Game Testers Warn to Expect More Broken Games This Holiday - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 17 September 2015 / 5,676 Views

2014 notoriously 'boasted' several high profile game releases that were plagued with problems at launch, including the likes of Assassin’s Creed Unity, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and DriveClub. However, it appears publishers have not learned from these mistakes and we should expect a repeat performance this year, according to game testers.

"The run up to this Christmas will be no different to the last one," Pole to Win's localisation director, Chris Rowley, told MCVUK. "Console games are expensive to develop, so missing a street date is not an acceptable situation to a publisher. Day One patches have become the norm over the last few years to try and address this, but the reality is that it often takes several patches where a title is significantly behind schedule."

"We’ll see many games launching with large errors and bugs," added Babel’s functionality QA director, Mathieu Lachance. "It’s impossible to release a flawless game."

"In some cases, delaying a game can have a more devastating impact on the game and studios themselves than what quality concerns could have. It then becomes a balance between quality expectations and financial risk."

While bugs are widely expected in big games coming later this year, Universally Speaking's QA manager, James Cubitt, does expect there to be less issues in general with the games released this holiday compared to last holiday.

"It is getting better, but far from solved," said Cubitt. "People need to stop seeing delays as a bad thing, both companies and the user base. The number of companies that just squeeze QA testing into the remaining period, without sufficient time to then fix the issues and re-test, is hurting their own titles in the long run."

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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials.You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

27 Comments

gintama (on 17 September 2015)

i think fallout 4 is 100% one of them

siavm gintama (on 18 September 2015)

I will agree with you. Even with all the extra power the new systems have they are going to put something in that is just going to make it bug out. They make great games but sometimes it feels they need to do a 6 month delay on the release date. And put some features they know will break the game in later with a patch that also fixes the problem it would have had.

COKTOE gintama (on 18 September 2015)

Bethesda is the worst for this. It's why I ave up on them and haven't purchased or played a game from them since Fallout 3. Too much frustration. That game was a horrible experience for me.

Nuvendil (on 17 September 2015)

And it will probably be the usual suspects doing it. Which shows it's not a game development problem, it's a company problem.

Smeags (on 17 September 2015)

And we'll keep pre-ordering these broken games, giving these companies our trust (and our money) so they can abuse it, again and again. I'm curious when the gaming community will finally say enough is enough. Until then, we'll enjoy our controversies and apologies that it'll never happen again.

ReimTime Smeags (on 17 September 2015)

I keep saying people really need to stop pre-ordering

Zkuq Smeags (on 17 September 2015)

The people that care are too eager to play the new games so they can't wait, and the people that don't care or don't know simple don't care or know so they just buy.

Nuvendil Smeags (on 18 September 2015)

Preodering has been declining for a while, iirc. It's just that at its peak, preorders were bonkers high. It will take a while. But that's also why peorder bonuses are getting even more ridiculous.

Sprash Smeags (on 18 September 2015)

Not me. Never did pre-order any game.

NinjaFox Smeags (on 18 September 2015)

I'm supporting the cause! I haven't bought a single game that was rife with bugs. That, however, is partially luck that I've not picked one.

tripenfall (on 17 September 2015)

Please people don't reward these companies with your money or it will never change

Sixteenvolt420 (on 17 September 2015)

The reason that i pre-order very few games anymore.

Semmie (on 18 September 2015)

Lemme guess
Assassins creed and fallout

AlfredoTurkey (on 17 September 2015)

This gen is garbage quality wise compared to last gen, and embarrassing compared to the PS2 gen. I wonder if gamers will ever say no or if next gen, we will all have to wait 3 months before our games are playable.