Support NeoGAF

[Umbasaborne]

The last several years has seen a flurry of unfinished games release. from cyberpunk, to halo infinite, to battlefield 2042, and even star citizens. This release now and finish it later approach seems to be doing more harm than good, and creating a lot of animosity between developers and their fans. Developers try to smoothe things over by releasing road maps that more often than not, they are unable to stick to.

I dont think developers are being lazy, i think creating and maintaining these massive games is a difficult feat, and us as players dont quite understand how hard it actually is. Conversely i think it means that developers need to avoid making public promises that they are unable to keep, just because its difficult, does not give you an excuse to lie to the community.

The real ultimatum lies with publishers. The publisher should be stepping in when a project is scoping out of control to reign it back to a shippable complete product. The publishers also need to avoid forcing the teams to provide public release dates or road maps, and let them work. Much of the animosity created can be avoided if fans dont know which internal deadline was missed to cause a delay, or which features needed to be cut in order to ship the game. Its why games should not be shown publically until they are at least 5
Months from launch, real launch, not the soft launch date publishers give to get pre orders.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

It's difficult to see an answer to the tension. On one hand developers need to get their shit together, release products that aren't full of scummy business practices. Or hey, how about releasing games that just work properly, that aren't a complete shit show at launch.

On the other hand however you're dealing with gamers, the absolute worst group of hobbyists I think ive ever come across. Whiny entitled man children. So many complaints you see online look like they've been typed up by someone with the emotional maturity of a 7 year old, but are most likely coming from a full blown middle aged adult. The issue I see is developers could fix all their issues right now and I doubt it would ever be enough for "gamers". They'll always find something to bitch about, they'll never be happy.

Who knows what's going to happen but it sure is spicy right now.

 

[Krappadizzle]

The devs and publishers SET the expectations. No one should be surprised when there's backlash. Least of all the publishers. They know what they are doing. WE as consumers are fortunate enough though that we aren't OBLIGATED to buy any thing and at any given time there's dozens and dozens of new releases to play or classic gems one may have missed that they can catch up with. So I say fuck em'. If they want to sink themselves, let em' do it. The market will course correct itself and fill the voids that publishers/devs falsely advertise.

 

[Warnen]

i Only preorder stuff like witch queen, after avengers I’ve had it with the pr bs cycle.

 

[Kuranghi]

I am fair and realise Covid + increasing size/complexity of games is making it harder to release things in a "perfect" state, but a lot of them don't even acknowledge the issues, that pisses me off and makes me refund/not buy in the future.

Tons of games this year I still haven't touched purely due to tech issues (on PC), its win-win for me, they fix it and I get it cheaper or they don't and I keep all the money. I'm sad I can't play these games I've waited months/years for but thats just being an adult unfortunately. YDAGWYW.

 

[The Alien]

Stop over promising under delivering.

 

[oldergamer]

Ummm, Halo infinite was a finished game. It didn't have a lot of game crippling issues like the others you listed.

 

[Papacheeks]

The last several years has seen a flurry of unfinished games release. from cyberpunk, to halo infinite, to battlefield 2042, and even star citizens. This release now and finish it later approach seems to be doing more harm than good, and creating a lot of animosity between developers and their fans. Developers try to smoothe things over by releasing road maps that more often than not, they are unable to stick to.

I dont think developers are being lazy, i think creating and maintaining these massive games is a difficult feat, and us as players dont quite understand how hard it actually is. Conversely i think it means that developers need to avoid making public promises that they are unable to keep, just because its difficult, does not give you an excuse to lie to the community.

The real ultimatum lies with publishers. The publisher should be stepping in when a project is scoping out of control to reign it back to a shippable complete product. The publishers also need to avoid forcing the teams to provide public release dates or road maps, and let them work. Much of the animosity created can be avoided if fans dont know which internal deadline was missed to cause a delay, or which features needed to be cut in order to ship the game. Its why games should not be shown publically until they are at least 5
Months from launch, real launch, not the soft launch date publishers give to get pre orders.

Has to do more with CEO's and people who have stock/investment of said publishers.

When you take out their consistent medaling you get games that ship somewhat complete.

Ummm, Halo infinite was a finished game. It didn't have a lot of game crippling issues like the others you listed.

Compared to previous Halo releases, none came in pieces previously. Halo infinite shipped Multiplayer in November, and a month later released the Campaign. Staple modes of the game like co-op campaign which had been in every Halo, is coming later this year, same with forge.

It also being F2P for online MP, you were paying $60 for just a campaign. It's almost like they forced you to sign up for gamepass to play it rather than pay $60 to own the campaign.

Sea of thieves released with very little content. ANd with a bunch of issues.

Days gone released very buggy and at a lot of time on base PS4 unplayable.


OP has a point. Look at Halo MCC in 2014? Literally unplayable for years until they finally fix it. Battlefield 2042 is a mess and was not even a complete game when it released.

 

[The_Mike]

halo infinite

Was it unfinished at release?

Game got pushed to make it better. The online component was released first (where the majority plays it). Wasn't the campaign released complete?

 

[Warablo]

All people want are good games. Release a good game and you will get people spending money on it full price and buying dlc/microtransaction. The problem is these publishers pushing out hobbled together games disguised to try and syphon more money out of you.

 

[Papacheeks]

Was it unfinished at release?

Game got pushed to make it better. The online component was released first (where the majority plays it). Wasn't the campaign released complete?

It shipped incomplete and lacking content compared to previous entries. No forge, no co-op campaign, few maps, no playlists, and a season that did not value your time/money.

 

[Kuranghi]

Like this:




When is that getting fixed exactly? Can't play the game with better than High environmental textures on most GPUs (Extreme isn't bugged but you need 10+GB of VRAM for that or you get stutters), which is really noticeable at native 4K.

Ummm, Halo infinite was a finished game. It didn't have a lot of game crippling issues like the others you listed.

Every cutscene in the game has constant stuttering no matter what settings/refresh rate you set, apparently due to improper frame-pacing issues that no one can explain. You might say that doesn't affect the gameplay, but many in-game animations have the same issue, so I'd say its a big problem, I would actually like to try and enjoy the story without constantly being annoyed by that.




The mouths are also animated at 30fps/half-rate, which is super distracting. So if you ignore all story/cutscenes then its great yes.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Ummm, Halo infinite was a finished game. It didn't have a lot of game crippling issues like the others you listed.

Halo infinite was missing many modes in its multiplayer that were common place in older games day one, its missing its coop that has been in every other game day one. They pushed these features to months down the line. Halo infinite is certainly bettee than the games i listed, but it is not a complete product yet. This is coming from someone who has been playing halo since the first game released.

 

[ACESHIGH]

What we need are forums that allow to be critical of devs. Unlike retardera Not sure why people put game developers in a pedestal as if they were the only ones that work hard.

Let's tell it like it is: they don't give a fuck about the state of PC versions of games. Look at the "stellar" God of war PC port or halo infinite...

And dev blowers can come up with 1000 technical excuses. I am the customer. I do not care. Fix your shit. Make it work on decent HW. Opiltimize. I don't want to subsidize QA or dev man-hours via overpowered HW to run your PC ports.

 

[kingfey]

Stupid consumers spend tons of shit money on these games. What would the devs do?

The consumers are basically saying

 

[Kacho]

At the end of the day, if devs don’t get their shit together their fans will move on.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The problem is publishers asking for completely unreasonable deadlines while developers keep crunching for god knows how many extra hours...all to release unfinished projects and then dealing with all the rage from their online communities. All this in a time where a pandemic delayed a lot of things for everyone, which made it all worse.

And i don't wanna be that guy...but as we walk to a more streaming era...i can't even imagine how many unfinished products we'll be getting. Why release a finished project when you can keep updating it?

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Tensions rise because Devs bite off more then they can chew. False advertising, blatantly lying in the face of consumers, showing diamonds which turn out as polished turds etc, etc.

Are gamers to blame when they expect devs to deliver on their promise? Hell no. Are devs to blame when they release:

A) A steaming pile of shit
B) Barebones games
C) An endproduct that doesn't come close to the bone they hold in front of gamers noses?

Short answer: Hell YES


Devs can always be honest and say that due to deadlines, they cant deliver what they promised. But I never seen 1 dev do this.

Be honest, and the backlash will be far less.
No Man's Sky is a prime example of false advertising and lying. But nowadays, it's a solid game.

 

[arvfab]

Main problem is the people buying broken/sub-par/unfinished things, only to complain afterwards.

Devs per se are not (always) at fault, because they get deadlines dictated by their publishers. But if gamers keep buying unfinished stuff, publishers aren't going to change things. The mentality of "release now, fix it later" only exists because they get away with it.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

The real ultimatum lies with publishers. The publisher should be stepping in when a project is scoping out of control to reign it back to a shippable complete product. The publishers also need to avoid forcing the teams to provide public release dates or road maps, and let them work. Much of the animosity created can be avoided if fans dont know which internal deadline was missed to cause a delay, or which features needed to be cut in order to ship the game. Its why games should not be shown publically until they are at least 5
Months from launch, real launch, not the soft launch date publishers give to get pre orders.

Developers and fans are more than happy to blame the publishers - papaEA.gif

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Devs be like: Buy us, Fuck you!
Gamers: By us: FUCK YOU

 

[Catphish]

The change that needs to be made is that people need to stop pre-ordering games.

Full stop.

It doesn't matter if you "know" you'll love a game, or if you "trust" a certain company. Fucking knock it off.

I'd like to think that the consistent, repeated trend of recent AAA releases shitting themselves would spur this notion along, but after reading that the recent Destiny 2 expansion already has over a million pre-orders, well, it's obvious to me that people aren't learning shit.

So, you get what you pay for. If gamers keep shelling out money for unproven products, then companies will keep selling unproven products. It's really that simple. If you feed the demand, you feed the supply.

Let the game release, check reviews and feedback. Make an educated purchase.

STOP. PRE-ORDERING. FUCKING. GAMES.

 

[Wildebeest]

The devs get paid because they work in an industry that runs on hype. Live by the hype, die by the hype.

I do feel for devs who are just "maintaining" a long-running product and get serious harassment from fans for making any change. Maybe their ideas were just bad, but give them a break, they have to try something different.

 

[captainpat]

Developers and fans are more than happy to blame the publishers - papaEA.gif

Why not tho? It's ultimately the publishers that get the final say when a game's released and what state it's in.

 

[kingfey]

Why not tho? It's ultimately the publishers that get the final say when a game's released and what state it's in.

Yeah, not when the gamers wants your head, if you keep delaying the game.

 

[Punished Miku]

Just adjust your purchases and the tension disappears.

Worst case scenario, you get the game cheaper with all DLC packaged in at a later date. Best case scenario, you dodge a bullet and don't spend money on a broken product.

Also consider purchasing things that ship in great condition, like most Nintendo games.

 

[Robb]

Just stop constantly posting stuff on social media, announce stuff when it’s ready and stay quiet for the rest of the time. Don’t promise stuff on social media, don’t interact with “fans” on social media, don’t ask what people want from your game on social media etc.

If needed devs should just let the publisher do/handle all that stuff and take the heat.

I’m sure the marketing departments wouldn’t like that though. It is what it is.

 

[Imtjnotu]

I'd rather have a game delayed than have an un polished piece of shit.

 

[ultrazilla]

There should be a lot of fucking tension right now between gamers and publishers/developers.

We're witnessing multi-billion dollar acquisitions and yet *most* next gen titles are $70+ and come fucking broken/unfinished on day 1. Then most of them require either a day 1 patch(eating more of your
bandwidth you pay for) or told to "wait a few months" for a big patch to fix everything.

Then this NFT/blockchain push?

Gamers are being played for suckers. You realize why the retro market is going up in value right? It's because 50 year olds like me(and you fellow smart younger gamers) have had enough of this bullshit and are hooking up our Atari 2600s, NES, SNES, Genesis, etc and playing those. We won't get prompted for a 20 gig update when we put the cartridge in either.

/rant

 

[DaGwaphics]

Halo infinite was missing many modes in its multiplayer that were common place in older games day one, its missing its coop that has been in every other game day one. They pushed these features to months down the line. Halo infinite is certainly bettee than the games i listed, but it is not a complete product yet. This is coming from someone who has been playing halo since the first game released.

The prior games don't dictate what is a "finished" state for the next entry. In my mind, unfinished is when the modes that are included are buggy and badly broken to a noticeable degree. An occasional bug here and there has always just been a part of gaming since time immemorial.

Completely agree that gamers are often too harsh (myself certainly included). It's easy to condemn the bad without putting equal weight on the good. A lot of these games that start a little shaky often progress to a point where they are more than they could have ever been in the pre-patch era. Yes, we used to get more of what we consider a finished product, but it was just that finished. Now games can evolve and become something more than was originally intended. Fortnite didn't even begin as a battle royale, as just one example.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I think the industry should switch to soft-launch models. Hard launches are becoming more and more unsustainable with the size and budget games are requiring.

 

[rofif]

It's simple. Release normal good games. Elden ring is coming out this month. Horizon too

 

[Umbasaborne]

I think the industry should switch to soft-launch models. Hard launches are becoming more and more unsustainable with the size and budget games are requiring.

Honestly i agree. The backlash to cyberpunk and even battlefield would not have been so poor if the versions that launched were labeled early access, and it was made clear to the public that they were not done yet

 

[HTK]

I'm a consumer. There is no tension here. You release a shit product you don't get my money, simple as that. These rules are universal, nothing new here.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

but it is not a complete product yet.

This is a weird approach, a previous title doesn't dictate what the next should have, if this was the case, then nearly every fighting game released in the past 30 years is "incomplete", because the newer entry almost never shares the same roster as the previous one.
By your definition MH Rise is an unfinished, incomplete game because it has less content/modes than MHW: Iceborne.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

For the love of god, please reduce the scope of the games. I don't need Persona 5 to take me 120 hours to complete. Make it 20 hours tops, instead let it take less than 100 years to finish developing it and release it bug free and complete. Thank you. Knack was around 12 hours. That game wouldn't have overstayed its welcome if it was 6 hours. Why do people buy games on the promise of "32523244 qkm game world, 2000000 hours to complete" alone?

 

[Bo_Hazem]

I think you're talking about certain devs. Successful games have their devs celebrated by fans and treated in a heroine way. You make shit games and practices, you get shat on.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Broken games, microtransactions, shady monetization, boring iterative works. We need a AAA gaming crash to fix these issues.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[GHG]

Stop over promising under delivering.

And on the consumer side everyone should stop pre-ordering.

 

[THE DUCK]

Nintendo doesn't have that problem

I'm assuming that's a huge amount of sarcasm.

That said, people complain about everything, always have, the relationship hasn't changed at all.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[winjer]

In no other industry do we see so many bad things as with the modern AAA games industry. So no wonder consumers that buy games, are disappointed and vocal.
Almost every AAA game in the last few years is released with a ton of bugs and problems. All the while, with increasing prices, content cut to make DLC, and micro-transactions, and loot-boxes and now NFTs.
Paying 60 to hundreds of dollars to receive a half baked product would make any consumer angry.

 

[wipeout364]

There needs to be more communication, I think the industry as a whole really needs to look at Cloud Imperium Games to get a sense of how to communicate with a community and manage expectations. They have done a superb job through the ups and downs of game development.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I like videogames but it's just videogames. I've never threatened a game developer or cyber stalked them.

 

[Pejo]

I think that a few things should happen.

• Stop aggressive monetization. (lol)
• More realistic game lengths and budgets. Not everything has to be 200+ hour epics with 10s of millions in the budget.
• Focus on playtesting, quality presentation
• Stop engaging on Social Media
• Reveal games 1-2 years max from release and then start the marketing blitz.

I think that would naturally quash a lot of the issues we see. I don't think gamers are overentitled at all when they lash out against this stuff. It's not our jobs to sit down and take whatever garbage publishers want to shove down our throats. The "shut up and consume product and be excited for next product" meme is right on the money and should absolutely not be widely accepted.

 

[Old_and_Slow]

The last several years has seen a flurry of unfinished games release. from cyberpunk, to halo infinite, to battlefield 2042, and even star citizens. This release now and finish it later approach seems to be doing more harm than good, and creating a lot of animosity between developers and their fans. Developers try to smooth things over by releasing road maps that more often than not, they are unable to stick to.

I dont think developers are being lazy, i think creating and maintaining these massive games is a difficult feat, and us as players dont quite understand how hard it actually is. Conversely i think it means that developers need to avoid making public promises that they are unable to keep, just because its difficult, does not give you an excuse to lie to the community.

The real ultimatum lies with publishers. The publisher should be stepping in when a project is scoping out of control to reign it back to a shippable complete product. The publishers also need to avoid forcing the teams to provide public release dates or road maps, and let them work. Much of the animosity created can be avoided if fans dont know which internal deadline was missed to cause a delay, or which features needed to be cut in order to ship the game. Its why games should not be shown publically until they are at least 5
Months from launch, real launch, not the soft launch date publishers give to get pre orders.

When someone buys a product they expect a certain level of functionality. When a game is released as broken or not finished the buyers that were misled WILL voice their displeasure. So yes there's tension because a million people just spent $80 usd on a broken game that 1) does not offer what was promised and 2) may or may not ever be fixed.

As long as devs and publishers need to make ALL the money on every game, or be labeled a failure, the cycle will continue. Selling a "minimum viable product" and making your budget back on launch day seems to be the best way to solve a problematic development cycle. Stop pre-ordering games people!

I lay all fault for the "tension" on the devs and publishers. Make a competent game and most of the "tension" takes care of itself.

 

[Umbasaborne]

When someone buys a product they expect a certain level of functionality. When a game is released as broken or not finished the buyers that were misled WILL voice their displeasure. So yes there's tension because a million people just spent $80 usd on a broken game that 1) does not offer what was promised and 2) may or may not ever be fixed.

As long as devs and publishers need to make ALL the money on every game, or be labeled a failure, the cycle will continue. Selling a "minimum viable product" and making your budget back on launch day seems to be the best way to solve a problematic development cycle. Stop pre-ordering games people!

I lay all fault for the "tension" on the devs and publishers. Make a competent game and most of the "tension" takes care of itself.

I agree that the onus is ultimatley on them. I do try to maintain a little empathy because i know how
Hard it can be. It just sucks that weve gotten to a point where the people making the product and the people buying the product have active disdain for eachother

 

[Umbasaborne]

I think that a few things should happen.

• Stop aggressive monetization. (lol)
• More realistic game lengths and budgets. Not everything has to be 200+ hour epics with 10s of millions in the budget.
• Focus on playtesting, quality presentation
• Stop engaging on Social Media
• Reveal games 1-2 years max from release and then start the marketing blitz.

I think that would naturally quash a lot of the issues we see. I don't think gamers are overentitled at all when they lash out against this stuff. It's not our jobs to sit down and take whatever garbage publishers want to shove down our throats. The "shut up and consume product and be excited for next product" meme is right on the money and should absolutely not be widely accepted.

I always talk about insomniac being the golden standard in this regard. Their games are excellent, they sell well. But they are also scoped appropriatley, and make effective use of a reasonable budget. They dont inject their games with live service hooks and they can release fun, successful tripple a games every two-3 years. They are doing better than most studios

 

[Pejo]

I always talk about insomniac being the golden standard in this regard. Their games are excellent, they sell well. But they are also scoped appropriatley, and make effective use of a reasonable budget. They dont inject their games with live service hooks and they can release fun, successful tripple a games every two-3 years. They are doing better than most studios

Yea they are definitely fitting into that niche, and I appreciate them for it. Especially since Jimbo already stated multiple times that he's a proponent of having fewer but bigger games. That was like poison to my ears.