During the last year (or more) I have noticed a VERY disturbing tendency among makers - "The Windows syndromme". They release a game prematurely, skipping debugging stage, releasing a title with more bugs than a stray dog has.
Some examples:
- Lock On Modern Air Combat - Can't deny that I've been waiting for this title for a very long time. And THANK GOD that I first try the games out before buying them. LOMAC saved me a trip to the store, because I'd sure as hell return it. When in 3 years time It'll become playable, maybe I'll get it again.
- Full Spectrum Warrior - another title that I've been waiting for over a year. The game's something new, and I must admit I like it a lot. But everytime I need to spend about 30 minutes before I can play the game. Funny thing happens - one time it runs ok, another time it runs like shit (slideshow performance). Tried everything, from upgrading & tweaking drivers to shutting down all unnecessary processes in the task manager. And it's still like a lottery. Just uninstalled it, waiting for a patch.
- Shellshock Nam 67. Forget that the game is crap. It liked to crash every 2-3 minutes. To think that I've been looking forward to this piece of crap for a long time...
- Star Wars Battlefront - it was a minor bug that I quickly took care of, but the did the devs not suspect that a windows with a different language version would cause game not to run...why?
My comp is not the top notch, im struggling with an old softmoddable Radeon 9500 and 512SDRAM, so I know that I can't expect to get the best of games.
And I don't know if Im exaggerating (I sure hope I do), but after I come late from work/school, I expect to have some decent fun playing computer games. Maybe Im simply unlucky - and there are hundreds of other good games out there that are more/less flawless. Or maybe Im frustrated because after spending another 30 minutes playing FSW lottery...
Eh. Elastomania seems the only game right now that hasn't locked up on me (yet).
Share your thoughts, and if possible, prove me wrong. I don't want to live in a world where everybody seeks the easiest way to make $$$ - namely going to the closest pile of crap, putting some of it in a box and then trying to sell it to an unsuspecting customer.
Thank god Rome Total War turned out to be quite okay (only locked up once). Now Im tired, time to sleep.
WTF is going on?
Moderator: Thanas
People like John Carmack and Gabe Newell can release their games when they feel it's ready - many smaller developers don't have that option, and have to send it off to the publisher on a certain date, whether or not it's bug-free. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have learned from the Battlecruiser 3000AD fiasco.
