Non-RPG General News - Launch Now, Fix Later

[Redglyph]

Mortismal Gaming talks about the tendency of publishers to launch games in a bad state.

The Growing Trend Of Launch Now, Fix It Later In Gaming

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[Carnifex]

Yup, this trend is honestly nothing new, I'd say it's been going on for at least five years or so to this point, and not showing any signs of going away. It forced me to change my gaming habits, and in the end I think it was a good thing, at least for me. If you wait a few months or longer, it can take much frustration out of the playing, should you wait for a stable version.

 

[Voqar]

Launch now, fix later has lead to my personal trend of not giving many effs about release dates for almost all "big" games. After waiting 5ish years for big games I'm good with waiting a few weeks/months/whatever more for the dust to settle and a more finished product to evolve.

DL2 is a prime example. I loved the first game, think the devs are excellent, yet DL2 releases with quite a few bugs, last minute Denuvo (I really get tired of this crap as someone who BUYS games even if I understand), and some odd design decisions that bother me more than anything (dark/turn timer that nobody likes, for ex). I'm not inspired to throw down $60 at release and will wait a bit.

 

[rjshae]

Just to avoid the frustration of a buggy, ever-changing game, I no longer buy a fresh release. Instead I wait until it is deeply patched. Once I do that though, I might as well wait for all the DLC to come out. By that time, I might as well wait until it is on sale; that's usually 2-3 years down the road.

From my perspective, this doesn't seem like a profitable model for the gaming companies. But if the early adopters are willing to spend more money to polish up these games, I can live with it.

 

[Redglyph]

Agreed. I understand people who want to pre-order or buy on release day to be part of the excitement, and I'm sure he's right saying it's useless telling anyone not to do it.

But for AAA games I'm just waiting, there's the high price tag, the Denuvo crap, and the fact we don't know if the game is good on top of the usual bugs. If you wait until all that is settled, you may even get a special edition with extra stuff as cherry on top, in the sale.

 

[Shagnak]

I've only ever pre-ordered games I'm super excited by, and would have bought and played close to release time regardless of reviews. So recently that was Dying Light 2 (2 days before is still a pre-order, right?) and Cyberpunk 2077.

Generally, it's rare that I do. The only others I can remember are Fallout 4 and Oblivion, but they were physical copies. I even got a nice t-shirt with the latter. I recognise that the pre-order scheme is a problem but I'm not going to begrudge a fan pre-ordering to get some sweet bonuses, especially physical ones.

 

[Couchpotato]

Well I've been saying this has become an industry wide problem ever since games went digital. It's easier to patch and fix your game if your willing to risk sales, and reputation.

Wont mater though games getting fixed after launch is the new norm nowadays.

 

[Dolby]

Yeah well, this all started with Pre-orders once those started it was just downhill from there.

Easly fixed though, just don't buy Pre-orders, EAs and other crap like season passes or subscriptions.. and wait for a review before you buy a game. Planty of honest reviewers on youtube that will tell you the truth about bugs and other stuff even doing research on it for other users.

Gods of war is the last in line of examples that it's possible to make a game with minimal bugs even on PC.

 

[domein]

I feel it was like that for at least 15 years

 

[Morrandir]

I'll still buy a product on release as a reward for a previously well done game. For example I bought CP77 on release (or even pre-ordered) because of the awesome Witcher 3. However I will not buy CDPR's next game on release.

 

[mercy]

It was always like Launch Now, Fix Later for party based and inventory-management based games sporting a complex quest-system. Its simply impossible to substitute a massive test done by millions of costumers versus in-house test done by a dozen hired testers..

 

[SSIGuy]

It is pretty rare for me to buy a game at - or near - launch. In general terms I'm operating 1 or 2 years behind the current games cycle. For example, I'm only just playing AC Valhalla now, simply because that's where I'm at for working through games I want to play - a couple years behind.

And I'll say, I love it that way. It means I don't care too much when a game releases, late or early, or the state it is in at launch as I'm focused on games that have (mostly) been well patched. And if a game comes out I'm really excited about and is in decent shape at launch, I can choose to buy it and play it now.

I know a lot of people (myself included occasionally) complain about how games launch in this digital landscape but honestly, the current video game landscape is better than it has ever been imo, since I started playing video games at home in the late 70s.

There is simply so many games and so much choice, I always have something I want to play.

 

[vanedor]

It seems there are two trends to this. Either you release the game early, and patch later. Or you release in "Early Access", keep developing and fixing bugs, then you actually release it.

I think this second way tends to be better. People who buy the EA know they play EA , are happy to get it early, and aren't surprised if the game isn't complete or bug-free. Then people who play only once the game is fully released get a better game.

 

[Carnifex]

I'd say there's also a very strong third trend in all this, Vanedor, the two you've mentioned and then this one: where a game languishes in early access for months/years, finally releases, and yet you still get weekly/monthly updates/patches for what seems to be another six months to a year. That third possibility is the most unpredictable of all, least for me.

 

[sakichop]

Maybe this is coming to light more because it’s now a thing on consoles too.

As a PC gamer I will take the landscape today vs the landscape back in the day. I can’t be the only one here that remembers the first 2 days of a games release being spent on configuring memory access and IRQ’s, floppy’s or cd-roms not reading or re-installing DOS or windows 3.1 just to get a game to work or some games never working like Daggerfall. I remember Ultima 9, I tried for 2 weeks to get it running and finally gave up. 3 months later after having forgotten about it a CD rom shows up in the mail. I was able to play about 2/3 of it before encountering another game breaking bug and giving up for good.

It also helps me personally that I play very few games on release and am generally several years behind. For example I just started playing through dragon age Inquisition and will start pillars of eternity 1 after Elden ring ( from software games are always day 1 and usually perfectly playable on release)

So for me at this point most games are plug and play. I install them and they work and all content is released by the time I get to them.

So in my opinion launch now, fix later ( by internet) is better than launch now and the consumer can figure it out themselves or hope a disc of patches magically shows up in the mail.

 

[Redglyph]

It seems there are two trends to this. Either you release the game early, and patch later. Or you release in "Early Access", keep developing and fixing bugs, then you actually release it.

I think this second way tends to be better. People who buy the EA know they play EA , are happy to get it early, and aren't surprised if the game isn't complete or bug-free. Then people who play only once the game is fully released get a better game.

I agree, but only a part of the game is exposed, which is usually 1/3rd at most. Then there is the question of the effort developers and publishers put in the last part, knowing that less than half the players will go that far.

Closed betas are not a bad idea either, if they include the whole game. It's generally under NDA so it doesn't spoil anything for the other people, there's a higher commitment and the devs have more control over the feedback. I hate the fact some make it pay though, I find it dishonest and too opportunistic.

 

[MysterD]

Ah, the on-going battle b/t dev's and pub's over delaying a game; and the consumer deciding to wait later for Complete Edition or Buy Early/Pre-Order/Buy Now.

There's also the fact that's there way more ambitious, kitchen sink approach style, shooting for the moon and more approaches often found w/ these open-world games mixing RPG elements & decision-making. All of these gender-benders have so much & so many systems; it's complex. There's likely to be bugs, issues, performance issues, stability problems, etc etc.

A lot of games do the huge seamless open-world thing; that became the new big trend, since Morrowind, GTA, Fallout 3, UbiSoft open-world games, and stuff of that sort hit it big. Now, with NPC's everywhere, AI everywhere, everything needed to be loaded & drawn on-the-fly - great, now you're killing performance on the system.

Remember when games had to break-up areas, levels, etc and make the game more modular basically to keep performance good? Imagine with now SSD's, if more games took THAT approach as load screens would be nil or very short now - probably would have less performance problems, if we had more games built like Mass Effect 2 and NWN2 (with over-world map to get to areas, towns/hubs, maps for areas, maps for missions, planets split-up) than say Witcher 3 (big seamless open-world w/ everything loaded and can strain the system). I'm also betting Ray-Tracing and other performance killers ain't helping huge open-world games like Cyberpunk 2077 don't help either.

I don't think also when a publisher throws $ to fund a game, they really want to wait some 5-7+ years for this game to come out. They want their $ and investment to be returned & make a profit.

Also makes me think - there's too many times, that there's too many super-big huge open-world games with no modular-ness to them - so, once a game like CP 2077 is released b/c investors and pub's kick it out the door, areas like Pacifica that feel lacking in content b/c it don't feel like it's done just can't be say removed b/c…well, it's a part of this big open-world thing. If it was modular, could've say removed it or only have it load when you need to, when you get closer to the end of the game and need to do a few certain missions there.

I'm sure also publishers, once the marketing train/campaign gets rolling, they don't want to spend $ to have to do the campaign again; pay GameStop and retailers for a release date if they delay the game again; and whatnot - basically restarting their campaign. And they also figure if pre-orders are high - they can release the rest of the game's missing content as DLC's or expansions anyways, sticking that stuff in the Season Pass.