Poll: Delay it or patch it?

[johnnybleu]

I know this will never happen in a million years, but how about just not revealing a game until right before release? Like maybe a few weeks or a month at the most. You don't have to worry about delaying because you're basically finished with the product anyway, and nobody has a chance to have any altered expectations of it based on previous promises that you couldn't uphold. And rather than feeling like we're always waiting for games to come out forever, it would instead be very exciting knowing that at any given time a major release could be about to release.

It's a good idea, but it's not good business. It stands to reason that you want to drum up as much buzz and hype for your product before it launches. The more people are aware, the more sales you get.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still love it if that's how things worked... Imagine not waiting a year or two before you can play that awesome game that was announced.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

Delay, I believe games should be actually finished before release.
Also, there is no guarantee that the patch will be available in 10 or 20 years, so that buggy mess you released is the game as far as history is concerned, especially on consoles. The intended experience lost forever.

 

[duwenbasden]

I say delay until all found game breaking bugs are fixed, and patch the rest. If you aim to eliminate all bugs and glitches you will never release it.

I'm really tired of downloading a patch day one or a patch much later to fix something that should have been fixed prior to launch.

As a developer, this is pretty much impossible. We'll need to build the final version in advance for tests, packaging, marketing and stuff. Day one patch stuff are usually bugs found after we built it, or stuff too close to deadline for inclusion.

 

[busterkeatonrules]

I say, delay.

This way, the consumer is assured the best possible experience as soon as the game DOES hit the shelves - and the developer doesn't have to deal with the inevitable PR loss that comes with releasing an overly unpolished game!

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I say delay until all found game breaking bugs are fixed, and patch the rest. If you aim to eliminate all bugs and glitches you will never release it.

I'm really tired of downloading a patch day one or a patch much later to fix something that should have been fixed prior to launch.

As a developer, this is pretty much impossible. We'll need to build the final version in advance for tests, packaging, marketing and stuff. Day one patch stuff are usually bugs found after we built it, or stuff too close to deadline for inclusion.

I should've been more clear by what I meant by that. Trying to articulate before proper levels of coffee have been reached is just no bueno.

If the patch is just to fix some minor bugs then whatever, I can deal. If it's to fix some major bugs that makes the game one giant clusterfuck then I have a problem with that. It's one reason why I don't get Elder Scrolls games on launch day and I wait a while, even if I find some of them highly amusing. I mean, I still giggle whenever my character or a NPC flies through the air when hit by a giant.

I guess it all depends on who developed the game too and their reputation on patches. Still, I would rather have a delayed game than a game that requires so many patches that pumpkins would get jealous over.

Does that make sense? My brain is still mush, so I'm probably talking out of my ass here. :/

 

[happyninja42]

I don't really care either way as I don't buy games on release anymore. So by the time I buy them, it's been like a year or more, and it's on a Steam sale, which by then, many patches have been released just through the standard process.

So, yeah, not a big issue.

 

[Aesir23]

It really depends on what state the game is in at the time which we aren't really privy to. If it's a buggy mess worthy of Bethesda Game Studios then I would definitely say delay it for however long is needed. If it's just a few very minor bugs or glitches that don't have too much of an impact then I would say patch it after release.

Mostly because delaying until it's absolutely flawless bug-wise just means that a lot of games will end up in Development Hell.

 

[J Tyran]

Delay it, unless the developer is 100% sure they can use the three months or so waiting for certification to create a day one patch and the publisher is confident in the developers ability to do it. Although some people wont like the idea of that and I can understand why, not everyone has a console or PC online or they are faced with bandwidth caps (some of these day one patches are getting big too!).

Hopefully we will see a little less of this now, both Ubisoft and EA have been kicked right where it hurts because of buggy releases. A ten percent drop in share price will do more to convince publishers to up their quality than a million raging consumers, when the board has to face an angry investor meeting and their jobs are at risk they will soon start to make sure games are functional.

 

[Candidus]

If it's playable, release it and patch it. I'd rather have the game sooner than later. I have no backlog. My time for gaming is unlimited and that means I'm always finished with X and looking for Y.

 

[TessaraVejgan]

We often hear news of games being delayed (Bloodborne, recently). Having a game you've been itching to play for months get pushed back another month or two is never fun, and at times painful. However, sometimes the devs just need that extra time to polish the game and squash a few more bugs.

Conversely, I've recently played the new Borderlands, and we had to restart the game every single time my wife and I played because of various bugs, glitches, freezes, and crashes. My wife even had her character's inventory wiped. Similarly, the Lords of the Fallen forum on Steam is filled with the threads of angry consumers who want a refund, or the ability to just play their game. Some are even going so far as accusing the developer of knowingly and deliberately releasing a buggy game, with no intention of patching it.

I'm fully aware that developing a game for PC has to be a nightmare, let alone developing a cross-platform game with a simultaneous launch. I'm also aware that some times, the publisher dictates when the game is released, and if they deem the game to be in a "good enough" state, they'll go ahead with the launch, especially since it's become increasingly easy to patch the game once it's out.

Personally, I'd prefer waiting a bit more and actually enjoying the experience to it's fullest. Sure, the waiting sucks, but it beats experiencing a faulty product.

What do you people think?

Delay the game. Best example AC:Unity, that game was definitely not ready for release. If you release a game in such a state you do more damage than if you delay it for a month or two.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Well a delay would annoy me, but that is about it. Trying to play a game and finding out it's broken and I have to wait for a patch? Well that will annoy me and piss me off greatly.

Yeah I'd rather just be annoyed, plenty of backlog to keep occupied with.

Captcha: Patience child

 

[Yuiiut]

Depends highly on what is being released. If it's an expansion/update to a game that's already been released, à la TF2 or CK2, run it as a public beta, and make the audience aware of the bugs. If it's a full blown release, it depends on the severity. Making some major quests impossible is delaying material, minor stuff is less important and can be patched.

 

[black_knight1337]

Definitely prefer it to be delayed. People will complain initially but I think most people would be fine with it if it means they get a great game, rather than a mediocre one. To quote Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad".

 

[Amaror]

I am with you 100%. I got it fairly early and it ran ok on my PC but I stopped playing in order to wait for the bugs to be worked out. After about 6 months I booted it back up and I had no fucking clue what I was doing for an hour because so much had been changed or added. I swear that the Senate politics stuff was not in the game at release.

OT:
Delay. If a game is released with a day 1 patch that works and fixes everything then fine, it would be annoying but I could live with it but so many games now have day 1 patches that seem to fix fuck all that it is just stupid. My interest in DA: Inqusition is very low as I hated DA2 and I have been burned one to many times by BiowEAr over the last few years but delaying it did improve my opinnion of them a bit. It show's that they are really trying to get it right this time.

This is really true. Releasing a shoddy product will hurt the devs reputation much more than any patch could fix. I know i most certainly will never preorder a Creative Assembly game ever again and i even stayed through empire.
Although i doubt i will actually buy any CA game again. They can be pretty good but i found any Paradox strategy game just so much better. yeah CA has RT-Battles, but they get boring and tedious very fast. And the strategy map gameplay almost always sucks compared to paradox game, so i know what i will buy.

 

[Emcee_N]

Delay, 100%. I'm tired of paying to be a beta tester.

This is really true. Releasing a shoddy product will hurt the devs reputation much more than any patch could fix. I know i most certainly will never preorder a Creative Assembly game ever again and i even stayed through empire.
Although i doubt i will actually buy any CA game again. They can be pretty good but i found any Paradox strategy game just so much better. yeah CA has RT-Battles, but they get boring and tedious very fast. And the strategy map gameplay almost always sucks compared to paradox game, so i know what i will buy.

Unfortunately right now Paradox isn't exactly a shining light on this either. The Charlemagne expansion for Crusader Kings 2 is a mess.

 

[jklinders]

I've played a few games that were shit right out of the box that needed to be patched up but can I offer a bit of perspective here? Firstly. Often times a release date is based on when they are most likely to sell a lot of copies of a game. All too often that can clash with what is possible in the dev cycle. Secondly, when the publisher wants to release is not necessarily when the dev is going to have it ready. I've seen this happen a lot where a dev needs more time but the publisher was like, "fuck you, we gave you that money last year and we need a return on it now."

It's actually worse for the few independents that are left. It could be a fools choice between adding that final layer of polish if development did not go as planned and eating that month if thy were self financing.

It sucks to be strung along for a long time waiting for pushed back releases. It also sucks to have a glitchy mess that needs to be patched up but much of the time we are looking at the production of a product that we as the fans of such demand perfect polish, innovation, the best graphics, the best story telling often produced across very different platforms because consoles are really stupid that way with their proprietary systems. So sometimes it gets released early, probably not perfect. Bills need to be paid though. This is not like shooting a movie, that is simple compared to producing a cross platform game. I guess this is why pre-ordering is becoming such a thing. It's gives them a bit more of their financing which could give them a bit of breathing room.

I would love to live in that perfect world where a company who is acting in good faith does not have to make that choice but we don't. There is a caveat though,(EA I'm talking to you here, you had no fucking excuse with SIM city or Battlefield those were non working products) when you are releasing something that is just not even remotely what is advertized and are still not fixing it a year in, that is not acting in good faith. I would argue though, that the patch/delay dynamic does not play in that case though. If you were never going to make it work, then it was never going to work, end of.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Delay.

That way no one has to play the game when it's shitty, review scores will be higher since you are also going to have time to tweak the game a bit, and it will mostly likely not affect sales as much.

Unless you're foolhardy enough to face off with Call of Duty during Broke-tober, you're better off releasing a game when there aren't many AAAs around >.>

 

[Rabbitboy]

Delay it of course. You can't justify putting a product on the market that you know doesn't work properly.

 

[Username Redacted]

Delay, I believe games should be actually finished before release.
Also, there is no guarantee that the patch will be available in 10 or 20 years, so that buggy mess you released is the game as far as history is concerned, especially on consoles. The intended experience lost forever.

This is something that I've brought up a lot with one of my preferred genres in fighting games and people don't seem to think of it as big problem. Which is weird because at the moment if you buy a new or used copy of the relatively recently released and by average tournament size third largest fighting game in the world in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 you cannot actually play the entire roster because two of the characters where DLC and are no longer available for sale due to licensing issues/Capcom being Capcom. No idea why people aren't more worried about this.

I also voted for delay because being forced to shove an unfinished product out the door all but assured that one of my favorite games of all time (Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines) will never see a sequel.