Game devs on trial - considerations on current game technical quality and causes *spawn

[DavidGraham]

So, a bit related, this is a great article going over the graphics pipeline in Cities Skylines 2 and where things are likely going wrong:

Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

This game shows developer incompetence of the highest degree. First choosing the wrong engine for their game (Unity’s integration between DOTS and HDRP is still very much a work in progress and unsuitable for most actual games, and Unity’s virtual texturing solution remains eternally in beta), they didn't even do a proper research on the engine before selecting it for their project. If they did, they would have discovered it lacked functions in key areas (LOD, Geometry Culling, Shadowing, Virtual Texturing). This is developer 101.

Developer 102 is that when an engine is failing you, you should switch to another engine, or do a custom engine, and if you are going custom, you do it properly, with good optimizations. But they didn't do any of this, instead they stuck with Unity, and then they wrote custom work on top of it to compensate for it's failures, but they half assed that, and then rushed the game out of the door with horrendous performance profile, coupled with outdated visuals. If that's not the text book definition of a failure, I don't know what is.

This is what's wrong with the gaming industry in one glorified example.

 

[see colon]

This game shows developer incompetence of the highest degree. First choosing the wrong engine for their game (Unity’s integration between DOTS and HDRP is still very much a work in progress and unsuitable for most actual games, and Unity’s virtual texturing solution remains eternally in beta), they didn't even do a proper research on the engine before selecting it for their project. If they did, they would have discovered it lacked functions in key areas (LOD, Geometry Culling, Shadowing, Virtual Texturing). This is developer 101.

Developer 102 is that when an engine is failing you, you should switch to another engine, or do a custom engine, and if you are going custom, you do it properly, with good optimizations. But they didn't do any of this, instead they stuck with Unity, and then they wrote custom work on top of it to compensate for it's failures, but they half assed that, and then rushed the game out of the door with horrendous performance profile, coupled with outdated visuals. If that's not the text book definition of a failure, I don't know what is.

This is what's wrong with the gaming industry in one glorified example.

While I do agree with this line of thought about the how and why IRT Cities... The exact opposite happened with Duke Nukem Forever. They did change engines when they knew they wouldn't be able to meet their vision. They did take their time to rewrite what then needed after the engine switch. But they still shipped a product with outdated visuals and questionable performance. I think the difference with Duke is that 3D Realms had the funding to develop a game for an extended period of time, until of course they didn't. What it really all comes down to is funding. CO or Paradox obviously know where they are financially much better than we do, but they must have concluded that they had to ship or they wouldn't have shipped.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

The problem with the gaming industry is the lack of standards of practice, and the lack of strict credentials to practice that practice. In my medical field, I can't do anything without having the proper credentials for it and the training hours that prove I have that credential, I get tested on a practical and theoretical basis all the time, and I also get peer reviewed constantly. When there is a suspicion of malpractice or misdiagnosis, the complaint is taken seriously, and a committee of my peers will do a serious investigation to figure out what happened, and whose to blame.

Ignoring the obvious differences between a profession that deals directly with people's lives and one of pure entertainment, let me take one more stab at your analogy. I admit to getting a bit tired of this discussion because no matter how many times we go over this people just ignore the answers from folks who actually work in the industry and substitute their own narratives, but let's give it one more shot.

In the medical field it's easy to say we want very high standards of care and the like, but when you look broadly at long term strategies and outcomes, it's fair to say that we are far from optimal. Despite ample evidence that we should be spending far more time and effort on preventative and primary care than reactive emergency care, for whatever reason we never can seem to allocate resources to that end. In my country it has gotten to the point that most people can't even have a family doctor and those that do usually can't see them on any sort of timely basis for non-chronic conditions. The medical professionals are working long hours and doing hard work and are plenty qualified, but the system is not producing anywhere near optimal results. If anything, a focus on the bureaucracy is actually harming us at this point because it is too difficult to integrate very qualified immigrant doctors into our system despite the great need.

It's easy for me as a "consumer" to look at this and say that the people involved at some level are either incompetent or at the very least inefficient. There has never been more money devoted to our medical system (per capita) as there is today, and yet the results are objectively worse than they were a decade or two ago. Is this all sounding familiar at all?

Of course you will correctly tell me that there are many other interacting factors that are affecting the analysis: the population is aging, standards of care have risen, external costs have grown disproportionately, etc. But rather than consider the complexity of any real profession, isn't it fair at some level for me to just stamp my feet as a "consumer" and say "sure but if I can't bring my sick kid to see a doctor the problem is on you to fix"?

There are direct analogies to all of this in the games industry. Certainly there's also the fact that anyone can make a game these days, but that effect is largely additive (the rate of new game releases has never been higher, despite rising complexity, etc). Luckily in games though we have a pretty robust mechanism for driving industry behavior based on aggregate consumer desires without any messy ethical considerations: the competitive market. It's a cliché, but as this is pure entertainment nothing more is required than the age old "vote with your wallet". I think the real fear behind a lot of the complaining here is that our personal feelings on certain priorities is probably not as representative of the mass market as we would want, but conversely the market is large enough now for different folks to cater to smaller audiences. If someone isn't hitting your priorities at a certain point just shrug and move on. As a medical worker I would assume you know that it's not worth the stress of being mad all the time.

First choosing the wrong engine for their game (Unity’s integration between DOTS and HDRP is still very much a work in progress and unsuitable for most actual games, and Unity’s virtual texturing solution remains eternally in beta), they didn't even do a proper research on the engine before selecting it for their project. If they did, they would have discovered it lacked functions in key areas (LOD, Geometry Culling, Shadowing, Virtual Texturing). This is developer 101.

You have to realize you are falling victim to the most basic hindsight bias here, right? Almost every project has folks freaking out that it's going to be a disaster and here's all the things that can go wrong. It's easy for literally anyone to pick the ones that didn't come together after the fact and say "see, look how dumb you were I never would have made that mistake".

Furthermore in this case I assume you're aware that CS1 is also a Unity game, and in general the tech worked pretty well there? I don't imagine they had budget or scope to switch to another engine, and certainly not once it was becoming clear that whatever they were trying to do with it in CS2 was not going to get fixed. Again obviously it's easy to say "they should just acknowledge their sunk cost and move on", but I don't imagine there's any world in which these studios have so much spare capital they can pivot the game engine in the middle of project. The notion that companies can just decide to make their own engine from scratch if they discover something is not a good fit is so ridiculous I don't even know if you are being serious.

The options here were almost certainly release it in a bad state and try and fix it up more in patches, or abandon the project entirely. It's easy for us to be sassy and say they should just abandon it and start over, but at the same time I'm sure we'd be all up in arms here if the headline was about a game cancellation and layoffs, right?

tldr: yeah obviously stuff went wrong with games like CS2, and that's why reviews exist. It's fine to say that it's a shame and not buy it, but let's not get so full of ourselves that we think our external 2-bit forum post hot take analysis on how to run a game company is worth anything. To end with another cliché, if you think you have all the answers, nothing is stopping you from proving it in the market.

 

[trinibwoy]

But rather than consider the complexity of any real profession, isn't it fair at some level for me to just stamp my feet as a "consumer" and say "sure but if I can't bring my sick kid to see a doctor the problem is on you to fix"?

Yep 100%. The sick kid example is the extreme but that goes for any service or product.

If you buy some McDonalds fries and they’re cold you don’t ponder whether the person on shift is a tired, poor single mother working 3 jobs. You just want warm fries for your money.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Ignoring the obvious differences between a profession that deals directly with people's lives and one of pure entertainment, let me take one more stab at your analogy. I admit to getting a bit tired of this discussion because no matter how many times we go over this people just ignore the answers from folks who actually work in the industry and substitute their own narratives, but let's give it one more shot.

In the medical field it's easy to say we want very high standards of care and the like, but when you look broadly at long term strategies and outcomes, it's fair to say that we are far from optimal. Despite ample evidence that we should be spending far more time and effort on preventative and primary care than reactive emergency care, for whatever reason we never can seem to allocate resources to that end. In my country it has gotten to the point that most people can't even have a family doctor and those that do usually can't see them on any sort of timely basis for non-chronic conditions. The medical professionals are working long hours and doing hard work and are plenty qualified, but the system is not producing anywhere near optimal results. If anything, a focus on the bureaucracy is actually harming us at this point because it is too difficult to integrate very qualified immigrant doctors into our system despite the great need.

It's easy for me as a "consumer" to look at this and say that the people involved at some level are either incompetent or at the very least inefficient. There has never been more money devoted to our medical system (per capita) as there is today, and yet the results are objectively worse than they were a decade or two ago. Is this all sounding familiar at all?

Of course you will correctly tell me that there are many other interacting factors that are affecting the analysis: the population is aging, standards of care have risen, external costs have grown disproportionately, etc. But rather than consider the complexity of any real profession, isn't it fair at some level for me to just stamp my feet as a "consumer" and say "sure but if I can't bring my sick kid to see a doctor the problem is on you to fix"?

There are direct analogies to all of this in the games industry. Certainly there's also the fact that anyone can make a game these days, but that effect is largely additive (the rate of new game releases has never been higher, despite rising complexity, etc). Luckily in games though we have a pretty robust mechanism for driving industry behavior based on aggregate consumer desires without any messy ethical considerations: the competitive market. It's a cliché, but as this is pure entertainment nothing more is required than the age old "vote with your wallet". I think the real fear behind a lot of the complaining here is that our personal feelings on certain priorities is probably not as representative of the mass market as we would want, but conversely the market is large enough now for different folks to cater to smaller audiences. If someone isn't hitting your priorities at a certain point just shrug and move on. As a medical worker I would assume you know that it's not worth the stress of being mad all the time.


You have to realize you are falling victim to the most basic hindsight bias here, right? Almost every project has folks freaking out that it's going to be a disaster and here's all the things that can go wrong. It's easy for literally anyone to pick the ones that didn't come together after the fact and say "see, look how dumb you were I never would have made that mistake".

Furthermore in this case I assume you're aware that CS1 is also a Unity game, and in general the tech worked pretty well there? I don't imagine they had budget or scope to switch to another engine, and certainly not once it was becoming clear that whatever they were trying to do with it in CS2 was not going to get fixed. Again obviously it's easy to say "they should just acknowledge their sunk cost and move on", but I don't imagine there's any world in which these studios have so much spare capital they can pivot the game engine in the middle of project. The notion that companies can just decide to make their own engine from scratch if they discover something is not a good fit is so ridiculous I don't even know if you are being serious.

The options here were almost certainly release it in a bad state and try and fix it up more in patches, or abandon the project entirely. It's easy for us to be sassy and say they should just abandon it and start over, but at the same time I'm sure we'd be all up in arms here if the headline was about a game cancellation and layoffs, right?

tldr: yeah obviously stuff went wrong with games like CS2, and that's why reviews exist. It's fine to say that it's a shame and not buy it, but let's not get so full of ourselves that we think our external 2-bit forum post hot take analysis on how to run a game company is worth anything. To end with another cliché, if you think you have all the answers, nothing is stopping you from proving it in the market.

I really hope more people read this.

The hyper focus on AAA developers, metacritic reliant reviews often being a key part of funding for future projects, differing sectors of gamers demanding developers cater to their specific desires even though that would mean a 20 year development time to make every single vocal gamer happy, ridiculous focus on graphics above all else, etc. is, IMO, one reason that AAA game development is not in a good place while indie game development is flourishing (less hyper focused attention by backseat non-industry people telling developers how to do things because they supposedly know better).

I still like to see what a AAA developer can accomplish but the magnifying lens they are under in the age of social media and demands by people to make things for them because they are the most important gamer and obviously all gamers want the same things they do, etc. means that often their games end up either a mess or so generic as to be uninteresting to me because instead of creating their vision of a game, they are allowing social media driven gaming "voices" dictate the direction of their game.

Thank goodness indie developers don't "generally" face that level of rabid gamer 20/20 hindsight and if they do, they often don't give a shite because they don't need their game to sell millions of copies in order to recoup their investment.

Regards,
SB

 

[BitByte]

It’s awful tiring reading people layer excuse after excuse as to why game developers shouldn’t be subject to criticism. The criticism they face pales in comparison to many professions. A majority of the criticism is relegated to forums like this and social media. For the most part, the criticism can be ignored by the average developer. Stay off social media and you’re good.

Many people receive their criticism face to face from their “clients”. They’re often forced to be in the presence of the party levying the criticism and are forced to deal with the situation. Above, the example of the medical field was used and a worse example couldn’t have been chosen. Medical professionals are often subject to criticism from the patients they treat, the patients families, the hospital administrators, etc. They face the pressures of life altering consequences for their failures from regulatory bodies and the law. Despite all of this, they still push through.

The complaints about the dev are usually levied against the collective. When complaints are levied against an individual, it’s usually because they represent the collective. They’re either the most visible representation or they’ve chosen to shine their attention seeking beacon on social media. There are studios out here over promising and under delivering. They’re falsely advertising their products and swindling consumers out of their hard earned money. Consumers left with no avenue for recourse swallow it and move on with a small minority voicing complaints. Once in a while, the vat fills and boils over. Then we get a cyberpunk situation. In the rare instance it happens, a majority of the consumers levy their complaints against the collective. Nobody is calling out John from programming except John was visible either on social media or in company or. Sometimes you have up 3000+ people working on a project. 99% of them aren’t visible to the consumer.

To suggest that developers face a notable amount of complaints is laughable. In terms of criticism, they get off rather lightly comparatively speaking.

 

[Subtlesnake]

It’s awful tiring reading people layer excuse after excuse as to why game developers shouldn’t be subject to criticism. The criticism they face pales in comparison to many professions. A majority of the criticism is relegated to forums like this and social media. For the most part, the criticism can be ignored by the average developer. Stay off social media and you’re good.

Many people receive their criticism face to face from their “clients”. They’re often forced to be in the presence of the party levying the criticism and are forced to deal with the situation. Above, the example of the medical field was used and a worse example couldn’t have been chosen. Medical professionals are often subject to criticism from the patients they treat, the patients families, the hospital administrators, etc. They face the pressures of life altering consequences for their failures from regulatory bodies and the law. Despite all of this, they still push through.

I don't think Andrew Lauritzen was claiming that medical professionals don't face criticism or shouldn't be held accountable for their actions, but that there are structural factors that affect what they can accomplish in their profession. The debate has focussed heavily on the emotional aspect of holding people accountable for their mistakes when they may have difficult and challenging lives. That's always going to be a highly challenging and subjective assessment to make, and I don't think it gets to the heart of the issue, which is that criticism should be made in the context of the development process itself.

In assessing whether a given doctor is at fault, we don't merely consider the outcome but whether they acted in the most effective way given the information they had at the time. It may be that they did everything they could and the patient still died, or it may be that they made errors that would have been minor on their own but were worsened by other factors. Or it may be that they acted completely unreasonably and arguably cost the patient their life. Neither outcome can be "known" simply by pointing to the end result (patient death). It seems to me that game development is similar in that that it requires hundreds of micro-decisions that must be made under time pressure and incomplete information that can compound to create good or bad outcomes. As consumers we see the result of those decisions, but we don't know the context in which they were made, and what alternatives were available at the time.

For example, picking the wrong engine or technology set may lead to a poor performing product. But were the issues with that technology known at the time it was chosen? Was a reasonable effort made to validate how the technology would work in the end product? Was enough time given in the pre-production phase? Were the intentions of the designers (what the technology need to do) clearly communicated? The answers to these questions may indicate that particular people were at fault, or there was a problem with the team dynamics or insufficient supervision by management. Or it may be that the technical issue was not easily forseable and the team was largely "unlucky". But calling devs lazy or incompetent does nothing to get at the answers to these questions.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It’s awful tiring reading people layer excuse after excuse as to why game developers shouldn’t be subject to criticism.

As Subtlesnake says, there's no protecting against criticism but an ask for people to actually get to the roots of the faults, and move away from the 'lazy and incompetent'. Andrew Lauritzen was explicit in drawing the parallel between criticising the work and how factors other than the workers are affecting that work, but that seems to have gone completely over your head. trinibwoy's analogy underlined that.

 

[DavidGraham]

In the medical field it's easy to say we want very high standards of care and the like, but when you look broadly at long term strategies and outcomes, it's fair to say that we are far from optimal

Actually yes, you are completely right within this. The medical field faces criticism all the time, and I mean all the time, if the patient is not satisfied with the service, he can file a complaint, he can change the doctor, change the hospital, he can sue and get compensated. You as a medical professional have to abide by strict rules of conduct, otherwise you face disciplinary actions. Gaming needs some of this.

Even the government crticizes the health sector. We don't settle for the worst standards and call it a day, we strive constantly for improvement. If the health sector maintained the same current lenient rules of conduct as the gaming sector, there would be chaos in the world.

Of course you will correctly tell me that there are many other interacting factors that are affecting the analysis

No I won't. Nobody will, unlike the gaming industry, the medical industry realizes defects and admits them. More money needs to be spent on the medical sector, more foreign doctors should be allowed in, more of the population should incentivized to graduate from med school, emergency specialities need to increase in number, lots more need to be done, and corrective actions are taken all the time.

It's becoming quite clear the gaming sector has hit its lowest point, it's gone rampant with shitty predatory practices and unchecked deterioration of quality standards. From fake DLCs to harmful addictive microtransactions to disguised gampling practices, and now we have literally dysfunctional games being released with full prices. (The number of studios releasing apology statements in 2023 reached an all time high). Worse yet, some people defend this as a natural occurence, with no corrective measures being even suggested.

I don't imagine they had budget or scope to switch to another engine, and certainly not once it was becoming clear that whatever they were trying to do with it in CS2 was not going to get fixed

Which is why proper research is important. You don't see doctors treating patients before they gather a full detailed history about them before they start the treatment.

The developers have worked with Unity before, they should know the state of the engine well in advance. They either went on full steam ahead knowing the engine is bad, or they didn't know. In either case it speaks about incompetence. In any other profession this will be considered an extreme case of failure.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Gaming needs some of this.

It's a hobby! Why should it warrant the kind of safe-guards as life-threatening health and construction?? As a hobby, it's 'regulated' solely by capitalistic principles. If it's not good enough, people will stop spending money. So long as people spend money, the people are assumed to be getting exactly what they want because they keep funding it.

The developers have worked with Unity before, they should know the state of the engine well in advance. They either went on full steam ahead knowing the engine is bad, or they didn't know. In either case it speaks about incompetence.

It doesn't work that way. The engine is evolving; new features are added. Do you choose the new ones, a WIP, or stick with the old which may be inadequate for your vision? If your game requires the new ones, you use them on faith. Then Unity lets you down and you are struggling with working with on shonky product that you are dependent on making money. The DOTS system was compelling in principle, but devs who jumped in and supported Unity's efforts with feedback etc. got a raw deal. Those who played it safe worked with existing knowledge. BUT...if the DOTS stack had worked out, those who gambled on it would have benefited. Free-market economics at play, risk and reward, etc. Some did alright from adapting to DOTS and produced something with bigger scope than anyone else and secured sales as a result.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@BitByte Game developers are providing a product to you. Criticize the product. There's absolutely no reason to go after the devs themselves. It's not even helpful. You aren't paying for the devs, you're paying for the game. For example, a game like Cities skyline 2, there's no real benefit to other consumers in digging into the devs workplace and practices. The end result is the game, which has a ton of problems, which is the thing other gamers need to know about. I just generally view going after devs as unproductive. And the same holds true for any other product. Unless the company is dumping chemicals, or breaking laws in your country or something.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@DavidGraham Standards bodies and regulation in video games would be a nightmare. It's easy enough to just not buy broken games. People need to stop pre-ordering or getting hyped about games years before they come out. Just wait until the game is out, read reviews and check user impressions. We've been doing this with movies, music, books and other "entertainment" products for decades. Vote with your wallet. Gamers need to stop buying broken games and demanding they get fixed. Don't buy the game in the first place and only buy it when it's at a suitable level.

 

[troyan]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1721827948305465635

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Gaming needs some of this.

Absolutely, that was the point in my post! I thought I was pretty clear with that in my analogy about bringing your sick kid to the doctor, but it seems not so let me just say it directly: criticism is great and necessary. Market feedback in terms of not buying something that doesn't meet your standards is great too.

Nobody will, unlike the gaming industry, the medical industry realizes defects and admits them. More money needs to be spent on the medical sector, more foreign doctors should be allowed in, more of the population should incentivized to graduate from med school, emergency specialities need to increase in number, lots more need to be done, and corrective actions are taken all the time.

You're making my point perfectly It's almost as if me just saying "the problem is all the doctors are incompetent" would show a profound lack of understanding of the real problems facing the medical industry, yeah?

Few people are denying any of the issues in recent game releases. Hell CS2 told us about them *in advance*. But the causes and fixes are complex and while progress is made all the time on various fronts, there will always be more work to do - in both the games and medical industries. That's not an excuse, just like folks explaining some of the reasons why I can't get a doctor appointment are an excuse; we all know it's unacceptable, but my notions of how to fix the problem (fire all the doctors and get new ones who are smarter!) are probably not helpful.

The point in my posts on this subject have been around people's naïve, simplistic theory-crafting about why various issues in games happen, not that the issues aren't happening. Obviously individuals will have different opinions on how serious various problems are, but while admittedly the internet hyperbole gets a bit old, I don't think you'll find that I tell people they aren't allowed to complain or criticize things.

So let me just be explicit on my point here: your simplistic notions that the issues are due to personal lack of expertise are very off the mark, at least for large games (indy games all over the board of course). The people working on these games are very qualified and can do their jobs well. The problems are more systemic and economically-driven, involving planning, scheduling and risk management in a competitive field where misses can easily sink a company. Do I think those aspects can get better? Absolutely, and they *need* to as the problem space in these gigantic games has never been more complicated leading to complexity greater than the industry really knows how to deal with well. But even if you got the N "most skilled/experienced/certified" developers in the world together and decided to make a game, we have plenty of history to tell us that doesn't even guarantee you'll ever finish it, let alone make a good one.

The point in my analogy was indeed to say criticism is important and please continue. But the problems facing the industry are not simple things like developer training or certification, which is where folks here tend to get off the rails.

The developers have worked with Unity before, they should know the state of the engine well in advance. They either went on full steam ahead knowing the engine is bad, or they didn't know. In either case it speaks about incompetence. In any other profession this will be considered an extreme case of failure.

It is very much the norm to develop many systems in parallel with making a game both for dogfood purposes and to avoid endlessly iterating on "tools" that don't end up being needed. This obviously introduces risk of things not "coming together" at the end but this is nothing new to the business. Some games can manage tech risk more by explicitly targeting existing tech (again, see a ton of indy and even some AAA games), but the games that get the press are often very explicitly the ones that are trying to push the tech forward, which will always have some inherent risk. Again it's easy to say they should have managed this better and had mitigation strategies for CS2, but hindsight only sees the losers. Many great, successful, critically loved games are barely functional until months or even weeks before launch; this is discussed a fair bit in many game dev documentaries so you don't need to believe me.

But again, if you want games or platforms that take on less tech risk and focus more on polish than features, those absolutely still exist (hi Nintendo!).

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's a hobby! Why should it warrant the kind of safe-guards as life-threatening health and construction?? As a hobby, it's 'regulated' solely by capitalistic principles. If it's not good enough, people will stop spending money. So long as people spend money, the people are assumed to be getting exactly what they want because they keep funding it.

You've put a winky face, but that is exactly how the free market is supposed to work. Then where products are lacking, unappealing or too expensive, the free market will generally correct itself, with these poor practices losing favour with consumers. But as we've seen with poor quality games, plenty of people in these forums have adopted the position that the law and industry regulation should protect them from their inability to only purchase software after it's quality has been assessed, and this simply isn't working.

It's clear the same people - and it's always the same people - have proven themselves unable to change - so we end up in this situation that human beings seemingly with less adaptability than the average pigeon are always angry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ People buying things unseen is really the problem and I can assure you that Government and other legislature are not interested in protecting idiots from themselves.

edit: and the irony is people who refuse to change themselves (which is within their control), genuinely expect change in others (which isn't). There also need to be recognition that it is publishers, moneymen, who are in control here and not developers. And there is only one place to hit them. Until that happens, there will be no widespread change,.

 

[Albuquerque]

Thank you @Andrew Lauritzen for the excellent content. For two years I ran a ~15 person software dev shop for a fortune 250 retail org in Irvine, CA and can absolutely say it had nearly the same parallels. Replace "game engine" with "point of sale engine" and you get most of the same issues... The folks who wrote the software make a lot of capabilities claims and promises, some of those claims are partial-truths, some of those promises slip dates (sometimes quite extensively.) A business decision is made, way up front, that a specific software will be purchased and a large investment is made. Then 12 months of plowing through getting the basics functioning to your liking, you realize some things just aren't what you expected.

Yeah, the software dev shop offered XYZ as a feature, but never really clarified what a pain in the ass it would be to actually use it, or how to adapt it to how the company's data (art?) pipeline expected it to work. They promised this new thing and have a beta function you can test next week, but the beta function changes methods and properties 20 times before it finally makes it to a production release 18 months later in a completely different state than it started.

OK, so when you've decided it's just a never ending migraine, we can just throw away a few million dollars of licensed software and start again right? Don't forget the millions of dollars of our own software and tools development, which now represents a sizable capital investment in public financial GAAP reporting, also becomes a writedown too? Not on your life. That shit is gonna get bubble-gummed and duct-taped until it works the way it needs to, because the shareholders are going to eat us for breakfast for a $15MM writedown on a project we only started 18 months ago that we've been reporting as getting closer and closer to final delivery.

It doesn't work that way for "normal" software developers either, folks. Stopping in the middle of a $millions USD project to scrap and rebuild it costs not just time, but also money and product delivery timelines (which also equate to money.)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

edit: and the irony is people who refuse to change themselves (which is within their control), genuinely expect change in others (which isn't). There also need to be recognition that it is publishers, moneymen, who are in control here and not developers. And there is only one place to hit them. Until that happens, there will be no widespread change,.

Just a few additions here.

We should change lazy devs to lazy consumers (entitled consumers?). Consumers are the ones encouraging this behavior. Instead of doing what needs to be done in order to effect change (vote with their wallet), they expect others to do all the work for them. Expecting others to be responsible (don't buy it if it isn't up to par) while they themselves want to have their cake and eat it too (they want to play the game regardless of how bad it is, despite knowing how bad it is or not caring if it's good or bad by pre-ordering).

I don't buy things that are broken generally unless there's something else at play I want to reward the developer for. I don't shop at places that don't deserve my money because they don't put the consumer first. I don't have my vehicle serviced at places that don't provide good service. Yes, some of that requires some sacrifice (I don't any exclusive products offered at shops I refuse to buy product at, I have to spend time to research good service centers, I have to wait user reviews of a product before I can play the product, etc.).

Heck, prior to release, Lords of the Fallen appeared to be just the type of game I'd love, a Souls Like. Then it came out and nuh-uh. Poor performance combined with bad implementation of the Souls-Like formula with some interesting innovations that aren't enough to raise it to at least mediocrity within that genre.

Disclaimer: I'm a bad (lazy) consumer when it comes to Warhammer games. I'll pre-order the shit out of those and then self-regret whenever they are bad (a lot of the time ). But at least I know it's my fault for pre-ordering it and I don't need to go around shouting to the world that the dev sucks. I'll just leave a bad review (to help other people make an informed decision) and move on.

Regards,
SB

 

[Albuquerque]

We should change lazy devs to lazy consumers (entitled consumers?). Consumers are the ones encouraging this behavior. Instead of doing what needs to be done in order to effect change (vote with their wallet), they expect others to do all the work for them. Expecting others to be responsible (don't buy it if it isn't up to par) while they themselves want to have their cake and eat it too (they want to play the game regardless of how bad it is, despite knowing how bad it is or not caring if it's good or bad by pre-ordering).

I don't buy things that are broken generally unless there's something else at play I want to reward the developer for. I don't shop at places that don't deserve my money because they don't put the consumer first. I don't have my vehicle serviced at places that don't provide good service. Yes, some of that requires some sacrifice (I don't any exclusive products offered at shops I refuse to buy product at, I have to spend time to research good service centers, I have to wait user reviews of a product before I can play the product, etc.).

I agree with all of this, and I have another one to add... I was just talking about Starfield in another B3D thread and your commentary seems like it extends to the genuine shitstorm of stupidity of game reviews posted on various social media sites. Specifically using Starfield as an example: in the last three days there was an r/Starfield post of "I have hundreds of hours in this game, and I'm level 100+, and it's a complete piece of shit! Cold-Toddie Howard and BSG should be ashamed of this horrible game!" So that person crammed multiple hundreds of hours of playtime (someone did the math, it was approximately seven hours per day for every day since launch) into the game before deciding it was bad? Why didn't they take the advice from this very thread and give up 10 hours in and write it off then???

Literally these threads exist, in multiple social media platforms and even in Steam reviews. Hell, some of the Steam ones are even more hilarious and more than a few seem quite serious. "UrMomGaymerMemer69420 wrote: Yeah fuck this game it's complete bullshit leveling is shit NPCs are shit animation is shit graphics are shit storyline is shit weapons are shit skills are shit the whole thing is all just layers upon layers of infinite shit like so many turtles holding up the flat earth!!!! -Thumbs Down, Steam Verified Purchase. Reviewer Playtime: 9,182 hours since July 18th 2019"

Sorry, if you're going to drop hundreds of hours into any game, and then tell us all how it's shit? Take some responsibility for your own actions man...

 

[Scott_Arm]

@Albuquerque Those are always my favourite steam reviews: Played 1000 hours, game sucks.

Honestly, I think those particular gamers just have some kind of addiction or lives that don't have much else going on, so they fill the time with games even if they don't like them. Just my armchair psychology degree in action.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I agree with all of this, and I have another one to add... I was just talking about Starfield in another B3D thread and your commentary seems like it extends to the genuine shitstorm of stupidity of game reviews posted on various social media sites. Specifically using Starfield as an example: in the last three days there was an r/Starfield post of "I have hundreds of hours in this game, and I'm level 100+, and it's a complete piece of shit! Cold-Toddie Howard and BSG should be ashamed of this horrible game!" So that person crammed multiple hundreds of hours of playtime (someone did the math, it was approximately seven hours per day for every day since launch) into the game before deciding it was bad? Why didn't they take the advice from this very thread and give up 10 hours in and write it off then???

Literally these threads exist, in multiple social media platforms and even in Steam reviews. Hell, some of the Steam ones are even more hilarious and more than a few seem quite serious. "UrMomGaymerMemer69420 wrote: Yeah fuck this game it's complete bullshit leveling is shit NPCs are shit animation is shit graphics are shit storyline is shit weapons are shit skills are shit the whole thing is all just layers upon layers of infinite shit like so many turtles holding up the flat earth!!!! -Thumbs Down, Steam Verified Purchase. Reviewer Playtime: 9,182 hours since July 18th 2019"

Sorry, if you're going to drop hundreds of hours into any game, and then tell us all how it's shit? Take some responsibility for your own actions man...

Yeah, I'll never understand the mentality that goes into spending time in a game that you don't enjoy or that you think sucks. It's almost like some of these people want to be part of the "cool" club and complain even though they secretly enjoyed the game or they kept playing even though they hated every moment just so they would have a "valid" reason to complain. Or the enjoyed the game, but don't like Bethesda/Microsoft/Todd Howard/whatever and want to vociferously complain so that people won't get the impression that they like Bethesda/Microsoft/Todd Howard/whatever ... as if anyone cares.

Regardless, it's weird.

Regards,
SB