We should stop rewarding bad business practices

I've ranted about this before, but i will say it again. After what we have seen the last 3 months, it should be a prime example of why we should not pre-order games at all in this time and age. Broken games out of the box are unacceptable. Sonic Boom, Driveclub, Halo MCC, Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed Unity, Little Big Planet 3, and others. We've seen broken promises when games have been released. Hell GTA V Online was broken when it was released, but it wasn't part of the main game and it's wiser to do something like that because it actually has a solid singleplayer. While most games have either had broken gameplay or the online has been broken

The promises with the trailers and pre-order bonuses have been rendered more irrelevant than ever. Because what you pay for isn't worth the money. You're basicly paying full price for a beta test. I have been good with not pre-ordering games, and i usually don't. But i made a grave mistake by doing it with Driveclub. I am a big racing fan, and i've paid for that mistake. Fortunately this doesn't happen a lot to me personally, because i don't pre-order.

I've mention that we should be more patient in an earlier blog. This should not only apply to games that we are waiting for, but it should also apply to the games we buy. We can not trust the publishers to release a broken game. We should not continue to found these bad business practices that are against us as consumers and fans. The fact that there are so many games that are broken is really concerning to me as a gamer. If publishers whine about how they can't make a profit, then maybe they shouldn't release broken ass games.

Seeing you're a guy who talked about buying DA:I (ie giving money to EA), I'd call this thread at least unfortunate.

FarCry 4 is not broken.

What's wrong with buying a non-broken game? Not buying broken games sends the message that they should stop making broken games. Refusing to buy anything from them doesn't send any message at all.

If we refuse to acknowledge any of the good stuff that comes from EA why should they ever try to improve? After all you won't buy anything from them regardless of what they do so of course they won't care about you.

again, it is broken mate

They fix the game usually within a week so I don't really care. You can still play it in the meantime.

I mean, if they never fixed it or patched it you would have a reason to complain. When you release a game you think is done almost always there is going to be a number of glitches and bugs, They need a while after release and bugs are reported to add the final polish. It has to do with making video games.

How about needing a smart phone to be able to 100% complete AC Unity! WTF was Ubisoft thinking?

@The_Last_Ride: How does a game having a Season Pass make it "broken"? Honestly, all of this talk about games being broken is exaggerated. If we're looking at the online portions for many games, then yeah, a lot of online launches haven't gone very smoothly to say the least. But to claim a game is broken is really saying a lot. Some glitches and frame rate drops doesn't make a game broken. The game has to become virtually impossible to play if it was truly broken. And maybe some of those games do have game-breaking bugs/glitches, but my point remains that people use this term too lightly.

Anyway, the intentions of this sort of message is nice and all, but there's no way in hell it's going to get through all of the gamers that feel the need to buy games right as they launch. I certainly don't have this mentality for the vast majority of games I get, but not everyone has that sort of patience. It's just hard to try to tell everyone how to spend their money. I just kind of see this sort of message trying to make it sound like a moral obligation to not buy games right away or from certain publishers and whatnot.

They release a finished product and it doesn't work. I don't know about you, but when you pay for a steak, you don't wait around for hours for them to get it right...

Yeah but sometimes it's too rare and they gotta take it back for a sec like unpolished games.

I am not saying they're not good games eventually, they're just games that are unfinished. That's unacceptable. Nobody would feel the same way if a movie was missing 10 minutes of the end. It's the same here

Now I'm hungry.

Aaaaanyway, I live in the past, so all the games I buy are cheap and fixed. It's a beautiful life. And I should be happy so many people buy games at launch, because if everybody would follow my example, the whole industry would probably collapse. I admire @The_Last_Ride for his persistence. If only I cared as much...

No it wouldn't, developers would be forced to release not broken ass games

Don't look at me.... I vote with my wallet and No Game with On Disk Day One DLC, Bugs, Pay To Win, Season Pass etc has seen a single cent from me... But beyond that..... thats all I can do.

I never mentioned a Season Pass... All of the games i have mentioned have serious issues or game breaking bugs. That makes them broken unpatched games. Some of the games are unplayable on some platforms mate.

You're assuming that it's alright to continue this crap. It's really not. This should stop right now

I did however, Pre-order Disney Infinity, but in my defense... There were no Promos or Pre-Order Bonuses... One month later and I can say I didn't regret it.

That has to be one of the exceptions though

@The_Last_Ride

Don't worry buddy... One day we will fix this Industry..... Or die tryin'.

I was referring to your previous comment where someone said Far Cry 4 wasn't broken and you just posted a video about its season pass as if that were evidence that it was broken.

And no, I'm not saying it's alright for games to be in less than desirable condition upon their launch. I'm just saying there's no way such a mass audience is going to actually stop buying all these popular games that they're interested in. You're assuming most of these consumers actually really pay attention to gaming news or browse Forums enough to be influenced by some topic trying to tell them when they should buy games.

Honestly, as long as you stick to what you believe you should do, I don't see the need to get so worked up. You're preventing yourself from being disappointed in a game by waiting. What you aren't actually doing is making a difference by denting sales figures and somehow making developers/publishers realize that they should only release a game if it's absolutely ready. Money simply comes first, this is a very demanding business. And as I've stated, it's just not feasible to expect such a large number of people to actually not purchase something they want to buy. That's why I'm coming across as apathetic towards the issue, because it's just beyond my control and I'd rather just enjoy the games I'm playing and not get worked up over what's by far my favorite hobby.

It clearly stated that the game had issues mate

Oh i am not saying people won't buy them, because they will. I am just saying we in this small community can do something. That's not to support this crap.

That's what i am saying mate, and i don't buy games on release day.

@speedfreak48t5p

This industry is unstable.... They know people wouldn't like it... But they were hoping the need to be a completionist outweighs bad practice....

Developers do unethical Calculated Risks like that all the time. Its whats keeping them alive.

Not sure what they're going to achieve by locking out content, unless the app is paid and not free. If it's a paid app, they make money, and it's basically just on disc-dlc.

If the app is free, they get no money from this, so what's the fucking point of locking out content to people?

@speedfreak48t5p

When it comes to these types of features, these online integration type features.... Theres no Short term gain.... They must be building up to something.

@The_Last_Ride: I think you posted the wrong video then, that one just talks about what's in Far Cry 4's Season Pass lol.

EA doesn't need to improve, they need to go.

They've killed enough talented developers already.

I'm doing my part, I have not bought an EA game in a few years, don't buy capcom, don't buy squeenix, don't buy Ubisoft (other than the $10 farcry3 bundle), and I don't support or buy games from basically any corporation that uses bullshit practices all of these fuckwads use.

It's really pretty simple, just don't buy every shitbox game that gets released into the world by these "people".

What is that video supposed to prove? It's just a guy talking about the season pass.

If you're making the point that day one DLC is evil (which I don't disagree with), don't use the word "broken", because it means that the game is full of bugs, and from what I hear, FC4 is not.

@kakamoura

Something is very wrong with you.... Very very wrong. :o

@Doozie78

What if a Shitty Company makes a good game... Or publishes a good game ?

You have to to be reasonable.

This is a gorgeous post. Simply having DLC is not a bad thing in and of itself, as long as the game you pick up at GameStop is a complete experience. In this regard, other than Mass Effect 3, Asura's Wrath and Final Fantasy XIII-2, there's not a lot of examples I can think of in recent years where a game was actually sold incomplete.

Part of the problem, I feel, is an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. People seem to have completely forgotten that there were plenty of glitchy games with spotty framerates in the three generations prior to the PS3 and 360. Honestly, outside of EA games, there aren't a lot of titles out there that truly ship broken. And if people think most games are shit today, they should download a NO-INTRO set of NES and SNES games and go through random titles (that they don't know). You wanna know why AVGN doesn't do modern consoles? Because he doesn't fucking need to. The signal to noise ratio was so much more pathetic in the old days than now that he'll be busy until the day he dies talking about shit from back then. While there's plenty of shit out there today, gamers today have it fucking good compared to the old days.

Really, the only problem is the lack of a consumer-focused games media. Too many publications, online and off, are in the pocket of the largest publishers, and will either not publish a bad review (Battlefield 4) or will abide by publisher wishes and wait until millions of copies have already been sold (Assassin's Creed: Unity). All it takes is one massively anticipated game being Sonic 06 levels of unfixable to send shockwaves through the industry.

My point is that the game that breaks the camel's back will indeed come. It may well come in this generation. However, we don't have to throw every game the hipster niche dislikes under the bus in the name of accelerating apocalypse. Call of Duty isn't a bad game just because the loudest people in the forums don't like it, and there aren't nearly as many evil publishers as you might think.

@YukoAsho

If its Preorder DLC... Then its sold incomplete, regardless what the actuall content is sometimes its even on the disc.. Not that it matters to me... I rarely buy a game brand new... Buy the time I get interested, theres already a Complete Edition with all the DLC, hell I was just thinking about Far Cry the other day and voila... I found The Wild Expedition.... I shouldve seen it coming after the Heritage Collection.

@SoNin360: Really?! LOL! I wanted to find the video with the info of the game being broken :P

@Black_Knight_00 sorry, here is the right video. Don't know how i got that one wrong

You forgot Destiny. :P

Bungie and that game is the perfect example of this shit.

Also they do make profit. They make more profit in gaming today than they've ever done before. Crying about minute things is just about milking us even more.

I'm not the biggest fan of piracy but sometimes these big ass companies deserves it. It's not even worth buying their piece of crap today anyway.

You might hate it, but it's not broken. That's the biggest difference. I like it, but it's polished and it works.

I agree with that sentiment seing how the DRM is just a pain in the ass

It is broken. You just refuse to see it. Hehe

how is it broken? You're conflating the term bad and broken mate

I got to agree at least with the last point. I bought Driveclub and i have to live with that. I am the one who put down the money. So we should stop with this crap to continue this crap to support bad games that are released only on hype and perhaps previous games in the series

This.

I still won't buy the game, particularly upon release when it benefits hurts them the most. The new DA was a prime example of a good game that I just will not buy.

sounds like a reasonable approach

Everytime I see topic like this I can not help up see a group whining that game companies are not giving their games away free of charge and no strings attached.

Then you're see it wrong.

Well I've been really enjoying all the games that I've been buying which includes Halo: MCC so I guess that I'm still good to go. I haven't really run into anything that's bothered me too much or enough to make me alter my purchasing habits yet.

Ir I am not letting myself see it from one side.

Same here. There are still good developers and publishers out there. But here we focus on the bad ones.

I agree but the gamers are not innocent in this. "bad practices" is down to person opinion like immersion.

@wiouds: No one said they were mate.

"Crashes on PC", nothing new. Trouble redeeming codes has little do do with the game itself, rather incorrect codes or bad servers, which will be fixed. Corrupted saves are annoying, but it can happen. Even TLoU had that issue, initially.

"Broken" is a little hyperbolic. It has a few issues, that's all.