[Sodman]

I don't think it's fair to blame this on gamers. With all of the hyperbole over various games being "broken", most people that are hyped about a specific game are just going to buy it and see for themselves. Unless it's literally unplayable (as may actually have been the case here), most people won't refund it.

This has been going on for years and years, it's just getting worse over time. It's always some variant of this conversation at $GAMEDEV_STUDIO:

Focus group feedback: Our test groups are noticing 10% of players are running into this bug/issue. It's frustrating them, but there are workarounds.

Management: All of our marketing materials target release date XX/XX/XXXX. If we try to fix this bug we'll have to push the release... How many people will _not_ buy the game because of this bug?

Focus group feedback: Nobody that would have otherwise bought this game would decide not to buy it over this issue.

Management: So we ship as planned, and fix the bugs in a patch.

Over time studios realized that you can get away with much bigger bugs affecting much larger portions of players. Ship sooner, start recognizing revenue, and push post-launch patches to fix the "really bad bugs". It's shocking how bad the quality has to get before it starts making headlines.

[incrudible]

I disagree that this is getting worse. Every game of this magnitude of complexity has shipped broken, even way back in the nineties. The Elder Scrolls series in particular comes to mind. Back then, you'd get patches from print media.

The games that didn't ship broken simply weren't that complex. Console games never were that complex. PC gamers gamers accepted this in order to be able to (sort of) play through an experience that was at the edge of what was possible. There was no Digital Foundry to count pixels and analyze frame drops. If you hit 20FPS most of the time, that was considered "playable".

If a game like Cyberpunk 2077 can't ship broken, then it can't ship at all. It can't even get produced. Nobody is going to put hundreds of millions of dollars on the line to maybe ship next year, forever. Nobody except maybe the Star Citizen community.

[huehehue]

From a very, very casual gamer's perspective, how did expectations get so high? Consumers are demanding more, companies are promising more, developers are worked to the bone and everyone still ends up unhappy.

Does pricing, pre-orders, or online play have anything to do with this? It feels weird that a sports game can change a few names and ship a $60 title, but a company like CDPR goes through absolute hell and still ships a dud -- what's the incentive for that?

[webmaven]

> From a very, very casual gamer's perspective, how did expectations get so high? Consumers are demanding more, companies are promising more, developers are worked to the bone and everyone still ends up unhappy.

The dynamic is the same in films, where all of the studio's profits come from a few blockbusters (sometimes called 'tentpoles'), and in publishing, where all of the profits come from relatively few bestsellers, and got that matter in venture capital, where all of the returns come from a few unicorns.

BTW, you might be interested to note that in film at least, the "work to the bone" component is largely missing (not that film crews don't work hard, they do), and that the film industry is unionized to the hilt (Screen Writers Guild, Screen Actors' Guild, Directors' Guild of America, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, etc. etc.), nor is pervasive unionization any sort of barrier to incorporating equity compensation (often in the form of residuals) for key talent.

[ROFISH]

Without too much detail due to contracts/NDA/etc, slipping a release date is even worse of a bother for others down-chain also. There are planned times for manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, all that fun stuff for the physical versions of titles. All that would basically need to be re-dated from scratch. You can't slip one week, you have to slip at least a month. More for platforms that don't use standard disc formats which are not made locally. (Which hilariously, CP2077 already did slip a month before release.)

Even for digital games, there's still approval processes where the first parties would have to test the game out. This process involves scheduling people for it; you can't just go to the front of the line as there are other games that have been scheduled for certain slots. (Which hilariously, it was rumored that CP2077 was given the 'don't test, push live ASAP' treatment.)

At lastly, all payments from the platforms and retailers are based on the actual release date. Unless there's a specific contract, games are not paid until months after release. Physical preorders don't pay the developers, they just help with preventing over/under stocking. (And digital preorders are... functionally worthless beyond the psychological value.) The release date starts the payment timer. When hurting for cash, releasing can start that timer.

The processes above can really benefit abusers who decide that "making street-date" is the most important thing above all other concerns.

[surge]

Stop announcing release dates until its 90% finished or all major bugs are fixed and you're just 3 months away from being ready.

Publishers are a problem too, they pressure to release games around the holidays, or the console manufacturers do cause it helps sell hardware around the holidays.

From what I gathered its mostly fine on PC, they're a PC shop after all, the console versions needed probably at least 6 months of work to be polished. People were screaming for it to be released no matter what or to stop making excuses no matter how much crunch the devs were already doing. If they released it as an "early-beta" like a lot of games or just said up front, okay we're releasing it but its not finished, so you can play it but you're getting the beta now and we'll be fixing it with updates. I think hardcore gamers would understand. It would just not look good for release sales and I'm not sure if the game media would care.

[cheschire]

I waited for the reviews. When they were over 90% I pulled the trigger.

Now I realize I purchased a game that was reviewed on what it will eventually become a la No Man's Sky, not what it was on the day of review.

Sure, the crashing didn't affect me, my configuration was more or less normal I guess. Instead what I got was a hollow game that has a lot of hooks ready for eventual expansion sometime in future patches. That didn't deserve the 91% it had when I first bought the game.

I don't blame fellow gamers. I blame the reviewers.

[surge]

Reviewers had the access media problem, it was discussed at length on the 1-up podcast. They can't be trusted, especially on AAA titles or they risk being shut out of preview copies on the next releases, which is bad for business. I just wait for user reviews, after a couple of weeks for the hype to die down and people to actually spend some time in it, then I generally look at the worse reviews first. Unless there's a compelling reason to have a game immediately (like its primarily online and all my friends are playing it), its better to be a patient gamer.

[jgust]

> I don't think it's fair to blame this on gamers

That's sort of what I'm alluding to. Personal responsibility doesn't work when you need collective action, so something else needs to step in to fix this. Reminding gamers to not pre-order is pointless.

[ethbr0]

> Management: So we ship as planned, and fix the bugs in a patch.

What's curious, and I assume therefore legally-reasoned, is the consistent lack of preparation for blow-back by companies. Some part of CD Projekt Red knew the game was broken on older consoles.

It feels like the only real solution to this is to have legal QA documents, signed off on by QA (as factual) and executive leadership (as read and understood).

If there's a magically missing set of older console tests, someone in leadership goes to jail. If leadership publicly misrepresents the stability of the game despite knowing about substantial defects from QA reports, someone goes to jail.

Who cares about video games, but this is indicative of a broader social problem allowing executives to feign ignorance and create systems that deflect blame downward. Either you're running the company or not. And if you are... then the legal ramifications should ultimately land at your feet.

[nmfisher]

Are you honestly suggesting people go to jail for broken videogames?

[ethbr0]

Yes. It's a USD$150b+ industry.

[this_user]

There is also the component of building hype via marketing in order to generate pre-orders. With CP2077, they had made back the entire development costs immediately after launch. This means, refunds notwithstanding, that by the time your customers notice the state the game is in, you are already profitable, and have all the time in the world for PR damage control and patches.