Article: Problems encountered when creating a game with a set release date:
"The day is finally here.. you know its out today, because you've been waiting months for it. They promised!" These words are uttered in your mind as you head to your local game vendor to purchase a long awaited game. You return home happy that you gave up 70 dollars and the next few weeks of your social life. You put in the game... and then you are shocked.. "THIS GAME IS AWFUL!". This has happened to many of us in our gaming career... Lets take a look into why this is often the case.
1. HYPE: Whether you think its in your mind or not... it's there. The marketing machine hard at work as well as your expectations growing up until you put the game in the game machine and actually play. The more anticipated a game is, the more it's likely to let you down. If this game is a sequel, there are many times that game devs try to appease the many fans by making a game much better than the first.. this often leads to devs breaking what wasn't broken.
2. DEVS VS. QA: This is why you see so many "glitches" or bugs in the game. Think of game development as a marathon where the marketing promises they will finish the race in a certain time.. but fail to mention they will attempt to do it by taking 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards the entire race. As developers add new things to the game (such as art, program code, new levels or areas, etc) the QA must then test it and tell devs what has broken since the new addition. With big budget games getting as big as they are.. Quality Assurance becomes infinitely harder to do well with the budgets given. Now, bugs are usually given a classification.. (such as graphics, text, design, cinematics, control, audio, etc.) Each bug is also given a ranking of seriousness. (such as 1-5 or A- E.) As time goes on in this marathon and the release date is fast approaching, it is up to the producers, execs, and some devs to decide which parts of the game to "block off" and which ranks to not fix. For example, 1 month before shipping, the Execs may tell the QA team that audio bugs are off limits and all C bugs are to still be written up but will not be fixed. (This is because fixing minor bugs may cause bigger problems. Fixing these 3 C's might cause 5 A's). Another problem is that Devs often times do not play their games as a QA tester might... Most of them are sick of the game when it needs to be played by them the most, which is just after going "Beta" and before going "Gold" (about to be released). So, when testers write bugs such as "this level is boring because of X, Y or Z" (most devs don't even think this is a bug). It is immediately written off as not a bug or "As designed" not fully knowing what the tester is talking about or sees. Of course, there are exceptions to this. I've known and seen devs play their levels. I've rarely seen a dev play the whole game like a tester would, it is not their job and they simply don't have time. So, by the last leg of the race, the race becomes, 2 steps forward and 0 steps back.. this is where devs go insane working really long hours turning 3000 bugs into 0 in 2 weeks and where QA gets pissed because they still have to bug the game even though they won't get fixed like many of their bugs are being disregarded.
3. MARKETING vs. DEVELOPMENT: In most cases, a game company will not set a specific release date without some idea that the set date will bring them the most amount of money. Whether its because they want to release before the competition or with a new piece of hardware, or with a movie release. With that being the case, the shift from quality to profits is inevitable. I believe, every development team wants to release a quality product, so they can say "I worked on that." rather than try to make some money. Trust me, the video game industry is NOT where you want to be if your sole purpose is to make money. There is just too much time, and stress involved. The company execs, however, are more concerned with keeping the company alive. There is a balance of course.. if the game is really bad, then the company reputation goes down the drain. Marketing often requires updates and interviews of a games progress. This can cause hype if features of a game are talked about and later on must be cut due to time/budget constraints or unforseen problems with the rest of the game.
4. PORTING: Assuming this game isn't specifically made for one system. Porting becomes a problem. In this generation of systems (Wii, Xbox360 and PS3) porting has never been tougher. Porting will never go away, but it causes so many bugs no matter how its handled. If a game is a regualar port, then the hardware differences causes problems. If the game is tailor made for each system the development time and cost is multiplied. Even if cost isn't a problem, time is.
With all these factors in play, it's no wonder that most games are released with lackluster reviews. As games become more complicated, with more variables, it becomes exponentially harder to test to find bugs. More time and bigger teams are required, which is not possible most of the time. To remedy this, some companies release patches for games, now that all major consoles have access to the internet. The only problem is getting a company to care about fixing a game (for free) after a gamer has purchased it. These patches, however, can only fix minor issues, not big issues such as bad game design. So next time you purchase a game that is released on a specific date (like with a movie release), go in with lowered expectations.