A new year is upon us and with it comes a hope for something better. Most probably are hoping the economy improves. I'm hoping there are some improvements in the development side of our favorite hobby.
Resolution #1: Stop jerking us around
If you don't want to release a PC version of your game then say so. Yes, we will complain and we will make bad jokes at your expense. However, at the end of the day we will have a lot more respect for the company who is honest with us then the one who tells us modern PC's can't run the game well enough and then releases it on a console that is almost 10 years old. Yeah, I'm looking right at you LucasArts and your little Force Unleashed game too.
A good place to start a new honesty trend is with release dates. I fully realize that most of us know that release dates are bogus and have been for a very very long time. I don't care. Using false release dates as a way to generate hype is lazy and pathetic. However, it is not as bad as feeding us bogus release dates after the game has gone gold. Think about it for a minute. When they said Brintey Spears new album came out on Nov. 28th, where was it? It was ready for sale, on the shelf in the store. When Galdiator was released on DVD on Nov. 20th, where was it? Once again it was ready for sale, on the shelf, in the store. When was released, where was it? Was it in the store? Nope. It might have been on a truck ... maybe.
Even now , with digital distribution taking such a strong foot hold there are still a good number of games that don't show up for about a week. If it was just one store I would blame them but it is not. It is all stores which means it is the fault of the distributors.
What this all boils down is this: If you can't be honest with us about release dates why should be believe you when you say you will remove acivation requirements for games you no long support? Be honest with us and tell us the truth.
Resolution #2: stop releasing unfinished and badly buggy games.
I'm not buying this excuse about it being too hard to program right because of the many hardware configuration. How can you expect us to believe this when can pull of so many other amazing programming feats. Besides, there are plenty of games that are just as complex as yours and they run just fine. Perhaps its time you stop the focus on the latest hot "this sound cool" item and spend more time on boring old engine stability. And if you need to take more time to develop then DO IT! I , and a whole lot of other people, are sick of paying for games that are not done, are too buggy to play, don't run even after being patched, or don't even install. I have every right to expect the product I just paid $50 for to run right out of the box. Its long over due that you start to do a better job of providing it.
That's enough for now. I have to get going. yeah, I know none of this will come true. Why would it when its been going on for years? Anyone got any others?
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