"Too many games released busted, broken... it's time for it to stop"

[kane_magus]

Full headline, which didn't fit up there because of the usual reason: "Too many games released busted, broken, and basically in early access this year—it's time for it to stop"

I kind of agree with this, in a sort of "better late than never" sort of way, but I agree way more with all the comments under the article saying that the actual time for this to stop was many, many years ago, back when the trend was first getting started.

Comments

[goldpseudo]

This is one of things that I've missed about the cartridge days; back then, you pretty much had no choice but to release a game that works, otherwise you'd be out all the production and shipping and distribution costs of trying to sell literal garbage that nobody can play and basically having to refund it all. High risk for potential reward. Digital downloads and live patching have allowed publishers to cut out all that middleman, all but eliminating the risk of cutting corners, so they have practically nothing to lose by pumping raw sewage down our gullets.

Nobody has ever released a bad game on cartridge. Ever. Nope.

[owsf2000]

Or more accurately, everyone who -did- got what they deserved imo. Which is why it's hard to remember a proper example of it except for those hated for the wrong reason. (over-hyped by the marketing drones rather than being an actual bad game, like ET on the 2600.)

Still, I saw this state of the industry coming long before it ever got to this point - the second they put a hard drive in a console (original xbox) I knew this was going to be the eventual outcome. It's also why I laughed heartily long ago when I saw one of the first major patches to a xbox game come out with Microsoft swearing "This won't become the norm!" lol. Yeah right.

[kane_magus]

The only ones I can think of off hand are unlicensed, nigh unplayable crap like Action 52 or those Wisdom Tree games based on Bible stories. They're like the Ur examples of cheaply made, don't-give-a-shit-as-long-as-we-get-the-money, broken horseshit games released on cartridge. Oh, and the unlicensed NES port of the arcade game Chiller. The only reason I even know about that one at all is because one of my teachers at DigiPen worked on it and considered it to be an old shame of his.

And yeah, as soon as consoles started being designed with harddrives in mind, that's when the downfall started. Or, at least, started to ramp up, since PC games had already been that way for years. I remember going to old-ass websites like The Patches Scrolls as far back as the 90s trying to look for ways to fix borked garbage PC games.