consumers having unrealistic expectations of the current industry
To me this issue is overstated. The big day one patches are only for really hyped AAA, big budget titles. There are over 7,000 Nintendo Switch games. How many are getting significant patches after release 30? Maybe? You see this more on Xbox, PC, and Sony but even there you must recognized that the games are MUCH bigger in size. Games are getting more complex with more features.
It's like going to a bad restaurant, you will talk about it to everyone you know. So about 30 or 40 games get talked about needing patches endless and everyone ignores the 6,900 games that didn't.
I wouldn’t say it’s laziness most of the time but it is an unfortunate part of game development these days. We just don’t get finished products anymore at launch.
Nintendo is better about it than most devs at least. I’ve lost interest in playing certain Xbox and PS games once I saw I’d have to download 50GB+ patches just to play.
TIL a new word ("zhuzh"), so there's at least one positive from this bad take.
@Arawn93 Erm, but it was though.
This is a upper systemic issue not programmers and testers problem. They rush to get to market without asking is it Ready to them it's the bottom line. Remember this is still a masagony game industry and they only want satisfaction for their male CEO Ego and could care less until they have to fix the problem and blame the programmers for not finishing the product. That's where the Real blame lies mismanagement by the upper management. Management should be upfront and honest with the buyers about issue and bugs that is causing delays. Corporations harassment's and bullying doesn't help either when they don't listen.
I'm gonna say it's laziness on the publisher's/executives' part when a game clearly needed more time or it's a barebones experience at launch, it depends on the circumstances to call it laziness on the developers part.
I mean, using the aforementioned Sonic 06 example, we know it was rushed by SEGA, but there are a couple of things to consider after it came out:
*Were the developers willing to make patches for it, or even willing to propose the idea to SEGA?
I ask this because I remember reading that the review copy a particular outlet received was seemingly more stable than the retail version.
@Franklin Jazz is like, jello pudding!
@GrailUK Uh no it wasn’t.
Bugs were more rampant due to lack of ease of patches after release + it was the era of “release the same game all over again with minimal additions/fixes”. Just look at SFII lol
Though it shouldn't need to be regulated in the first place if publishers would just work morally, there should be some regulation or law that prohibits the release of a game that can be considered incomplete, like if it can't function optimally or fulfill its pre-release promises without a day one patch. We don't let this type of behavior fly when it comes to buying, say, home appliances, so we shouldn't let this happen to our beloved pastime too.
I see they adopted the Nintendo fandom mentality... A game getting support port launch = cut content and lazy development.
Never in my years of gaming had I seen anyone make those 2 accusations towards a developer or publisher on any console or game genre until Nintendo started utilizing it. It's the epitome of stupidity but doesn't' surprise me in the least coming from the fans.
Nothing to do with laziness. Laughable take by GQ.
@Arawn93 The 1000s I've played have been fine. I guess you must have been unlucky
@Slinkoy1 : In reference to your comment, I'll only be listing games released in physical form as I don't think it makes any material difference if download exclusives are patched (though it may matter if a physical release is issued after the fact), and all are Switch versions, to be clear... (and only from among my collection)
I won't be listing some previous digital exclusives that have had physical editions released after the fact (except for those that are Version 1.0) as some may have been superceded by another version (though many of them do include the most up-to-date build of the game, but I'm not bothered going through the painstaking lengths of checking them all)
All version 1.0, day and date, on the cart...
So, with good management, and a little pride in one's work, yes, developers/publishers can absolutely put out high quality, polished games that aren't supplemented with patches after the fact. Unfortunately though, such releases are in the relative minority nowadays.
I agree with the point GQ was making. The crunch, "impossible datelines" and release dates are just excuses for not doing better and allowing time for people to work, which is an entirely different point that GQ was making.
That's why games like Overwatch suck now.
@Franklin they just don't make puppets like you these days!
Devs are underpaid?? but...but games are too expensive and pirating is okay!!
Come on devs patch those leaked copies of Xenoblade 3 before release day !!
I think mostly it's not about lazyness but the higher-up just didn't want to delay the game since they want their money now rather than later. They (the higher-up executives) don't care about long term consequences like the studio reputations etc 😕
Patches in and of themselves aren't really lazy, since it fixes issues that they didn't catch in Q&A testing. The issue lies when the game is a mess due to the dev cycle being toxic, or when the games themselves are using "free updates" to keep people interested due to a lack of content at launch.
@OwenGamer22
No, actually it's like Kodak film.
So GQ say it's laziness, not sure why we are taking the opinion of this publication seriously, as they don't seem to understand the complexities of game development at all.
I think people's unrealistic expectations and game deadlines play a much more important role in all this.
To expect developers to have play tested a game to the point where every single game scenario has been encountered, is just sheer lunacy.
Smaller bug fixes after the release are totally okay for me. But that got out of control a while ago. Now there are huge parts of games released after the release - often weeks and months after - that is not okay for me.
Because of that I startet to buy games only months after release to a cheaper price. I do not like that but I don't pay full price at release for a unfinished game.
I don't call it laziness, I call it money grabbing, hyping up a game and then its unplayable when its released is just stupid.
Just look as Switch Sports, they rushed it out and are now giving "Free Updates" which were actually supposed to be in the finished game but they didn't have enough time.
See what has happened here is the classic - “we will take offence because we don’t understand how the English language works”
It’s clear day one patches and the broken state games come in is “laziness” however that doesn’t mean it’s aimed at the programmers.
I believe it’s a practise that stinks of laziness and greed but from the senior management. It’s clear the gaming industry is in a state. The workers are constantly moaning and saying how bad the crunch is and how the toxic environment of these places to work is….
Games are released broken, scaled back or delayed delayed delayed.
Xbox has bought up loads of companies and been unable to get an exclusive out in 2022.
Something has gone wrong in the industry.
I don’t have the answers but lazy and greedy management is clearly a massive issue. I’d say at the point that’s a fact.
If that triggers you. Sorry not sorry
@CaptainCluck My guess is that it's this weird parasocial phenomenoa that rabid fanatics have with game developers and (to a greater extent) content creators. I don't think any of these people get that, at the end of the day, these devs and people do not give one flying ***** about you. As long as they get your money, they're happy.
Although I would agree that it's more so the publishers than the developers being lazy.
@Stocksy What shocks me is how many games get delayed over and over again and still come out with problems that indicate a lack of proper play testing.
Case in point- the console port of Spidersaurs. Now, AFAIK, it didn't get delayed a bunch but at launch there was a huge issue with the final stage not loading up at all if you game overed there. Wasn't just some weird fluke either- this repeatedly happened and several reviewers brought it up as well. Even the indie devs are slipping- I can't think of any other games put out by WF that had any pressing issues like this in the past decade. (Mind you...this game is a port of a mobile game that's been out on Apple Arcade for years.)
@RetroOutcast 100%. Exactly a perfect point on testing again this is “lazy” - not properly being tested is lazy. I don’t know who is being lazy…. Are testers lazy? Are they doing testing right - and their findings ignored? Who knows. Probably different game to game.
I believe the gaming media takes some blame. Day one patches are forgiven and when a game is patched to a working state gaming news sites often heap praise on companies for “supporting the title” - so it gets a boost in sales. So they have the natural day one sales and the name of the game is back in media everytime a patched is released and praised.
So patches to “fix” games are seen as a good marketing tool.
Star Wars KOTOR II is a classic example of how reviewers (including here) heaped praise on a game and then weeks later we find out you can’t complete the game. How was it tested? How was it reviewed? I thought reviewers completed games? Clearly not.
I’d say that “laziness” is rife in the industry and the fact this random GQ article triggered so many shows it hit home.
Games are announced 5 years before they are released… why? Hype… presale money earlier. It’s bonkers.
A lot of the blame lies with us the gamers. We accept grubby practises we moan about and still buy buy buy. I do believe the industry is in a decline in quality and quantity and I’m not sure how it will stop its own slide and Greed is the driving factor now
The problem with gaming production seems to be lack of good leadership, management and vision.
I get it. Goals changes. ideas don’t work and development needs shift.
It’s art packaged as a product. These are always going to be problems.
I'd be interested to know the ratio of advertisements to original content in the standard issue of GQ.
How many pages are they too lazy to write?
gq? like the magazine?
thats still around?
Project management is a really important component to any new initiative.
Do you know what happens when your project management team doesn’t do their job properly, isn’t respected by the higher ups, or just doesn’t exist in the first place?
Wait for it—-Massive missed deadlines and crunch.
@CaptainSkin yes it is. As I explained. Again you’ve been triggered because you fear someone “innocent” is being accused. Publishers and senior gaming industry managers are lazy and greedy. They want to do the least amount of work for most amount of money. It’s rife within the industry. Make as many excuses as you want. Say it’s “complicated” but plenty of companies manage to not fall into these traps.
I’ve been gaming since 80s I’m well aware of gaming issues right back to then and greed and crunch are nothing new - see “ET” on Atari.
However we had got to a slightly better place. In the last 5 years or so it’s all gone to pot again. The industry has changed. The bubble will burst and it will get better. Chasing the low hanging fruit will be shown to be a quicker way to loses and failures and we will see some improvement.
Something has got to give though.
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