Got half an hour to get angry ?
#1
Tue, 01/07/2014 - 17:34
Got half an hour to get angry ?
This seems to make too much sense.
If you don't have time to watch it all here's the summary - Preordering any game from EA / Dice gives them no incentive to deliver anything more than the bare minimum required to ship a title and we'll be forever playing incomplete, buggy games.
Sadly, names sale. People remember the good days of BF2, BC2, etc. While fewer people may pre-order the next BF game, there's still too many loyal fans. It will take quite a few iterations of buggy BF games before people begin to realize their mistake. Not only that, with game companies giving bonuses to whoever pre-orders, it leaves those that don't at possible disadvantages if they do decide to purchase the game later. It sucks, but companies know this and take advantage of the public.
To me, it has less to do with the number of pre-orders and more to do with the publisher making sure the game gets out (finished or not) to compete with the competition (CoD in this case)
I would say this combined with a lack of investment to make the shorter time frame happen. I understand the rush, that's a simple competitive advantage. However, they should have planned for this and made the invesment in a larger development staff so they could ship a polished game. The fact that they didn't tells me they had a fixed budget put in place by a corporate struture that was trying to look out for its bottom line instead of publishing a good game.
Is it pure conspiracy to agree with the idea that we're being "conditioned " to accept sub - par products ?
General apathy ( of which I am also guilty regarding games ) means that we excuse the developers by using a rationale that its okay because it will, " get fixed later ".
The point being that it shouldn't need fixing in the first place.
If the technical ambition of the game exceeds the developers abilities, then don't go there. Leave out the whistles and bells and concentrate on making a satisfying experience with the skills you have.
THis would all have resonance if I actually knew anything about game development and publishing.
This is one reason I have been buying more indie games lately even though I don't think BF4 is all that bad. I am have fun playing and that's all that matters.
The way I look at it is... A broken Battlefield 4 is still better than a completed/optimized (Insert most any other recent FPS game here). Not that I am completely satisfied with the state of the game, especially before the recent fixes.
I am sure EA has lost a lot of post launch BF4 Sales as a result and they will probably lose a significant amount of sales on the next BF4 game as a result unless they can assure people that it will be ready at launch next time.