The Unfinished Business of PC Games

So we've all had a game that we were looking forward to, perhaps you even signed up to play the alpha or beta release in order to help the game developers work out the pc game bugs, and finally the full product is around the corner! You purchased the game you've been patiently waiting for, and LOL-and-behold, it's fun-filled with the same exact bugs! Menu doesn't work right, you CAN'T even enjoy the game because the same glitches were never fixed.

But now with your hard earned $50 gone into the coffers of the game maker, you feel cheated, robbed, swindled, down right pissed off! You're supposed to wait for the endless amount of patches and updates, for the next 6 months, before the damn thing even runs like IT IS SUPPOSED TO in the first place. How did that ever become an acceptable way of doing business? Why do we keep enabling game makers to continue this trend of insanity?



Here's an example of what I'm babbling about; Battlefield Bad Company 2 for the PC. Tried it out, seemed to be decent, a few annoying little bugs here and there but being a FREE BETA TEST version, I figured, "what the heck, I'm SURE they'll fix this bullet hit detection issue, I'm positive they cannot release a game with a score board that's got unreadable headers (yeah.. right! haha), I mean, they are EA GAMES and only one of the biggest publishers evaaar." They ported it from the PS3 version so they *must* have a good game here! The game was released on time, on the officially announced date. So at least we can't complain that they delayed the game, right?

Hah, right! I quickly realized that I might as well have paid for the beta of the game with more maps tacked on which is what it amounted to at release. I still had issues logging in to maps, as in I would get disconnected randomly due to annoying PunkBuster (oh I hate you PB!!) and other network issues. I could fire an entire clip from my rifle into an enemy soldier, only to have him turn around, shoot back and kill me while he merrily runs along possibly remarking "LOL glitch." This is pretty annoying I thought. Why would they not fix these issues? Grrrr..



Fast forward almost 1 year, and a few updates later, I FINALLY have what I can say is a 99% finished product. The server browser menu actually works right, without freezing. The scoreboard shows up with proper header text (would you believe upon release they didn't even bother to replace the place holder text, something like "pc_menu_multiplayer_name" instead of simply saying "Name?"). BUT, the infamous hit detection, and random network issues are still ever present. Turns out that perhaps the network engine they use for this game, was also ported over from the console version (something about a constant stream connection instead of data packets to and from the server), thus leading to those few issues. Yay!



Now, rewind a few years, around June 2002... Neverwinter Nights, a Dungeons & Dragons type PC game that promised so much. Another big release by a well known big dog in the gaming industry, Bioware, published by Infogrames (now Atari). At least it looked like it would be awesome, on paper anyway (no pun intended). Boy was I in for a surprise. The game had several little random bugs, unfortunately many of which I do not recall after 10 years. A few I can remember were rather silly. Save your game, and when you loaded it back up, your character's statistics would be a little off. Instead of "+3 Attack" you'd now show "+1 Attack." Turns out it was only a "display" glitch and not affecting the actual abilities of your hero. Annoying, silly, why?

So several (almost weekly) patches and updates go by and now they somehow managed to screw that up, and ACTUALLY have the stat glitch affect your character after you loaded a save game. Hah! Other few bugs involved the rules and technicalities not working like they're supposed to in the game design. I quickly lost interest, and probably never played more than a couple of hours worth of that game. It took several months before the game bugs were apparently "fixed" up enough. No thanks. I didn't pay $60 for this crap. But you already have my money, don't you, you greedy, rushing, game publisher! Curses!



Let's now confuse you some and go forward a few years, to 2007. Command and Conquer 3. A highly anticipated sequel to the famous C&C strategy game series, this one also tops the charts. If your chart was about trash that wasn't taken out and left to fester and rot for a good long time, letting EA GAMES (seeing a theme here?) make new friends with their customers. The game was released with several annoying bugs, the kind that won't even let you play the game, because it'll crash to the desktop when you run it! They were smart enough to release a patch soon after the game launched, to fix some game balance issues, but many bugs were not. How about joining a multiplayer game online and that fun? Forgettaboutit! Known as the "Ghost" box, the user would helplessly hit the "OK" button that would appear, only to have absolutely nothing happen, requiring a hard computer restart. To top it off, EA Games wasn't even aware of its existence!



One could go on and on about many games they've owned that contain a slew of bugs. But my point is, HOW do these game companies go about releasing this horse crap, and then we can't even RETURN a PC game once it's been opened? Can you imagine purchasing any other product that was incomplete and then expecting to wait for a fix? Can you even imagine if this happened in other aspects of business? Buy a new car today! Just don't expect the headlights, power windows, and power steering to work. They'll be put in after 3 weeks. Sorry you can't return it now, you already paid for it and walked off the lot sir/ma'am! Outrageous!

So why do we let game companies give us the finger and release trash that doesn't belong on the store shelves, instead of fixing the issues as best as possible? Are we, the gamers, to blame just as much?