They should know the product they are selling, yes.
Responsiblity for poor port quality *spawn
- Thread starter Below2D
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That’s not saying anything. They can “know” by delegation too.
Does your boss validate all of your work or does she/he trust what you say?
That does not absolve them from responsibility for the product..... They aren't delegating responsibility.. they are delegating the work.. of which they are responsible.
My boss is responsible for me. If I mess up, he needs to explain it to the people above him.. because it ultimately reflects on him as a boss. If I keep messing up.. guess what happens? They either fire me, or they get fired themselves..
What we have here is a case of EA not taking responsibility for the people they are employing. The responsibility for the product lies with them, so that's where the blame goes.
We’re talking past each other. I never said EA isn’t accountable. Just like your boss is ultimately accountable for your work. I’m challenging that they are responsible for “doing” the work of quality assurance.
Where did EA shirk responsibility for Jedi?
Whether they do it themselves, or they trust the people they hired to do it... makes absolutely no difference. Literally in both cases they are responsible for the work being done.
In this case, the real bosses (consumers) have spoken, and the bosses at EA are responsible for the people they hire.
Ok, then I’m confused as to what we’re debating.
The comments from Sean and Sonic a few posts back were about EA doing and not delegating the quality assurance.
Well, it was brought up that EA shouldn't be blamed for Jedi's issues. The debate was whether or not EA should be held responsible for something Respawn said was good to go. The argument made was that EA asked if they wanted more time and offered to delay, and Respawn declined, so EA shouldn't be responsible since they didn't force them to ship it like that.
The problem with that, of course, is that EA is still responsible for the quality of the product they put out, regardless of whether or not they QA'd the game personally, or took Respawn's word for it. In both cases they are to blame.
I'd argue that if EA has a history of "taking devs word for it" then that may explain why EA has published the 3 top worst PC ports of 2023 according to Digital Foundry.. and perhaps something needs to change?
D
Deleted member 11852
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This is exactly how the real world works - I literally gave examples where Sony (the publisher) and Microsoft (the publisher) delayed the release of games because they weren't ready. It's incredibly rare for Sony to release a first party that has technical issues, do you think that's just coincidental? If EA are just pressing the publish button games without reviewing them, how exactly is the development studio accountable for a technically poor game? What is the recompense?
You didn't need to review Jedi Survivor's code to see it had technical issues. You just had to play it for 30 minutes.
I find the double standard a little funny.
Respawn ships Fallen Order: Everybody sings praise of how great Respawn is.
Respawn ships Jedi Survivor: Everybody blames EA for how awfully the game performs.
The game being great is on the dev but the game being bad is on the publisher.
Respawn ships Fallen Order: Everybody sings praise of how great Respawn is.
Respawn ships Jedi Survivor: Everybody blames EA for how awfully the game performs.
The game being great is on the dev but the game being bad is on the publisher.
D
Deleted member 11852
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The gaming industry is rife with double standards, but the publisher is the party with agency. Internal studios can't publish games on their own, nor do they have income beyond what publishers provide in terms of budget. Both developer and publisher have to fail to release a game with technical issues like Jedi Survivor.
Publishing well polished games is easy. EA would have been well aware of the technical issues but decided the game was "good enough" (or not bad enough to delay). Things that probably contributed was them wanting to hit their release schedule and I imagine EA was much more focused on their cash-cow footie franchise having declined to continue to pay FIFA for licensing. Double bad news in April/May, EA losing FIFA and a delay to Jedi Survivor would not have been good for EA's stock price.
Yes. I will stick by that EA should have a team of people playing and testing the game at various stages of development. These people should report and document bugs and issues they find. The dev then resolves those issues. Should the dev also be responsible for QA since theyre the ones making it and known the game? Absolutely. But the publisher is ultimately responsible thus should be the ones ensuring the product they're releasing meets their standards for quality.
Down to looking at the actual code should be left up to the dev. But at a point of playability there should be an involved process along the way to ensure quality.
Down to looking at the actual code should be left up to the dev. But at a point of playability there should be an involved process along the way to ensure quality.
arandomguy
Veteran
Jedi Survivor Credits -
EA does do the QA (or QV).
I'm puzzled how something like this would even be in question in that a company is going to invest tens of millions (on the low end) to hundreds of millions and just be completely hands off all the way to shipping. Does that make any common sense?
Maybe it's the term publisher that's a bit misleading in the modern context. Publishers in the modern sense aren't just handling marketing and distribution in many cases especially for releases from studios owned by the publisher themselves and those are directly investing in the game being released.
For EA specifically let's just say Respawn and Jedi Survivor is not the only inhouse studio/project that's had technical issues on release on the PC (which I think was the original discussion track).
As for the discussion of responsibility I'm puzzled by some of the line of thinking. I mean why stop at Respawn then since EA is only "hiring" them?" Respawn after isn't actually doing the work either, it's the people employed by them. Should it be the individuals in the credits? Not even the management/leads but the all the way to the bottom? Maybe it's just that one random QA tester who checked it's fine on the PC and everyone all the way up to EA's CEO just took their word for it...
Do we know the specifics here? Because it's a very different scenario if EA specifically for example says do you need 3 months to make sure there is no shader stutters on the PC because we value the platform very much (let's face it not chance here) and it absolutely needs to have quality parity with the PS5 on launch regardless of the overall sales impact vs. do you think you need 3 months for better sales numbers across all platforms?
This isn't an EA specific criticism here but we have face reality that for most publishers and developers they are looking at overall numbers and placing a higher emphasis on the console platforms and likely specifically the PS5. PC QA, especially for issues like shader stutter, are not going to the break point for whether or not a multiplatform game ships.
EA does do the QA (or QV).
I'm puzzled how something like this would even be in question in that a company is going to invest tens of millions (on the low end) to hundreds of millions and just be completely hands off all the way to shipping. Does that make any common sense?
Maybe it's the term publisher that's a bit misleading in the modern context. Publishers in the modern sense aren't just handling marketing and distribution in many cases especially for releases from studios owned by the publisher themselves and those are directly investing in the game being released.
For EA specifically let's just say Respawn and Jedi Survivor is not the only inhouse studio/project that's had technical issues on release on the PC (which I think was the original discussion track).
As for the discussion of responsibility I'm puzzled by some of the line of thinking. I mean why stop at Respawn then since EA is only "hiring" them?" Respawn after isn't actually doing the work either, it's the people employed by them. Should it be the individuals in the credits? Not even the management/leads but the all the way to the bottom? Maybe it's just that one random QA tester who checked it's fine on the PC and everyone all the way up to EA's CEO just took their word for it...
Do we know the specifics here? Because it's a very different scenario if EA specifically for example says do you need 3 months to make sure there is no shader stutters on the PC because we value the platform very much (let's face it not chance here) and it absolutely needs to have quality parity with the PS5 on launch regardless of the overall sales impact vs. do you think you need 3 months for better sales numbers across all platforms?
This isn't an EA specific criticism here but we have face reality that for most publishers and developers they are looking at overall numbers and placing a higher emphasis on the console platforms and likely specifically the PS5. PC QA, especially for issues like shader stutter, are not going to the break point for whether or not a multiplatform game ships.
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