Adventure Gamers - Forums

tomimt - 04 November 2015 03:48 AM

Oscar - 03 November 2015 08:44 PM

If the phenomenon is as common as you say it is - and it sounds like it is ubiquitous - then why not add a few months to the schedule? Aim to finish - completely finish - 6, 12 or 18 months before it’s scheduled to come out. Then if things go wrong, they can be fixed. If they don’t then work can begin on something else.

It’s not that simple, especially if you aim to have a multiplatform release simultaniously. Look at what happened to Batman Arkham Knight for an example. That’s something that happens quite a bit in AAA business, as there’s dead lines and at some point those deadlines can’t be pushed any further. In the case of Batman, WB is going to loose a good chunk of money because at this point there’s bound to be a lot of people who are going to use their chnage to refund the game on PC no questions asked if they’ve bought the game before the “fixed” re-release.

Poorly done software often is a sum of the things that can go wrong in developement. There’s too tight schedules, unrealistic expectations from hardware, compatibility issues which can’t always be foreseen, problems with 3rd party middleware, game design choices that need to be re-designed as they’re just not fun in actual gameplay etc. In a word, even today, with know quantities, there’s a lot of trial and error going on in software. You can prepare for some of them, but not always to all of them.

So yeah, software design still is a bit of a special case. It might be hard to believe it, but it is, mainly because there’s no homogenous set of hardware that does it all in software. The field is far too heterogenous for its own good, which is also a cause of many issues.

Yeah i agree, and there have been Bethesda and Ubi with gamebreaking bugs rendering all progress and quests null.
Recently Madmax has serious bug of Map vanishing midgame, even MGS5 had some.

It baffles me that how console market has become patch heavy since last gen.
In PSX and PS2 era , games without game breaking bugs were blessing against PC, then PC patches stuff became norm in PS3 era.

So even after countless polishing and QA, games can still be buggy and immersion breaking. Even Until dawn has 10 gb patch , though i didnt need it, still huge.

Still here the issue is KS promises of delivering on time and the what the scope/pitch promised, you are asking money upfront.
I think it would be wise for KS Devs to post all the apologetic stuff in advance in Risks section than defending it later, but again that could spoil the success of KS from the outset.

Karlok - 04 November 2015 05:22 AM

There is no relation between the dollar amount I “invested” or “donated” and my enjoyment of the released game. But there is a relation between the dollar amount and any feelings of disappointment in the development process and/or the end result, even though I never spend money I cannot afford to lose. Doesn’t sound fair, but there it is. You give 15 bucks to a game project and two years later it has disappeared into thin air or the game is bad? Shrug, that’s the risk you take. You give more or much more than 15 bucks, and regret sets in.

So, most of the time, it’s not so much the end result of games that disappoints you but more the delays and the fact that developers often tended to be way too optimistic during the campaign (either because it brings more money or because of human nature) and you feel betrayed when they don’t meet what they said? Fair enough… I can understand that it could be frustrating to have delays even if developers have good reason for them. I never expected games that I backed to launch on time so I guess I had a different mindset coming in.

In term of games you backed, I backed some of those games and have about the same assessment of the end result

So I was a bit disappointed by Broken Age: thought the 1st episode started great, was disappointed by the second episode story

Also a bit disappointed by Moebius, it’s not a terrible game but it’s not great with a lot of little flaws.

I loved Lily Looking Through (and would love a sequel).

Broken Sword was actually a lot of fun (better than I expected).

Tesla Effect was great but I was a bit bummed in seeing it in a bundle for 1$ less than 2 month after the release when I had paid $45 (but then again I reminded myself that I paid in order to help fund those kind of games because I like them… Still stung a bit though)

Quest for Infamy I liked the part I played but I didn’t get very far (haven’t been in the mood for an RPG hybrid last year)

Agustín Cordes - 27 October 2015 04:52 PM

Broken Age is the perfect example: no one in his/her right mind can claim it was a bad game. In fact, it’s a superb production, polished, well-written, even charming to play, but most importantly:...

Double Fine may have taken bad decisions during this production, but a good game was still delivered. And yet, Tim Schafer was almost crucified online — by fans and press alike — because everybody was basically expecting the next Grim Fandango. This disproportionate reaction may have costed us another good (maybe not mind-blowing but still good) game from Tim.

No one in their right mind can argue that it was a bad game?  Really?  So, then, your opinion is fact?  Being pretty or having good writing doesn’t make a game to everyone.  The reviews unanimously agreed that the actual GAME part was simplistic, easy, and lacking.  YOU may be entertained by pretty graphics, voice acting, or writing, but not all of us are.  I play games strictly for the actual GAME part of it.  For adventure games, that is puzzling.

He was “crucified” for a few reasons.  1.  He broke up the game into 2 episodes.  2.  The game was simplistic and not in any way gameplaywise, like the games that he used nostalgia to lure backers with.  3.  He seriously mismanaged budget.

“Good” game is just your opinion and is not agreed by everyone.  I, personally, saw right through his bluster and realized that he hadn’t made anything of worth(to me) in the previous decade+.  He was marketing the kickstarter 100% on nostalgia, except, imo, he had nothing to back that up.  Sure enough, he made a pretty game with simplistic walkthrough gameplay.  I was able to pick it up on steep, steep discount.

As to the other poster that used “Well, even veterans like Schafer can’t budget…”  Umm, that just shows that there are incompetent people in the industry, which should be of absolutely NO surprise to anyone that pays even the least bit of attention to game developers.

As for this game, which I also didn’t back, if it was marketed as being almost completed, they had the DUTY not to switch engines just because of personal preference and artistic integrity.  You sold the kickstarter on being almost done and unilaterally changed it.  It is not ok to do that in my book.  If you wanted to change it, the time was before kickstarter and to pitch it as such.

You may not be beholden to publishers, but you are beholden to your own promises made when asking for money.