Console Game Patching: Is It Going To Be The Norm?

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I don't know about all of you and how you feel about the current state of gaming, but this whole idea of patching games later down the road after the company releases the game is getting ridiculous at best. I remember a time when the company puts out a game, minus a few play issues, that was it.
Now we come to the last few months, patch for this game, patch for that game. Some patches have made the game more enjoyable, most have not. Look at games like Homefront and NASCAR 2011, they need serious overhauls in the game despite the fact that asked the gamer to pony up $60 of their hard earned money only to give them a mediocre playing experience.
Why can't developers wait to put out a solid product right from the get go. Is it that gamers are demanding more from them to release the game in a launch window or try to line themselves up with a revenue stream in which you have to buy the base game or core game, then later pick up the patches and DLC for more money.
I don't mind buying DLC or add ons, as long as the game is solid from the get go, not solid from patch after patch after patch.
I know you some of you will say that it is the norm for patching because the systems today can handle this, but I would like to say that is it really so hard to demand and expect companies to release a game that is solid day one and not buggy and treating the game they just released like a beta.
I am sorry, but to pay $60 to be a beta tester has its limits.
 
It will be the norm. Today's games are complicated software products with hundreds of thousands of lines of code. They are more complicated than the old cartridge games. The more code you have, the more likely there is to be an error somewhere.

That being said, patches that overhaul gameplay rather than just fix bugs are kind of ridiculous, but I still wouldn't complain about post-release support...
 
I remember back in the 8- and 16-bit era when there were game crashing bugs or glitches in games that totally ruined a game for me. I wished so much that the developers could somehow have fixed the issues.

Now, they can do that, and I love it. Having said that, developers shouldn't be of the mindset of "The game's good enough; let's just get it out the door, and we'll fix it later."

For the most part, I don't think many of the good developers out there do that, but given the fact of how complex games are today, I think it's understandable that sometimes things slip through the cracks.
 
It is the norm and will continue to be in the future.

No doubt it's a double-edged sword and it sucks when developers use patches as an alternative to putting out a working game in the first place, but I'd still rather have the current system. As Grave_Addiction says, with or without patches, there will always be broken games. Without patches, those games would just stay broken.
 
It's been the norm ever since consoles could receive title updates and won't go anywhere anytime soon.

So many people have no clue how games are developed when they think the developers are the ones who are of the mindset that "The game's good enough; let's just get it out the door and we'll fix it later." It's the PUBLISHER that is setting the dates and deadlines. They deserve more of the blame. Devs aren't completely innocent, but I can tell you first hand that publishers have unrealistic expectations and demand that things must ship by X date, regardless of the current state of the project or how unrealistic that may be.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']So many people have no clue how games are developed when they think the developers are the ones who are of the mindset that "The game's good enough; let's just get it out the door and we'll fix it later." It's the PUBLISHER that is setting the dates and deadlines. They deserve more of the blame. Devs aren't completely innocent, but I can tell you first hand that publishers have unrealistic expectations and demand that things must ship by X date, regardless of the current state of the project or how unrealistic that may be.[/QUOTE]
For the purposes of this discussion though, the distinction between developer and publisher isn't relevant to the consumer. Either the game is complete and working when it reaches the consumer's hands, or it isn't.
 
I don't mind it, but I can see how it would piss some people off.

You'd be amazed at how many people don't take their consoles online though.
 
Fixing every bug in a game is impossible. Defining what matters and what doesn't is extremely difficult and more art than science.

This goes for all complex consumer products, not just games. Think about the quality of cell phones or cars. If you're expecting things to work 100% of the time you're in for a lifetime of disappointment.
 
[quote name='Ryuukishi']For the purposes of this discussion though, the distinction between developer and publisher isn't relevant to the consumer. Either the game is complete and working when it reaches the consumer's hands, or it isn't.[/QUOTE]

It's very relevant. People, especially on here, place blame on the developer when the publisher should be facing criticism. Some bean counter higher up is pushing for a game to be released by X date and that greatly affects things like testing and overall quality. Gone are the days when games are complete and working, simply due to tight schedules and the complexity of a majority of games nowadays.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']It's very relevant. People, especially on here, place blame on the developer when the publisher should be facing criticism. Some bean counter higher up is pushing for a game to be released by X date and that greatly affects things like testing and overall quality. Gone are the days when games are complete and working, simply due to tight schedules and the complexity of a majority of games nowadays.[/QUOTE]

You could say that for the corporate world in general.
I agree once it goes into the next Nintendo console's run, it will be the norm. I do agree with the 8bit and 16 bit days that there were glitches in the game. I remember some games that would just spit out some random sprite or run into walls and it either enhanced the game or made it just suck completely.
I want to reiterate that I am not against patching, but I am against patching for the sake of getting out a game by a certain date because either the gaming community bitches enough for it or like mtxbass says that the publisher will have a cow if it isn't out.
Trust me, I can wait for a game, given most people's backlogs.

And for the online comment, I am surprised too on how many people do not play online. I know countless people who don't.
 
It will be the norm.

I don't mind much. Before if a game was buggy we were stuck for it. At least in the online age it can be fixed.

Most AAA games aren't launching with a shit ton of bugs anyway--not really more than in top games in the past. Only exception is online multiplayer as a lot of games don't do betas so there are lots of bugs and glitches until a couple of patches usually.

Maybe some lower tier games are getting rushed out with more bugs and patched later, but I don't play more than AAA games these days so I wouldn't know.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']If it ever comes to a Nintendo console, then yes, it will be.[/QUOTE]

There is patching. You have to mail in your SD card. The wave of the future.
 
I don't understand why you're complaining about producers improving their games, for free, over time.
This is especially important in multiplayer games. With balancing and whatnot. They can't have balancing perfect from the get-go.

And I can't think of a case
besides Fallout: New Vegas
where a game was made worse by patching...
 
It's fine on Xbox 360, its a fucking nightmare on PS3.

From putting the disc in, it took me 45 mins to actually be able to play Modnation Racers.

Not Acceptable.
 
[quote name='Ryuukishi']It is the norm and will continue to be in the future.

No doubt it's a double-edged sword and it sucks when developers use patches as an alternative to putting out a working game in the first place, but I'd still rather have the current system. As Grave_Addiction says, with or without patches, there will always be broken games. Without patches, those games would just stay broken.[/QUOTE]

thats what i was thinking its been the norm and will be from here on in. even if they go to an all digital format for games the need for updates for game issues will always be there.

and like some have mentioned its better that it is there since there have been past isues with games that had bugs but they werent able to be fixed unles you sent in your copy for a new one.

but the downside to this is developers sending out shit with bugs knowingly because they know they can just patch it up later.
 
If a game is released buggy to be patched later, what happens when you buy the game years later? If that had happened with the original XBox games and then XBox Live for the original XBox was taken down, you are stuck with a buggy game. Also I see it was already mentioned what about people who don't go online with their consoles? Not everyone has their consoles hooked up to go online if they don't care about DLC or multiplayer.
 
Those are fair points I suppose.

But these days most people have it hooked up to the internet if they have broadband. It's really silly not to if you have broadband since even if you don't game online you can get DLC, XLBA/PSN games, demos, videos, stream music, stream video etc.

So it really only sucks for people without broadband IMO. I can't see anyone who has broadband not hooking up their console to it.

Fair point on gaming down the road. Moot for me as I don't do any retro gaming and get rid of consoles when I buy next gen ones. But that could be an issue.

That said, I haven't played any games personally that had terrible single player glitches before a patch. Patches have been minor things and/or limited to the multiplayer in my experience.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']
That said, I haven't played any games personally that had terrible single player glitches before a patch. Patches have been minor things and/or limited to the multiplayer in my experience.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Too many chicken littles in this thread.
 
There's a lot that can be said for and against patching. The fact is that patching is here and has been around for more than a decade. It's not going away. Just because it's relatively new to console gaming doesn't mean shit will automatically hit the fan. Consoles are closed systems and Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft have a strict enough approval process to try and prevent terrible shit from getting though. It's not perfect of course and with the rise of handheld devices connecting to the internet, we'll see handhelds having patches be a common occurrence at some point too.





For shits and giggles, how many unpatchable console/handheld games have serious bugs?

- Battletoads couldn't proceed past a certain point in co-op
- Ar Tonelico 2 you had to beat a boss in 2 turns (?) or the game would lock up
- Tales of Eternia on PSP first print in Europe had a glitch where you couldn't pass a certain boss as it would lock up.

There are obviously more, but I don't really remember anymore off the top of my head. If you included PC into the list, it'd go on for quite some ways as there is no real approval process for computers outside of developers/publishers and the hardware a game would need to encompass is incredibly vast.
 
[quote name='seanr1221']Exactly. Too many chicken littles in this thread.[/QUOTE]
Mass Effect is full of glitches and bugs (freezing during autosaves, terrible framerate, and frequent screen tearing) and was never fixed. Bethesda and Ubisoft Montreal's games are buggy in general and even go so far as to freeze every once in a while even after patches.

It definitely happens, but the vast majority of games are perfectly fine out of the box.
 
Mass Effect was fine for me. It had some graphical issues for sure with slowdown etc. at time, but I never had any freezes and didn't run into bugs etc. etc. But I'm not anal about slow down, screen tearing etc. as I've never been a graphics whore or a videophile etc.

Plus that's probably not something patchable since it's really the whole game engine needing reworked as they hadn't figured out how to get the 360 to run it well yet. Thankfully they nailed it for ME2.
 
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My only complained is when a game reached GH or PH, you still have to download whatever patch. Would be nice to make all the updates already
 
Screen tearing isn't a bug. It is a conscious decision by the developers to render the game without V-sync, which can increase the frame rate in areas but gives the danger of some tearing in others. Had they enabled v-sync, there would be no tearing but in some areas the frame rate would appear to decrease a little.

Poor performance is also along those same lines, unless you consider being a bad coder a bug. In general the only real "fixes" to poor performance is to rewrite the whole game in a custom created engine, or do some MAJOR code cleanup. Neither is really feasible in the 4MB patch limit by MS. Or run it on better hardware, but that's not really a patchable fix either.

Ruahrc
 
[quote name='benjamouth']It's fine on Xbox 360, its a fucking nightmare on PS3.

From putting the disc in, it took me 45 mins to actually be able to play Modnation Racers.

Not Acceptable.[/QUOTE]

just got the game(modnation racers), put it in, 7 updates, 7! and then i had to install the game on the HDD after that. then i imported motorstorm apocalypse and it already had 3 updates, not even out in america yet and 3 updates already
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Maybe some lower tier games are getting rushed out with more bugs and patched later, but I don't play more than AAA games these days so I wouldn't know.[/QUOTE]

Fallout New Vegas had some awful bugs.

And, just on a side note PC games have been doing this for a long time too, it's just now console games can be patched as well. And some of PC games were really bad on release, Civilization 4 comes to mind as a total mess on release, although they did manage to get most things fixed after some patches and the expansions. I heard Civilization 5 had some issue as well on release, but I haven't played it yet.
 
I've said this before. My problem with patching is that some day, these systems will be "last-gen," and XBL, PSN, etc. will be shut down. Those of us that like to go back and replay old games (or play old games for the first time) probably won't have access to the patches some of these games require.
 
I'm against it, save for multiplayer stuff. The single player game should be finished as is, or it shouldn't be released. If it needs a patch, every single copy should be recalled.
 
I don't have a problem with patching. As soon as every console became a media center PC it was inevitable. Like some one said in an earlier post if you want no patches go play on a PSP or DS.

Again, maybe because I'm used to PC games needing patches I'm used to it. But I remember having to install a game then having to hunt down patches to my games. And if the patch was 40MB+ and you had dial up? Well get your ass ready to wait.

Patches are anther reason why I used to wait to buy PC games back in the day. Why would you pay full price on a PC game you know will have bugs? And worse you would end up with multiple patches. I would wait for it to be cheaper have one Mega patch and enjoy it then. And the worse was then a new patch made all your old saves worthless. Oh man those were the best.

I say just wait till a game is cheap and just be happy the patches auto load on consoles. It would be way worse.
 
As long as the patching fixes major bugs with a game I'm ok with it, but if the game comes out and is one huge glitchy mess then I'll likely forgo even buying it until it's verified that the patches fix 90-95% of them.
 
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