In recent years there have been a number of games that have launched that have been broken on day one, that simply weren’t fit for purpose.
Nascar21: Ignition is a great example of this. Launched October 2021, Nascar21: Ignition was so full of bugs that it was unplayable. There are/were countless missing features, bugs, and crashes that made this launch a complete disaster.
But Nascar21 isn’t an enigma, there are many examples of games launching where they’ve been riddled with bugs. For instance I have been unable to play Forza Horizon 5 since launch, unless I want to play on Xbox. The PC version crashes constantly, fails to render properly with Nvidia graphics cards, and fails to save any custom wheel configurations. On launch, though listed as a supported wheelbase, it failed to recognise the Fanatec dd2.
This issue isn’t present in just racing games either, Cyberpunk 2077 was possibly the most hyped game of 2020 and it’s launch was almost a complete failure. PlayStation 4 and Xbox owners complained of ridiculously low frame rates; there were bugs, glitches, and all kinds of crashes.
Or imagine buying a new car, only to find when you turn up to the showroom to collect it that the engine is missing.
Eventually when patches and hotfixes could be implemented, we would often see day 1 fixes, which could be annoying. I remember buying Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, rushing home to play it on my PS3 with eager anticipation only to find a download - which took over 8 hrs!!
Whether it was at this point that game studios realized they could launch unfinished games and push out updates and features after launch, I don’t know. I hope it isn’t as sinister as that.
Perhaps these cases of unfinished games are the result of sticking to launch dates (though Cyberpunk 2077 was pushed back), or a result of funding, or lack of resources. It could be that so many game studios are owned by larger companies and publishers, who have control over when games launch.
The latter could be more true than we might realize. Sea of Thieves launched in 2018, made by developers Rare. It was an OK game, where you and a few friends sailed around finding treasure and fighting other pirates. Almost two years after launch the game is almost unrecognizable and ex-employees of Rare have openly admitted that there was a great deal of pressure from Microsoft to release the game.
What do you think are the reasons why some of these games are launched in the states that they are?
Nascar21: Ignition is a great example of this. Launched October 2021, Nascar21: Ignition was so full of bugs that it was unplayable. There are/were countless missing features, bugs, and crashes that made this launch a complete disaster.
But Nascar21 isn’t an enigma, there are many examples of games launching where they’ve been riddled with bugs. For instance I have been unable to play Forza Horizon 5 since launch, unless I want to play on Xbox. The PC version crashes constantly, fails to render properly with Nvidia graphics cards, and fails to save any custom wheel configurations. On launch, though listed as a supported wheelbase, it failed to recognise the Fanatec dd2.
This issue isn’t present in just racing games either, Cyberpunk 2077 was possibly the most hyped game of 2020 and it’s launch was almost a complete failure. PlayStation 4 and Xbox owners complained of ridiculously low frame rates; there were bugs, glitches, and all kinds of crashes.
This wouldn’t stand in any other industry.
Imagine going to the cinema to see the latest Marvel movie and the effects were half done “don’t worry” say Disney “we’ll fix it for the streaming release”.Or imagine buying a new car, only to find when you turn up to the showroom to collect it that the engine is missing.
There have been issues with video games since the launch of video games.
Pretty much any piece of software ever written has an error in it somewhere, with games sometimes this can be very obvious. In the days before games could get patches and hotfixes, if a game launched with a bug or error, then it was something that you had to live with.Eventually when patches and hotfixes could be implemented, we would often see day 1 fixes, which could be annoying. I remember buying Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, rushing home to play it on my PS3 with eager anticipation only to find a download - which took over 8 hrs!!
Whether it was at this point that game studios realized they could launch unfinished games and push out updates and features after launch, I don’t know. I hope it isn’t as sinister as that.
Perhaps these cases of unfinished games are the result of sticking to launch dates (though Cyberpunk 2077 was pushed back), or a result of funding, or lack of resources. It could be that so many game studios are owned by larger companies and publishers, who have control over when games launch.
The latter could be more true than we might realize. Sea of Thieves launched in 2018, made by developers Rare. It was an OK game, where you and a few friends sailed around finding treasure and fighting other pirates. Almost two years after launch the game is almost unrecognizable and ex-employees of Rare have openly admitted that there was a great deal of pressure from Microsoft to release the game.
What do you think are the reasons why some of these games are launched in the states that they are?
