I have a question I’d like answered. I have a hunch as to what the answer really is, but I’d love for some game developer to stumble across this and actually comment on it (even if anonymously.) How do seriously bad games ever get released? At some point in the development process, people involved in the games HAVE to know the game they’re working on isn’t fun, or is somehow substandard. Is it that game development inherently ALWAYS starts as an unfun project that slowly evolves into a fun game along the way, or do the really great games start out fun and end up being fun to play?
I understand that working with a game for months, or years can certainly affect your ability to objectively look at it, but I also know most games aren’t developed by one or two people; they’re developed by teams of dozens (if not hundreds) of people. I have to believe there is always someone with limited enough exposure such that they’re not affected by the day-in day-out bias, yet they’re still close enough to the project to get a (bad) feeling about the game; to realize and potentially even say “Hey, this isn’t really fun…” If they do, apparently nobody listens to these people, because these games are still being released.
How does that happen?
Is it the natural hierarchy of game development where the programmers rule? Are the QA testers and artists “unqualified” in the programmers’ eyes to offer opinions like “You know, these controls… they’re sloppy and inconsistent.” Are people afraid to bruise egos? With other people’s (and company’s) money on the line, do individuals no longer have any say, leaving only groupthink and committees to make judgement calls?
I’m only asking because if you walk into a typical store that sells video games and pick up a handful of games (without careful cherry picking), you’re almost guaranteed to pick up a game that went through the entire game development process, from an idea for a game, to the pitching the idea to a company, to securing financing to back up the idea, to entering into full production likely with artists, musicians, etc. The game will be tested, marketed, and released. Yet through all those steps, you’re likely to be holding at LEAST one piece of garbage in your hands.
I’m not sure there’s one singular answer to these questions which would be nice since that would seemingly make it easier to put an end to it. Given that the video game industry has been plagued with an inordinate amount of garbage for almost as long as there’s been a video game industry, let me ask another question. Where does all the money come from that funds the development and marketing of all these games that lose money? Someone had to make the money that’s lost on video games that tank and a cruise through the local gaming store or even Walmart tells me that there is a cubic buttload of garbage games out there.
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I assume that the developers of games like “Alone in the Dark” and “Haze” figured that the games would improve as the development process wore on. However, once the release date approached, and the games still weren’t great, they figured that had spent too much time and money to scrap the projects. They probably thought it was better to see how much money they could recoup.
There’s a ton of answers to these questions, but one at the center of things is anyone making a product, no matter what kind of testing they do can never be sure of public response. A company can create something and totally “get” their own concept but have it be totally missed by the public at large – see Black and White for the PC.
There’s also the situation where the company realizes they’ve got a stinker. There’s a stop-loss point in there somewhere. At what point to you continue to dump money into something destined to tank – businesswise it is best to get it out the door, recoup what you can and try again. See Diakatana(sp)
Then there’s another case where everyone knows it is bad, it is made quickly and with little care and the only expectation is a bit of dough.
On AAA titles busting, I think you have several things there:
1) budget v/s concept and how much of the concept and art can you get done with what you are given – lose this war, and the game goes bad.
2) Just plain missing the mark for your audience. I think on this one Too Human will be interesting to watch. I think the game is good, but can it be sold to the people who buy xbox 360’s? It would be a no brainer pc game.
3) Trying to break into an overcrowded genre – take shooters on this one. You’ve got to have a damn sharp shooter nowadays to get someone to pay attention. One gimmick isn’t gonna sway anyone(Haze).
I would think _some_ of that money might come at the expense of losing potential customers for future games… if I’d preordered Haze and gotten burned, maybe I wouldn’t give Timesplitters 3 the time of day…
I still say “more time in the over” until it’s fixed right… but when you get that perfect storm of crappiness, who knows what you should do.
Maybe someone needs to offer Game Development Insurance (Geico anyone?) When you game tanks, you can scrap it, collect your insurance settlement, and pay higher rates next time.
LOL!
Man, when did a new GTA game become a gamble?
As mentioned earlier, the company may not realize that the game is garbage until they’ve already spent millions of dollars and written millions of lines of code. Releasing the crappy game will at least make up for some of the costs.
Fixing bugs and fine tuning controls can also become quite difficult after writing more lines of code. It can take hours or even days for a single person to debug a program less than a thousand lines. Imagine how difficult it would be for tens of people or 100+ people to find all the bugs in a program that’s hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of lines. On top of that trying to revise a program that has millions of code to be more fun can cause new bugs that will require more money and time to fix.
Poor management and lack of clear communication between the heads and the developers are probably the biggest factors.
how much is a cubic buttload? it sounds like loads.
I wonder if this theory of doomed financial shame could be compared to the film industry? I reckon it easily could. Just an idea. I cant be arsed to think of references maybe someone else can though.
I’d say very similar to a film or music album. Often if an artist’s album or film looks to be a stinker, they rush it out the door w/ little to no advertising and cut their losses. Films have the straight to dvd option as well.
I think that a lot of the reasons are in the article and in the other comments but I think in some games PR hype plays its role. When something like Haze, and to a lesser extent Alone In The Dark and Lair (though that’s a difficult one because there is a core of people out there who do believe it’s a great game), gets hyped up to be a great future game , there’s thousands of words written about it in the press and thousands of gamers excited for it. If three quarters of the way through the development process they suddenly announce the game turned out to be crap and they’re scrapping it then it’s going to reflect badly on the developers.
Sure they’ll look good for being honest but that’ll be outweighed by the number of people they’ve let down. Much better to just release a crap game, let those few hardcore types love it and then go back to the drawing board for their next release .
Haze seems a good example of this. If I remember correctly there was an original Haze released and then after some testing they decided it was no good and then went back to almost the beginning of the process. Had they done that a second time at the end of last year can you imagine the amount of crap they’d get for it?
Bad use of words there with the Haze example, it wasn’t actually released, but got pretty far down the development process
I think one answer to a bunch of questions is that the majority of ‘ crap games’ still sell well enough to make some profit. Let all the bloggers and forums yell out loud how bad a game is-their postings wont be read by 90% of the average customers. Look at the “50 Cent” or “Matrix” games…we all knew that they were crap but the millions who bought them did not care and bought them anyway. Lets face it: As important as we who surf the web about game news might take ourselves-we are just a small minority that might affect 20% of the total sales numbers-the average gamer is pleased as long as the cover looks cool enough
“What if we’re being dragged along in the gaming industry under the false illusion that we, the ‘traditional gamers’ should be the lead and focus of the developers’ efforts… what if we’re financially (and by association, logistically) the afterthought of the entire industry?”
The so-called “hardcore gamers” have ALWAYS been an insignificant niche in the business of video games. Growth of the industry has always relied on making games that appeal to the masses, whether it’s Pac-Man or Tetris or Wii Sports. “Hardcore” gamers demand big-budget productions, but don’t number enough to sustain the industry on their own… as the low sales of games for the XBox 360 and the PS3 keep showing.
Have you ever wondered why so many games get delayed? I guess, they play it, they get bored to death, they try to change it. They can’t, so they give up, make a million dollar advertising campaign and make enough money to become profitable.
The problem really starts with first step in development: Ideas. When a game is first planned out, there will be a lot of ideas for features and twists and all the fun things that make a game interesting and unique. Unfortunately, most ideas simply won’t work. And many others may be OK on their own, but clash with others in the game. Part of the process is identifying these creative problems and weeding them out. If you miss a few, or have to take out too many, you can ruin a game. Remember fable? It was a decent game, but nothing compared to what was originally promised.
I think it is also important to note that it takes a long time before a game really comes together into something playable. All the individual parts are gradually built up until they can be put together into something that kind of works. It may take quite a while to get something refined enough that you can’t blame any flaws on the fact that it just isn’t done yet.
And keep in mind, the deadline and budget are factors. Once you’ve found out your game is fundamentally flawed, and needs to go back to the drawing board, you have to convince the guys with all the cash to let you spend a crapload of money and delay the release so you can have a second chance, even though you screwed up the first time. This is especially true for those big budget titles, as dragging out development on those is that much more expensive, and it’s likely that they have already taken a long time making the game, so it’s only reasonable to wonder if another year and $20 million will help if far more time and money didn’t.
But even before that, a looming deadline and financial restrictions will force compromises, and those rarely make a game better. Just look at KOTOR 2.
Plus, there’s talent to consider. Most people couldn’t make a decent game no matter how much time and money they are given. You would hope that the people who do this for a living would be good at their jobs, but not all of them will be. And to make a great game requires great talent, not just competence. Since it takes a team to do it, a few people who are less talented may drag things down as well.
Then you also have the potential problem of interference from people on the business side of things. I don’t know exactly how big of an issue this is, but given the number of seemingly generic titles seem to have been put together by a committee and focus groups, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that executives demand creative changes based on what they think will make a game more marketable or accessible or whatever.
As far as the red flags, and why they aren’t spotted early on by at least one person, I think it’s important to keep in mind that there will be creative differences on any aspect of any game, and if one person (especially the one who hasn’t been involved very much) says “this part kind of sucks” it’s pretty easy to ignore him. It probably happens a lot, even on great games, simply because people have different tastes and different ideas of what the game should be, and there’s always going to be people who don’t like something.
Then finally, there’s the franchise factor. This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, amazing games can spawn a cash cow of epic proportions. Good incentive to strive for excellence, right? Well, sorta. The problem is that a mediocre game is probably not going to turn into an amazing game without significant time and money. By releasing the mediocre game, than can make back some of their investment, and spend the aforementioned time and money on something better. Once you have a popular franchise, it makes sense to give the developers whatever they need in order to make sure the series remains great, as that money will just keep coming back. But when working with something new and risky, it may make more sense to just throw $#!t at the wall and see what sticks.
Making AAA games requires a significant commitment of time and money. It requires talented people, patience, and a little luck. It requires an unwavering dedication to quality, and a willingness to delay profit and hold back a product until its really ready. It may even mean scrapping a nearly complete game and going back to square one. That stuff ain’t cheap. In the long term, if you can afford it, it is worth it, because it generates customer loyalty (I’ll buy anything with a bioware label, because I like their style and they make quality games) but you have to be in a position where you can afford to put quality first, and that may mean making compromises to grow and survive. And that can be a slippery slope.
Even with all the resources and time, a talented team can still make a game that’s not so great. Halo 3 comes to mind. I like the game, but it isn’t what it could have been. It’s not that they didn’t have the time and resources to make the greatest game ever made. They made the game they intended to make. Unfortunately, they just made some bad decisions. If I had to guess, I’d say they still think they got it right. There’s really not much you can do about that. Nobody’s perfect.
Still, with a game like Halo 3, you can at least see the quality job that was done, even if you don’t like some of the choices made in development. With the really bad games, it’s painfully obvious that they are pure crap, and they don’t have the redeeming qualities that even a flawed but well made game has. While I’m sure that some people involved sometimes think they really did make a work of art (in the same way that Uwe Boll thinks he makes brilliant movies) the vast majority of the time it’s just accepted that there is no point in trying to polish the turd any further, so they release it and move on.
The problem in this business is that each production team is seperated from the others, working on graphics and code doesnt really show the overall end product. That and developers are too cheap to run testing until the end, i’ve told many that testing should run the entire length of the production stage but none will listen.
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some “crappy” games are just game that gets rushed look at fable it wasn’t a bad game but it was supposed to be the Morrowind Killer and it really didn’t do what was promised even the Lost chapters only added about 2 or three more hours of quests line to it (depending on how fast you could do them) I’m not saying Fable was a bad game but it is a good example