Modern Game Development and Sonic Boom

If you haven't heard already, Sonic Boom for the Wii U is a buggy, exploitable glitch disaster. It features boring beat em up gameplay (in a sonic game?) and is overall just a mess. The same week Assassin's Creed Unity came out and its also filled with bugs, glitches and even micro transactions! Both games are full retail releases with AAA budgets.

It used to be that we could depend on the latest game releases to at least be somewhat stable enough to play. Sure there was shovelware but the games were at least mostly complete. It looks like now that big AAA games that cost US $59.95 are probably going to be unstable or have bugs that will need to be patched and you'll run into game breaking glitches as you play. My guess is that in modern QA departments that unless the game completely stops and breaks (a type A bug) then its an ok glitch which was not acceptable even a few years ago.

Alot of people talk about the console game crash happening again. With the rise of Steam and PC gaming, its really starting to look like 1983-84 all over again when home gaming computers like the Commodore 64 and Apple II were all the rage and Atari was in the bargain bins. The reason that gaming crash happened was because of the huge amount of crummy games for the Atari.

What do you think of whats going on in modern game development and releases? I've been sticking to retro games until this whole storm blows over.

 

This month hasn't been really good for game developers: Sonic Boom, AC: Unity and Halo MCC... all have issues. You can even count Driveclub too, as it's still not fully working.

Most publishers don't give a f*** anymore. They release the games and "patch later". They probably think there's no such thing as bad publicity. Why delay a product that is not working correctly and end up missing the "holiday season" and the opportunity to rip off customers? It will continue to be like that while people pre-order games, magazines and game sites accept review embargos and so on.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have their share of the blame as well. They should not certify those ridiculously bugged games and have a standard for what a working playable game is.

 

It's simple - NEVER pre-order or buy anything on the first day, wait at least for a week or so after release.

For Steam/GOG/whatever - yes they can beat consoles because games are generally cheaper, download is faster, you can make backups and modify the game (if it's not a cheat-protected online title) etc. But there are a LOT of broken games too. But yeah, it's strange but never so-called "AAA" titles often released in unplayable state, especially if it's a console port, and titles with lower budget and price can have way better quality.

Just compare - MKKE and Injustice vs KOFXIII and Skullgirls, First two had much bigger budget than last two (Skullgirls is an indie game after all) but KOF and Skullgirls on PC got the best online code EVER, MKKE and IGAU - barely playable online at release and completely broken now (yeah, newer patches simply killed online play). Same with FFXIII and Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky. First - buggy port with almost no settings and horrible optimization, Second was ported by one person and she made simply insane job - backporting a lot of stuff from PSP release and adding new features that were never present in previous releases, and in result we got amazing port, almost a new game - yet again very small indie company puts those huge monsters to the shame.
I guess it's because in smaller companies there are no management douches telling developers what and how fast to do.

 

So true and even worse in movie industry - they know that they release utter crap, but loud name and "proper" trailer allow them to milk people because there's no way to return the ticket and get your money back.

 

This isn't really a new thing though, big games in the past have had a fair share of glitches and bugs, some more game breaking than others. Admittedly this month in particular though has had some rough patches, but I bet when Super Smash Bros Wii U and GTA V next gen comes out it'll pretty much be forgotten about in the long run. Also, I don't know how anyone these days could really expect a Sonic game to actually be of high quality. The series is pretty hit or miss, so it's not like its a big surprise it's not that good and that it's glitchy and stuff.

 

Lost World and Generations were pretty stable. Lost World ended up getting a patch so that 100 rings earns a life but you could play the game fine without it. I just farmed lives on one level.

 

Developers are now also throwing a lot of money at news sites and holding back on review copies until after the game has passed its launch day. I know the new AC game was subject to that. It's shocking really.

 

You forgot Colors - really good game on both Wii and DS. That's why i was really shocked with Sonic Boom fiasco, i thought that Sonic series finally returned to its former glory and then... BOOM indeed. A kind of boom which happens if you leave a milk bag in a sunny place for a few weeks. Stinky one.

 

Absolutely. I said something to this effect on the thread concerning UbiSoft. With the power of patches, companies can get lax with QA in order to jam out games ASAP. Per usual, "cash rules everything around me."

 

I think right now you're seeing games get rushed out to meet the Christmas season. Before a game (like Sonic Xtreme for example) would just get cancelled if they couldn't finish it in time for Christmas, now games get released half finished and the customers pay $60 to beta test it.

Though, I think the worse thing for gaming is early access. Over half of Steam early access games haven't yet been finished, some over a year after being released.

And people wonder why I don't pre-order and sure as hell don't do early access.

 

Only one Developer's games are worth pre-ordering IMO. That would be Rockstar, more specifically North. Can't say they've ever put out anything poor. Everything else, I'm in the same boat.

 

C.R.E.A.M, get the money, dollar dollar bill y'all. In all seriousness, I'm not preordering a game again after the whole MCC fiasco. The game still doesn't work!!

 

What makes you think that? Most newer PC games (with some exceptions) are either ports of console games or they're developed at the same time as the console versions, so they most likely have the same problems. PCs have the advantage of better graphics, though.

Maybe the reason modern games have so many issues is because they're much more complex than in the past.

 

Wow, this Sonic looks amazingly bad, even for today Sonic standars.

 

This whole mentality of "we release a game and hey, if its broken we'll patch it later" and sometimes even fans defending it in the way of "hey I know its broken but dont hate on it, they'll patch it later" is something that (together with the fact that a lot of titles released for the 7th gen were not my cup of tea) kept me from getting a then next-gen console, and its the same today with the now next-gen consoles. When patching wasnt an option (limited space on memory cards, slow or no internet connection) and a company released a bad/buggy game, they were in deep. Now they can simply slap a multi-gigabyte day one patch out and not care about anything but money.

The idea of day one patches or patches close to launch itself is pretty ridiculous, instead of keeping the game back for one or two days and shipping the day one patch on disk they make people download multiple gigabytes of data (20 for halo mcc, thats 4 to 5 full size ps2 games for one patch) ignoring the fact that not everyone has a gigabit link and that loading the patch might take a couple hours (or days).
When I buy a game, I expect something for my money. If I ever go and buy another game for the full price (the last one was pokemon x, which was worth it for me), I expect it wo work out of the box, and if they have to patch something, it should better be worth the amount of stuff I would have to load...

 

Nintendo does have its problems, and thankfully their patches never exceed bandwidth caps. It's funny how gamers can look the other way with this generation, as long as the graphics look great, who cares about anything else.

 

I really don't like gaming in general at the minute, Halo MCC is an absolute mystery to me as to why its so awfully broken online!! (in 4 days I've got in one game, and as it started both teams went instantly from 8 players to 5).

Sonic Boom is a foreseen disaster - did the characters really need a 're-deisgn' - did Sonic need a 'reboot' - not really.
Sonic Colours, Generations, lost world were all strong really polished games then this disaster!!

I swear Sega will end up destroying themselves............... (and then to polish things off Shenmue, skiens of Arcadia, Jet set radio, Nights and all their other IP gems don't get sequels while they waste money on games such as Aliens:CM and Sonic Boom.


The state of current games is also why I've gone back to playing a lot of retro stuff (mainly Satuen and Megadrive stuff).

 

I'd wish SEGA has put their money into making a Phansty Star Online HD Collection instead of the modern crap they're doing just my two cents

 

Chris Senn on Sonic Boom

"I can confirm that as of June this year, I no longer worked for BRB, but I did not willfully choose to leave. I did all that I could, crunching the moment I joined the company, averaging 5am to 7pm daily and was dedicated to the end. I cannot comment more at this time".

Anything to say Sega?

 

I think this game could of had promise, but yeah it doesnt sound too good. I dont know why Sega just didnt see the success of generations and continued on in that direction (obviously removing the whole 2 sonics thing)

Or even got Taxman/Stealth to make a new 2D game with their retro engine

Damnit sega, i still want to love you but you make it oh so hard at times