It’s disgusting how AAA developers are lying about game development

1 : Anonymous2021/11/24 10:46 ID: r12fmg

DICE announced an update for BF2042 this week and this one particular excerpt from the blog post caught my attention.

"Identifying engine level optimisations and developing solutions will require a lengthier response time from us so that it gets done right. "

They're basically acknowledging that this game needed more time and was rushed to the market. If developers need more time to so that "it gets done right" then maybe not release the f**king game in that state?

It's an insult to our intelligence when developers say shit like they were unaware of the reported issues during the development and internal testing phase. Rockstar didn't know that the Definitive Edition did not meet their quality standards? The myriad of bugs that an average gamer comes across without any effort? It's as if the bugs are sentient and somehow evade detection when the developer is playing the game.

I have more respect for Microsoft now for delaying Halo: Infinite after the feedback instead of rushing it out of the door. It wasn't an easy decision. They wanted to recreate the launch of the OG Xbox by launching a Halo game alongside a new Xbox console. But they chose to miss that once-in-a-five-year opportunity to get it done right. The result? Halo: Infinite is enjoying good reception while half-baked games like BF2042 are struggling to put out the dumpster fire.

2 : Anonymous2021/11/24 10:53 ID: hlvy7wp

This isn't really a dev decision to rush things. It's a publisher decision. It's like blaming infinity ward for releasing and unfinished call of duty when it's definitely Activision at fault pushing the release date

ID: hlx37jf

Yup. The devs have no control over release schedules, neither do the testers. If they say "We have X number of defects." management can still choose to defer them.

ID: hlxa7rn

This is why I hate posts like this. The devs literally have zero control over it. EA wanted to release close enough to CoD to steal some of their sales and also before the holidays to get sales there. The devs knew how the game was being released. I'd wager the reason the first two patches address so many common complaints is because they knew what the complaints would be and started working on fixes before the game was even released. I'm sure they, like many others have said, would have preferred an early 2022 release date.

Stop directing hate at devs. Direct it at publishers and executives that push unrealistic release dates and lie to consumers so that they can maximize profit.

ID: hlxewrv

Let's also not forget that:

Game devs are often underpaid for the kind of effort they put in.

Are chronically overworked to insane hours, especially during crunch. And that's still just meeting the bare minimum

Have to answer to a shitty publisher whose only goal is profit and not art

After their hard work is finished, many of them will be laid off and have to find a new game to develop if they want to keep eating.

Female game devs are getting sexually harassed without much recourse like crazy. It's only getting attention now because of strikes and litigation hitting studios.

Screw publishers and the abusive game industry in general. Support ethical indie devs wherever you can.

ID: hlxf4uu

I keep beating this dead horse too. I'm a (non-game) dev, and it's maddening when people don't understand we have no control, and we would much prefer to delay. Game devs have it way harder! Publishers, shareholders and marketing departments are to blame.

Then you have people like the OP who highlights in bold and goes on a rant, clearly displaying he knows very little about what that sentence means, and is giving it out of context. The original post said about high end hardware not being utilised enough and it. The fact is, they can't just flick a switch or change an ini file to allow high end hardware to run better, as even if that were possible that would likely result in lower end systems crapping out, then anyone without a high end system would whine instead. Getting that balance at engine level is difficult, and is not necessarily something you can plan for at the start, or even 3/4 through development.

The actual context.

"For all of you playing on PCs, we want to acknowledge that many of you are finding that performance of the game is presently CPU bound, and not enough of you who are fortunate enough to enjoy high end GPUs and CPUs are seeing the benefit of consistent, high frame rates. Identifying engine level optimisations and developing solutions will require a lengthier response time from us so that it gets done right. Short term, we’ll be doing all we can to help offer performance improvements that reduce the load, and up your frame rates where possible"

ID: hly4fe6

The only way to prevent this is to not buy unfinished shit. No pre-orders, no first day release, nothing until the game proves itself. If you stop buying unfinished shit, they’ll have to stop selling it

3 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:01 ID: hlvyslg

QUIT BUYING THESE HALF BAKED PIECE OF SHIT GAMES!!!

ID: hlwc7y4

Right? I was reading this thinking it’s not really an ‘insult to customer’s intelligence’ … it sounds like they’ve dialled in their customers pretty fucking precisely.

This is not new. This is now a tradition of battlefield games, and really most AAA games, and yet every year like Bart reaching for the cupcake millions of you rush to get it day 1, or even pre-order it and then get all surprised when it’s broken.. again… and again… and again.

I now assume most AAA games I’ll be buying on sale 6months to a year after launch once they patch it and finish it and reveal what the real monetisation plan is, etc. There’s just so many high quality games around I really don’t see the incentive to jump on these annual rehashes with such thirst.

ID: hlxexlp

I’m a huge battlefield fan and have owned all of the games up to this one. Honestly the game looks fun in the rare event that it works properly, so I’m convinced I want it.

But I’m going to wait until it inevitably goes on sale for like 50% off. Just like bf4, I’m sure it will be a pretty solid game by that point. If we all start doing that EA will have to polish the game by release so they can get full price out of us.

ID: hlxdvbe

The part that concerns me is that it's possible that most people just don't care that a game is buggy and half finished.

ID: hlwop7g

Upvoted for the Bart / cupcake analogy.

ID: hlxdn4m

The issue is, the people who need to hear this aren't on a subreddit that might be critical of their hobby.

ID: hlw6tvj

For 100 of "us" complaining, there are 1000 random people buying the game, it will never work.

2042 got trashed in reviews, still was on top of topsellers on steam, and the developers know this.

NBA 2K21, same thing.

Cyberpunk 2077 (allthough it didnt get trashed that badly, but still), same thing.

ID: hlwknf3

What do you mean cyberpunk didn’t get trashed that badly, it’s literally all anyone did for months.

ID: hlwggun

Its why boycotts against big companies never work. You’ll just never get enough people to both be aware of and care about the issue and sustain that level of care long enough to make a dent in the profit of a company that sells to millions from around the world.

ID: hlwb494

More like 1:1000 than 100:1000.

ID: hlwjngg

I honestly enjoyed CyperPunk. I also didn't know what the game was expected to be, only knew that Keanu will be in it so I got it. I got a decent game with a few minor bugs and progression issues. I'm definitely replaying it.

ID: hlw1c35

Like really.

You know it's gonna be like this, it's like this every time.

ID: hlw7h3e

It was obvious after the Beta. If you still bought the game at launch or even preordered: YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

4 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:23 ID: hlw0j7h

Don’t buy games at launch, you’re simply paying full price to beta test their game. Wait a year, and then buy the finished product and DLC’s on sale.

ID: hlwjw8f

I feel this works for single player games.

Sadly for multiplayer games often times the community might be dying by the time they get the game together.

ID: hlwu0n1

That’s why I find myself playing multiplayer games less and less, sadly.

Games are $80+ dollars at launch now and if a multiplayer game launches as a busted experience, you’ve wasted your money.

The community will run from the game, leaving it with a barren population by the time it’s fixed (IF it gets fixed)… and usually by that time, you’ve become so embittered and cynical towards the game and the devs that the game loses its lustre.

ID: hlwkdlz

Yeah, sucks but people keep putting up with it, so the studios have no incentive to change any time soon. I'll bet you they still rake in cash hand over fist from pre-orders to this day, long after it's been demonstrated that you should not do this /shrug

ID: hlwa4td

Doesn’t every developer do this? That’s the only reason for pre-orders. Help pay for unfinished games.

5 : Anonymous2021/11/24 13:04 ID: hlw9ohf

What's more silly to me is Battlefield fans who know how DICE work, yet still buy their trashy launches, then complain about it. Like they don't learn, launch after launch. The stupidity in today's society with all of our knowledge is just insanity.

6 : Anonymous2021/11/24 12:41 ID: hlw7b32

Developers most likely are not the ones deciding when the game is launched, the companies' higher ups are Don't blame devs when it's the shitty management's fault

7 : Anonymous2021/11/24 13:22 ID: hlwbjni

Bro…it was published by EA. Except for a rare few exceptions, rushing games is their entire market strategy. Mostly because people are stupid and will buy them anyways.

8 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:55 ID: hlw38ex

Developers don't make these decisions. Business people who never wrote a line of code do.

9 : Anonymous2021/11/24 10:52 ID: hlvy4b7

The devs can only do so much in the amount of time given. If you want to be mad at someone than be mad at the publisher and higher ups who want the game out by specific deadlines and dont want to hear about bugs and crashes. They think they know what the consumer wants and dont listen to us.

ID: hlvykca

They think they know what the consumer wants and dont listen to us.

They know exactly what gamers want: micro transactions and half finished games.

They know that's what gamers want because that's what gamers keep buying.

ID: hlvypzv

Sad truth

ID: hlwbgmj

Who's doing it right these days?

ID: hlw1u8a

Exactly. They had a deadline given to them from EA, and couldn't finish...and they probably can't finish by the end of Q4 for their final quarte

report.

I'm not defending them. I still refuse to buy any EA game since they killed a project I was looking forward to. But developers get deadlines because they have financial reports from superiors that have put money in the project to answer to.

ID: hlw2hg6

Yup. This. True, you need a degree in management accounting to understand it, but honestly I think gamers are becoming their own worst enemies.

10 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:26 ID: hlw0qc6

Release dates are on the publisher. The devs themselves have little to no say in that.

You're shooting the messenger.

11 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:18 ID: hlw055h

The Devs are rarely the problem. Problem are the overpaid CEOs who don't care about the product or the customer, just about making more short term money.

ID: hlwahcz

No the developers are never the problem. Their job is to build the game. They don’t have any say on when it’s released, what’s acceptable to release.

100% chance this is how it went

Dev: “hey boss this game plays like shit. We have a bunch of features that are only half working”

Boss: “okay”

Dev: “so can we get more time to fix things”

Boss: “does it work at all?”

Dev: “yeah but we need more time”

Boss: “well can it be fixed post release?”

Dev: “well yeah but it still isn’t good”

Boss: “good enough. Release the game!”

ID: hlwi56w

To add to this, an entire player base is going to find more bugs and faster than what a small dev team can. Release the game, let other people identify the bugs (which often times finding the bugs is the hardest part) and then fix them. As long as the games are playable by Christmas when they’re gonna have the most sales and stuff, they’ll be willing to take a bit of bad press for now. It’s if it goes in last Christmas that it’ll become a bigger deal because there’s gonna be a lot more people to make a big deal out of it.

ID: hlwfcrh

Need another level there above boss for the publisher

ID: hlx6hyx

I don't work in game development but this is regular practice for development in general. As a developer it is soul sucking watching your own work go out the door, knowing it's not up to your own personal standards of complete but being able to do nothing about that.

Imagine you are drawing a picture and half way though drawing it its ripped out from underneath you and sold. It doesnt look at all how you wanted it to but too late, customer already has it and thinks wow this artist sucks! Welcome to life of some developers.

12 : Anonymous2021/11/24 15:53 ID: hlwvjll

The devs don’t choose when they have to release these games, the greedy publishers and executives do and there’s literally nothing the devs can do to change it.

There needs to be a change in the mentally around this by people online, because most devs have to fucking crunch for months, know it isn’t ready, warn the people above it isn’t ready, get ignored, then get shat on by players over decisions made way above them that are very rarely their fault.

Same goes for QA, “doesn’t this game have QA?” I read all the time; usually yes they do, and they are aware of the issues, but again, greedy publishers and executives decide it doesn’t matter fix it later. Again, usually actually not the devs fault.

Also Halo got delayed, sure? But that game isn’t even ready now, the MP progression is gross and grindy and half the main features aren’t even out until “next year”. Supposed confirmed free content not being free on release etc etc: A piece by piece release is laughable. And no different from the rest of the bs. Not a good example of a good release. And MS for some reason get away with tonnes of micro transactions in their games because they have a swarm of apologists.

Also this seems to be way more prevalent in the FPS genre because for some reason everyone buys them regardless.

13 : Anonymous2021/11/24 13:07 ID: hlw9z4m

The fact that you think this is a problem with the developers is laughable.

14 : Anonymous2021/11/24 12:48 ID: hlw80ed

I stopped pre ordering games a long tine ago and also started not buying games at full price. I ended up buying BF5 definitive edition at like 5 bucks and I had a blast

Being a (broke) patient gamer is nice

ID: hlw9i1w

Feel this.

15 : Anonymous2021/11/24 13:31 ID: hlwchco

As long as people keep blaming devs this shit will keep on going. Devs will always know when a game is not done or even if a game is shit, it is rarely up to them when a game will be released

16 : Anonymous2021/11/24 13:32 ID: hlwcmd7

If you think developers are the ones pushing a game out early I feel bad for you.

17 : Anonymous2021/11/24 19:17 ID: hlxqqlq

Reminder that the actual developers, who are the ones stating how much something needs work on and such, have no control over release decisions. That's up to the management and publishing team.

The publishers give the orders, the devs make the game.

As a dev I'll tell you how much time I need to make such and such feature work in such and such way. But it's up to the managers who are in contact with the publisher to greenlight that time period. Which more often than not, management will say "We have to release at [date that doesn't give me the time required], but I need this feature, just do it".

18 : Anonymous2021/11/24 11:57 ID: hlw3dyn

The developers know a game isnt ready to be released but its not up to them.

Its funny how developers get in the shit when it comes to unpolished games being released but when it comes to their games release they have the least say in the matter.

19 : Anonymous2021/11/24 16:14 ID: hlwymsf

Fuck off, because ignorant people like you developers are harassed. Start blaming publishers and executives, not the poor game developer who cant do anything about it.

20 : Anonymous2021/11/24 10:56 ID: hlvyg20

I just assume that every game is early access now.

引用元:https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/r12fmg/its_disgusting_how_aaa_developers_are_lying_about/

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