Sorry state of on-line gaming

Postby **VideoGameCritic** » May 10th, 2011, 11:41 pm

You guys have raised a lot of good points that hadn't even crossed my mind.

I always loved to buy collections of old arcade games on disk, and they were a great value. But now they are saving those oldies to sell on-line, apparently for much higher prices.

I always feared that nickel and diming was going to be a problem on-line, but it seems to be worse than that! They are now dollar-ing people to death! They want you to pay real-game prices for downloaded games. I don't know how they can justify that.

Luke · Postby **Luke** » May 11th, 2011, 1:35 pm

[QUOTE=0-Storm]1. Developers releasing games untested. Instead relying on gamers to find problems & then patching them online. Patches can't fix games that aren't online. [/QUOTE]I really don't believe that anyone has ever done this. Because if they did it would be obvious and the game would be panned by gamers and critics everywhere. I know Fallout: New Vegas shipped with a lot of bugs and whatnot. But that might have been due to certain time constraints and whatnot. Obviously I don't know that for sure, but I'm sure it at least went through some degree of testing beforehand. Because I look at a game like Killzone on the PS2 and can honestly say "Now there is a game that also should have seen more testing and tweaking before being released" but wasn't because it had to meet its release date. And unfortunately for Killzone and PS2 users they weren't able to patch games like that online. So... I think we should all be happy to know that developers have the ability to do that nowadays because they didn't have that option before.

Besides I don't think I've ever played a game that didn't come with at least a few bugs/glitches here and there.

There might be some developers out there who have said "Well, if there's anyone finds anything wrong with it then we'll just patch it after release." But I honestly doubt that anyone uses that as a crutch for all their games. There's still millions of gamers who don't have/use online - they're not going to ship an entirely broken game, despite what you think.

Blueguy93 · Postby **Blueguy93** » May 11th, 2011, 4:12 pm

[QUOTE=Luke][QUOTE=0-Storm]1. Developers releasing games untested. Instead relying on gamers to find problems & then patching them online. Patches can't fix games that aren't online. [/QUOTE]I really don't believe that anyone has ever done this. Because if they did it would be obvious and the game would be panned by gamers and critics everywhere. I know Fallout: New Vegas shipped with a lot of bugs and whatnot. But that might have been due to certain time constraints and whatnot. Obviously I don't know that for sure, but I'm sure it at least went through some degree of testing beforehand. Because I look at a game like Killzone on the PS2 and can honestly say "Now there is a game that also should have seen more testing and tweaking before being released" but wasn't because it had to meet its release date. And unfortunately for Killzone and PS2 users they weren't able to patch games like that online. So... I think we should all be happy to know that developers have the ability to do that nowadays because they didn't have that option before.

Besides I don't think I've ever played a game that didn't come with at least a few bugs/glitches here and there.

There might be some developers out there who have said "Well, if there's anyone finds anything wrong with it then we'll just patch it after release." But I honestly doubt that anyone uses that as a crutch for all their games. There's still millions of gamers who don't have/use online - they're not going to ship an entirely broken game, despite what you think.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. It's the common thought of most people, but lets see people in their shoes, working hard as they do. Okay, granted, there are lazy developers (creators of bad games), but it takes a lot of codes and programming to make games playable as possible. Sometimes they might miss a spot at that might ruin the experience. Otherwise, I still think games today are just as playable as the good old days; you just have to put in a little more time investment in the games.

Postby **VideoGameCritic** » May 11th, 2011, 5:38 pm

You guys are so naive! PC gamers have long been accustomed to games being shipped with bugs. It even has a name: the "zero day patch". Why should things be any different on the consoles?

PC games are harder to get right, but there's no excuse when you're on a closed platform like a console.

It's not a case of bad developers; it's their management who would rather see a buggy game ship sooner than a solid game ship later. And it's the company executives pressuring the managers because all they care about is their quarterly earnings.

MigAlley · Postby **MigAlley** » May 11th, 2011, 7:45 pm

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]You guys have raised a lot of good points that hadn't even crossed my mind.

I always loved to buy collections of old arcade games on disk, and they were a great value. But now they are saving those oldies to sell on-line, apparently for much higher prices.

I always feared that nickel and diming was going to be a problem on-line, but it seems to be worse than that! They are now dollar-ing people to death! They want you to pay real-game prices for downloaded games. I don't know how they can justify that.

[/QUOTE]

Critic can you please stop talking about online gaming. We get it! You hate it! I paid $2 for Splosion Man on xbox live....is that a rip off? I spent $8 for Limbo! I spent $15 for a Battlefield game that I spent over 40 hours playing! I spent $2 for Unbound Saga which I enjoyed. How am I getting ripped off?????????????

Critic you are so way out of touch on this topic and honestly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Please give us some examples.

Hardcore_Sadism1 · Postby **Hardcore_Sadism1** » May 11th, 2011, 8:42 pm

Has no one covered the fact that you can back up online purchases through a cloud? Is that something that can be lambasted as "sorry"?

0-Storm · Postby **0-Storm** » May 11th, 2011, 9:19 pm

The biggest problem w/ online gaming is that it CAN'T coexist w/ traditional gaming. Just like how Arcades couldn't coexist w/ home consoles. I hated seeing Arcades die, but if I had to choose I'd choose home consoles. I'd much rather see offline gaming continue, but unfortunately nearly everyone is pushing online.

$2 for a downloaded game is a nice price. That alone is not the problem. The problem is that it promotes the trend for digital distribution. The more downloads sold equals the less physical games available. If someone threw some garbage in Lake Huron you could still swim in it. If everybody threw their garbage in Lake Huron then you couldn't.

Soon games will be available download only. If you think the price will drop because of that then you'll be very disapointed. You can't resell downloads so money spent is money gone.

feilong801 · Postby **feilong801** » May 11th, 2011, 9:38 pm

well, you take the good and the bad with these things, like any advancement of technology.

I can remember when I first started playing online with the Xbox. It was absolutely thrilling to be able to play Halo (via a unauthorized program on the PC) and Halo II via Xbox live. I had done online PC gaming before but never on the console, which is always my preferred platform. Online gaming has also allowed me to have weekly gamenights with friends thousands of miles away. These are tremendous benefits. The gaming world is objectively better with them. Plus we are just now seeing single player games benefiting from interesting implementations of online connectivity, like Demon's Souls, which is a development I'm especially excited about.

But you have all the other issues The Critic and others have described. I think you can blame MMOS for the "patch and go" strategy, as MMO gamers actually expect and even tolerate a game being released as a shell, then being patched up as time goes by. I see many gamers saying "I hope they address X with a patch," and folks actually hope for certain features on new consoles like hard drives precisely to be able to get patches. For better or worse, gamers expect, even *hope* for improvements over time, long after purchase. I'm not a fan of this, but that's the zeitgeist.

Yet I would not call the state of online gaming "sorry." I've had way too much fun playing games online to even think that. I do think the PSN situation is quite unfortunate, though.

Hardcore_Sadism1 · Postby **Hardcore_Sadism1** » May 11th, 2011, 9:55 pm

The main issue with calling it "that bad" sort of accentuates the negative without focusing that much on the positives. So far the only maybe-positives I've seen posted were the cheap deals PSN and Xbox Live offer here and there.

Leo1 · Postby **Leo1** » May 11th, 2011, 10:40 pm

[QUOTE=Hardcore_Sadism]So far the only maybe-positives I've seen posted were the cheap deals PSN and Xbox Live offer here and there. [/QUOTE]

Maybe I'm not following you, but are you suggesting that the only positive with online connectivity is that they occasionally offer a sale price on a game?

If that's the case, I couldn't disagree more. While there are certainly pitfalls with the growth of online connectivity, such as some titles demphasizing the single or local multiplayer experiences in favor for the online component, there are certainly still lots of benefits.

How can that be the only positive? The very games going on sale exist because of the online capabilities of modern systems.