Op-ed: New video games shouldn't be so broken

[Evernessince]

The problem is the pricing model is broken.

Look at major websites/services that work and those that don't. Amazon, newegg etc, they work, because every minute down is lost money. healthcare.gov doesn't work, and why should it? No money lost if it's not working. If your game server isn't working for a game you ALREADY paid for, they don't lose any money. that's the problem.

I used to play WoW ($15/month subscription) and outside of short scheduled maintenance breaks it had a very good track record (at least during the times of day when I played). If they didn't people would quit and stop paying their $15/month. Blizzard rolled out content regularly too so people stayed interested.

But people don't want to pay for a subscription, they want to buy a game and play for free. I guarantee that if games were free to own, but pay to play based on time we'd see FAR better results out of the game makers. Put the risk on them instead of us when something is broken or down.

it doesn't sit right that companies can spend millions of dollars on advertising

that's because advertising is what makes them money back. If quality made them money, they'd spend money on quality. Complain all you want, but ask yourself if you're willing to pay for a game subscription.

What we need is a Netflix for games. pay your $30/month and get access/logins to a bunch of them.

If you payed for a game then you didn't get if for free. The traditional sales model of games is called P2P or buy to play.

Your trying to compare MMOs to standard games and it just doesn't work. You expect every game company to maintain servers and every person to have a connection good enough to support that model? How does this even encourage them to release games that aren't buggy. If anything I would rush my game to market so I can start collecting Micro-Transactions as quick as possible. I'll promise to fix the bugs later after you've already given more a load of cash. Making a game always online and free to play only encourages company to rush out content they can sell, not actually good and/or bug free.

 

[SuperVeloce]

Agreed, not to mention the vast open holes they leave for players to then cheat in tons of different ways. The truth be told that these game makers are no longer selling us, or launching full version games. They are selling us and launching to us Alpha and Beta test level versions of the full game... this way the CEO at the top and his cronies make a shitload of more money, and you the consumer become conditioned to accept and expect being screwed for your money and without lube. The whole industry is a joke, just look at how many games are available for xbox one and how you cannot take ANY of your games from 360 to ONE. It is high time we all SERIOUSLY reconsider what we are doing with our money and whether or not we should really even being spending a penny with these bastards. I for one will be ending my relations with such people real soon. I will not look back once I have done this.

And how do you propose we take xbox360 game to a vastly different hardware arhitecture that is xbox one?

 

[m4a4]

This is why I watch my preorders. I've been good for the few of them over the last few years.

The next preorder of mine is The Witcher 3, and I can't see it being released broken

 

[tipstir]

Not much you can do about it! All games sold are WORK-IN-PROGRESS or (aka not finish yet). So problem issues will plague these games. I am not spending so much money on these games. Just to have problems. Console Games like PC Games are no better from problems.

Look at all software and you can see the same problems are present too. Most will blame the user, their computer, an etc.! But you can't blame the software can you!

 

[Guest]

Dude there is nothing special about porting 360 games to the one! They just don't want to!! The GPU is next gen from 360 but still inheritance last gens abilities. That's why you can still play 20+ year old games on today's GPUs.

 

[axiomatic13]

Too many "suits" driving development. They only know how to do a few things. Drive salaries down resulting in poor work. Marketing driven decisions that lead to a game releasing at an optimal time for profitability and usually force the game to release before its really done. Then fire people when the job is finally done.

None of these things produce an environment for quality or excellence. When the developers used to manage almost everything, the product was better.

 

[Guest]

Include "Battlefield 4" in the list of highly profitable epic fails.

The game is total disaster from a player/consumer perspective, but it has undoubtedly netted millions for EA. It's a game that's symptomatic of a sick industry that is driven by the potential for multi-million dollar profit margins and investor returns rather than delivering compelling, original products.

EA has been wholly unapologetic about it's failure to deliver, or even repair, such an unusable product. It will do the same thing again, because EA makes money either way: "Screw the old customers, we'll find some new suckers (er, customers) next Christmas".

It seems that the gaming industry conglomerates have replaced the music recording companies as the top predator in the entertainment food chain, and as such, art & creativity are subverted to satiate the appetite of corporate greed.