Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: No Escape from Bug Island

We witnessed the beginning of what’s become a disturbing trend a few years ago: publishers shipping games that skipped the bug testing phase. This happens out of desperation to cash-in on the traditionally massive holiday season spending audience, from companies far more concerned about profits than any kind of dignity. And now it may be too late to stop it.

The hype and subsequent sales for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were unreal upon its release in 2011, but it was also “unreal” to see how Bethesda clearly kept bug testing to a minimum. All anyone had to do was play the game for a little while to see the glitches and performance issues, from a publisher who clearly had the budget to have bug testing done before release. And that’s not even getting into the disastrous PlayStation 3 version, which still has problems to this day that won’t be fixed. This was the first signal that people were willing to preorder and purchase games regardless of their potential status.

Naturally, other publishers took advantage, despite the cynical among us hoping they wouldn’t. It repeated in 2012 with Assassin’s Creed III, which sold extremely well despite being a glitchy mess at launch. They patched it later, but problems still exist in all versions. This also happened with Batman: Arkham Origins last year, albeit to a lesser extent. It didn’t have the number of problems the aforementioned two games contained, nor did it sell as well, but it was nonetheless enough to realize a precedent was set in motion in regards to the launch of certain AAA games.

We’re really seeing the results this fall, marking the first time we have numerous examples where this clearly happened in one season on consoles. Even worse, two of them were released on the same day. This started with DriveClub, a game that ostensibly should have been bug-free after being delayed for a year. But it released with plenty of problems, to the point that the planned Playstation Plus version has been delayed indefinitely. It’s been well over a month since this happened, but its problems persist.

This trend is far more obvious with this week’s releases of Assassin’s Creed Unity and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The former is the second instance of this occurring in the franchise, following the aforementioned ACIII. Evidence and testimonials suggest that it’s just as glitch-ridden as that game, if not worse. Among its problems, protagonist Arno can fall through some ground surfaces and floors inexplicably if the player falls from varying height, often resulting in a Game Over through no fault of their own. He can also be hit with physical attacks from faraway enemies who don’t have the ability to stretch their limbs. Finally, NPCs can do weird actions in the background. These issues made everyone somewhat forget about the parity debate and completely forget the female character issue.

(Funnily enough, despite their claims of parity, Digital Foundry discovered that the Xbox One version has a couple of advantages over the PlayStation 4 one. Whoops.)

It’s nice that Ubisoft is keeping purchasers updated on the official blog, listing the known problems they’ll patch in the very near future. But it shouldn’t have released like this in the first place, and anyone who paid $60 (or more) for it has every right to complain. This was made worse when the company imposed an embargo on reviews from the press until noon ET, twelve hours after the game released, preventing them from warning some eager purchasers about its issues. It hasn’t been a good week for Ubisoft, though Far Cry 4’s outlook is more positive.

It’s unfair to list MMC in the same sentence as Unity, considering its problems are nowhere near as severe — especially if you’re in it for the single-player content. But it still has more problems than it should. It’s bad enough that the multiplayer requires a separate 15GB download because Microsoft wanted to spare the expense of printing another Blu-ray disc, especially if you’re on a download cap from an ISP. The multiplayer matchmaking has been broken since launch, meaning players have to wait at least five minutes find a match. And that’s only if you’re lucky, as some players haven’t been able to jump into one at all. It’s considerably tougher to test this beforehand compared to Unity’s issues, but it’s not like 343 doesn’t have had the resources to.

I’ve seen arguments suggesting people should be a little more accepting of this process, because at least games can be patched on modern platforms. It’s not like the old days, where you were stuck with a bug-laden title unless the publisher was willing to go through with a cumbersome exchange system. We certainly live in a luxurious time, but we still have the right to demand better treatment from publishers when we know they can and should do better.

The best way to get publishers to realize that you’re unhappy with this practice is to stop preordering games far in advance, and wait for reports before purchasing. But that’s easier said than done, especially with the hype culture that surrounds “AAA” games these days — including all the retailer-exclusive preorder bonuses. Given how we’ve gotten this far, it’s tough to have confidence in the gaming audience at large taking a stand against this to practice what they preach. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if a good deal of them forgot about these incidents within a month, because gamers tend to have short memories.

Alternatively, gamers refraining from preordering en masse could have an unintended effect: publishers could get more desperate with retailer-exclusive bonuses by offering more important items, equipment, and, oh boy, entire locations. It’s a complicated dilemma.

If you’re reading this don’t like this practice, it would be best to not preorder most games so far in advance — especially if they’re AAA games. That goes double for specific publishers you have a difficult time trusting, regardless of how intriguing the product looks. Though Unity turned out bad, for instance, Far Cry 4 looks fine (at least on consoles). With a concentrated effort, perhaps we can convince publishers that they shouldn’t take our eventual purchases for granted.