Interview with head of quality assurance at Firaxis

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Fried-Psitalon
Since CARS are a LOT less complicated than computer games...

[lokiju]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Yeah, I let that one go. He must not remember that computer chips and software are used in cars now too, on top of production.

[Snotty]

This is a top selling game, so of course it will get much attention drawn to it for being released in a beta state.

You dont have to buy the game the moment it hits the shelves. We should all know by now what the score is - new released games are going to have bugs. If you want a bug free version, just wait until it is patched up, like civ 3 was. I, however, want to play the game as soon as possible, and am happy to help iron out the bugs in the process.

[lokiju]

Originally posted by Snotty

This is a top selling game, so of course it will get much attention drawn to it for being released in a beta state.

You dont have to buy the game the moment it hits the shelves. We should all know by now what the score is - new released games are going to have bugs. If you want a bug free version, just wait until it is patched up, like civ 3 was. I, however, want to play the game as soon as possible, and am happy to help iron out the bugs in the process.

The point is that we are being told that we have to create the game ourselves if we want it done right:

You write a better one then.

Now, this is a great game, and certainly no more buggy than others, but that's also not the point though. The point is, we should expect QA to do their jobs, or the publishers to give ample time.

[Finarfin]

Or just fire the people that can't do their jobs and get competent people to do it.

[Ninot]

Game works great for me

[Finarfin]

It works fine for me, too, but that's no excuse for poor job performance.

[lokiju]

Originally posted by Ninot
Game works great for me

Oh come on, we all know Canadians have lower standards.

[Aileron]

Originally posted by Ninot
"Come back Thursday"
"Come back after 4"
"We are only giving copies to people who pre-ordered. Come back on Friday"
-- The salesperson at EB Games in Place Des Ailes.... who deserves to die.

Sorry, off-thread-topic but I just noticed your awesome tag line. EB blows. They kept telling me the same thing "come back tomorrow". Instead I got it from Future Shop, the day after the official release I think. EB finally had it a week later. They suck.

[Dale]

KittenOFChaos:

If I'm a fanboy, then why haven't I bought Civ4 yet? True, I do not have a retail version of Civ4 yet. (and before you ask, no we haven't received beta-tester copies of Civ4 yet either).

lokiju:

LOL, I WISH I had been paid for it! I did not receive one cent for beta-testing.

As for the car analogy:

Cars work perfectly well "in testing conditions". It's when they hit the imperfect roads, and environment that they start to show their problems. This cannot be tested for by Holden, or Ford, or Toyota, or whoever.

Similarly, computer games work perfectly well "in testing conditions". It's when the hit the imperfect PC's, and random user usage that they start to show their problems. This cannot be tested for by Firaxis, or T2, or whoever.

Dale

[Krill]

What Fried said.

Sure, you have a right to complain, you paid money for the game. Complaining in this fashion, though, is not going to get people to take you seriously at all. It would be a bit better if you posted sensible criticisms, and gave exact details as to the problems.

To use the car metaphor, you don't go screaming into the workshop, and shout "MY ****ING CAR WON'T WORK, GIVE ME A NEW ONE!!!". You go into the front desk, and say, in a nice, calm voice, "Hi, I got me new car few days ago, and there are a few problems...namely, (for example) the speedo does not zero correctly, and there is something wrong wit the gearshaft"

Of those 2 different tacts, the latter is more likely to get your problem sorted quicker, and with less stress all round.


Now, I can say for certain that MP is working over the internet, and over a LAN. Now, I can't say it works for all LANs, but it works on my system here, and I have been playing CIV MP games for longer than this game has been released.

Firaxis are working on a patch. That patch is being tested, so that a patch that has more bugs than the original version is not released. We all want CIV to be a good game, we all want it to be bug free. The realists among us know that a bug free program on the scale of CIV ain't possible.

[erichb]

Now, this is a great game, and certainly no more buggy than others, but that's also not the point though. The point is, we should expect QA to do their jobs, or the publishers to give ample time.

As a QA professional I'm going to have to side with Firaxis on this one. Although you, as the consumer, may feel you have the right to an expectation that the publisher will allow enough time or fund enough testers to get a game out the door in a pristine condition. The truth of the matter is that your habits as a consumer have taught them that this is not necessary.

Year after year software gets shipped in buggy condition yet people continue to buy it. So, from a publishers point of view "why should they invest more money in QA?" The answer is that if they go strictly by the numbers they shouldn't.

And this is where you, as Civ players are actually a lot luckier than would think. This is a game that will have a longer shelf life than most titles, thus support for the game becomes economically necessary for the publisher. Sales will not continue if a buggy release is never fixed. Nor would they be able to sell any expansion packs if word of mouth had killed sales early into the product's life cycle.

Although I will not automatically dismiss the possibility that the QA team didn't do their job I find it highly unlikely given the experiences I've had in the industry. I find it far more likely that there:

1. Weren't enough of them.
2. Didn't have enough time.
3. Logged a whole lot of bugs that were simply not fixed before shipping.

It's that third point that I think would surprise many people outside the industry, and it's far from uncommon, in fact it's the norm. My point is, don't assume that because a game shipped with a bug that it wasn't found, chances are it was found and somebody deemed it not worth stopping the game from going out the door.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Dale

You write a better one then.

Regardless of what he said and how, this was the worse possible answer.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Regardless of what he said and how, this was the worse possible answer.

QFT

[Tiberius]

One more thing:
rockit3000 is a customer, who bought a product with money, money used to pay the developers and the publishers. As such, he has the right to complain when the product doesn't work as advertised. How he does it is a totally different matter (read: I would never say what he said).

Besides, what are these utterly stupid remarks that "other games come with more bugs" or "cars are shipped with bugs as well" and so on?? Since when is another company's/product's bad performance/quality an excuse to do the same? Not only is this totally unacceptable but also stupid. Every company thinking like this is dead; they don't know it yet, but they are dead.

Disclaimer: none of the things I said here refers to Firaxis or civ4. I was only referring to the subject of bad products and customer complaint in general.