Column #151; By David "Pyaray" Ray

[DaveV]

quote: Originally posted by Pyaray on 01-29-2001 03:22 AM What I wanted people to understand in that article is that it's not personal. People often assume that the companies are out to get them, and that's simply not the case.

Why can't I banish the image of Marlon Brando mumbling "Nothing personal, it's just business"?

Thanks for your candor, Pyaray. Decisions will always be made based on money, but I hope someday we see a company that puts a high value on customer goodwill. Maintaining software, fixing bugs and adding new features is an expensive proposition. But surely there are ways to make money from ongoing fan devotion to a game: expansion packs, scenarios, new artwork, multiplayer leagues, single-player contests, strategy guides.

[The diplomat]

Pyaray: Great article. I would like to ask you since you are in the gaming industry, what do you think can be done to minimize these so-called "bad games?

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[shamrock]

Okay, I'll be the dissenting opinion.

Throughout this article, I kept thinking to myself, "Duh, everyone knows that!" But after reading through the comments here, clearly I was wrong. I was quite surprised to see that many of you claimed that you found this article very interesting.

And it made me wonder why. What exactly surprised those of you that found this interesting? Are some of you so self-absorbed that you really think that the software companies actually give a rats a-- about you? Does anyone really believe that the software gaming industry is somehow different from other industries? For all businesses, it comes down to one thing - the almighty dollar!

And obviously none of these technological products will ever be perfect. From the digital camera I purchased recently that had a menu option missing to the F-22 with a whole host of problems, no product is perfect. There is no amount of money that you can throw at a product that will make it failsafe. Even NASA makes mistakes...

However, some manufacturers get close a lot more often than others. These are the manufacturers that tend to succeed in the long run (e.g. Honda). Quality is important! East Street Trader, War4Ever, and anybody else has every right to be upset when they pay good money for crap. Unfortunately, software is a lot harder to return than a bad computer (anybody still buying Packard Bell Computers?). The only consolation is that consumers don't quickly forget those companies that burned them.

It's all the beauty of Capitalism. Duh!!!

[Pyaray]

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 01-30-2001 10:31 AM Pyaray: Great article. I would like to ask you since you are in the gaming industry, what do you think can be done to minimize these so-called "bad games?

If I had the answer to that question, I probably wouldn't have to work anymore. The problem really is the fact that it's a "creative" job, the game is never (and I do mean never) the game that you invisioned it would be when you first start to create it. Changes get made to the design along the way, or you find out you can't do something the way you wanted, or you quite simply can't make something work. In addition to this, everything always takes longer than you estimate it will. Obviously we plan for problems when setting up the schedule, but even the best laid plans have flaws in them. You just can't predict every problem you will have from the beginning. And reading about a game in a design document isn't even remotely close to playing that same game. So you can't really predict ahead of time whether it will be fun when you get to the end.

Short answer, I don't have that answer. I have no clue how to change things for the better. I wish things were different, but I just don't see how they could be.

Pyaray

[East Street Trader]

I think one or two things can be said.

Designers may, naturely enough, be enthused at the notion of creating entirely new engines for movement or entirely new approaches to combat.

Actually though, from my seat, I have absolutely no doubt what I like - and it ain't novelty for it's own sake - or even technical excellence in, say, smooth movement.

It's best described as "immersiveness".

Do I get gripped by the game? Do I long to know what happens next? Do I find myself looking at the clock, disbelieving that 3 hours (or 13 hours) have slipped by unnoticed?

And what contributes to "immersiveness"? While I don't want to knock technical things I have to say that storyline, good acting, music well matched to atmosphere, all count more for me.

I picked up Heroes of Might and Magic VI from a bargain bin a while back. It has the bones of a good, if totally derivative, game in it. But the music ain't right, the intro makes you cringe and it's plain that no-one spent more than a very few minutes trying to put in anything approaching a story line.

It's grossly unfair to make a comparison with Civ2 because that is an inspired game. But some points can be made. Someone spent a while on those Wonder movies. I doubt they challenged the programmers but some money was spent on creative people who got them right. Casting is great throughout - again money was spent on a non programming but important element. The music is right. Same point. Tiny little quirky things, like giving the Egytians an edge to Masonry, are right.

In my view games are now an art form. No doubt early film makers were very interested in advances in cinematography. But they still knew that the artistic skills of the writers, actors, director, sound man and cameraman are vital to the final outcome.

So my conclusion is this. Aim for less technically complex games. Let the technical advances come at their own pace. Don't write programmes which are out at the forefront of the ability of modest computer set ups to play. Spend more, a lot more, on the style of the product, the game playing characteristics - the "immersiveness" if you will. And this will work commercially. Word of mouth is highly effective in this market and gets more so every day. If good wine needs no bush neither does a good game.

If developers can't, at the outset, be sure that the project is going to produce a bug free and playable game, cut back on the technical ambition until you can be sure and spend any money and time saved from the programming task on the artistic/game playability side.

"It is not in the beginning of any great matter, but in the continuing of the same, until it be thoroughly finished, where lieth the true glory".

[St Leo]

I picked up Heroes of Might and Magic VI

HoMM3 or M&M VI?

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St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[War4ever]

East Street Trader...... you put thoughts down with alot more style and grace than myself......

I also agree with everything you stated!
The reason i am so shocked with the poor quality of many games..... i have only had a computer for 3 years....

I origionally played many hours of civ on an ex girlfriends computer.

Maybe i am scorned because i compare everything to civ and civ2..... but i also love SMAC, just not as much.

CTP.... neat concepts.... poor execution plus why should i have to add two patches and mods to get any enjoyment out of it.

CTP2.... you have got to be kidding me.... burned once by ACTIVISION..... never buy a product again.... I pirated ctp2..... and to be honest... after about 10 hours.... "deleted" glad i didn't waste my money on another game without a patch and no support......

Companies whom do this to kids especially should be ashamed.... it is they who support your industry and they you target........

At least cigarrete inform you that smoking is bad.... where does it say on the box anything about games.....

"Buy at own risk.... this game in all likely hood sucks cause we ran out of money.... "

Pyaray.... no offense to you.... i know its business.... but its bad business to do this.....
Had ctp been a great game.... ctp 2 and activision would likely be doing more of this genre.... oh well another group falls by the wayside.... there are many more waiting for our dollars

[Bereta_Eder]

quote: Originally posted by shamrock on 01-30-2001 07:11 PM What exactly surprised those of you that found this interesting?

The amount of money for starters. I only play civ 2 and occasionally... Rally Masters 'cause I don't have the time for anything else and I have no idea about the turnover of game software companies or the cost of making games.

And if this is not enough, interesting was (to me) the proccess of finding out bugs and how time and money consuming that is.

And interesting still, is the huge difference that can be created from the original planning to the execution.

But the most interesting thing is the very clear explanation of WHY BAD GAMES ARE ON SELVES. If a game is bad don't publish it right? I guess not.

One thing that the companies might find interestimg themselves is to realize how much a «good name» is worth among the consumers?

[Bereta_Eder]

Now one more (interesting) thing is this: let's say a company really sucks in the way it is perceived by consumers because of the bad games it has decided to publish no matter what.

Of course you say «I won't never ever buy a game of these clowns ever again». But then they DO make a great game. And everybody's saying it is great and it's all over the Internet and the computer game press gives 90% . Wouldn't you buy it and wouldn;t that restore some of that company's reputation?

Wouldn't that have been impossible if the company closed because it didn't publish a game that didn;t fulfill the high standards?

Well, I am been the Lawyer of the Devil here (I hope this expression exists also in english!! - I mean I say an opposite argument just for the shake of it
I don;t know how many times this comeback has occured in the game industry or even if it justifies the release of a crap game (I think it doesn't)

[Alexander's Horse]

quote: D I S C L A I M E R: Some people may think I wrote this article to describe Call To Power II, that is in no way the case.

I believe you David, though thousands wouldn't

What I'd like to know is why Activsion shipped CTP II with such bad and obvious multiplayer bugs. According to your article we could assume they are un-fixable.


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Chaos, panic and disorder - My work here is done.

[Pyaray]

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 02-01-2001 11:49 PM I believe you David, though thousands wouldn't What I'd like to know is why Activsion shipped CTP II with such bad and obvious multiplayer bugs. According to your article we could assume they are un-fixable.

People don't believe me when I say this either. I have played and finished multiplayer games before. So many people have said that it's unplayable I can't help but believe them, but that isn't my experience.

I don't know why this is, but I have a theory. When I play multiplayer, I am usually playing with someone else who is on my local network, not over the internet. My ping times are almost always single digit, usually like 2ms. Whereas over the internet, even with broadband, you're talking at least 50ms, and more like 80-300ms. And I think that may be part of the problem. The additional thing about multiplayer is it takes so bloody long to finish a game. How many multiplayer games could the testers possibly finish per day?

Unfixable is kind of a strong way of phrasing it. Financially unviable to fix is more like it. I know this is gonna cause more people to get irritated at me, but the simple fact of the matter is that if they spent the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would require to fix these intermittent bugs, they would not ever recoup that cost. And they are intermittent. They do not happen every time, making them harder to track down to fix. And of course harder to track down, means they cost more, because they take longer.

And once again I'm going to state it, just so nobody misunderstands. I do not work for Activision anymore. I quit after the first patch. I did not work there when the decision to not do another patch was made. I was not involved with that in any way, so I don't know their reasons. I am explaining it the way I percieve it. I think it would cost them way too much money to do what people are asking. I don't know that for a fact, as I have no insider information.

Pyaray

[LDiCesare]

I don't work for game development but do develop software for a living.
The spellchecking comparison is an interesting one to give an idea of the difficulty of solving bugs but it is often much more complicated than checking because things get very complicated when there are layer upon layer of people coding. So if someone believe it to be possible to track down bug responsibility down to one person, they dream. Who do you blame for a bad built house? The mason? The architect? The brick-maker?
Software is like that: If one person screws something at the beginning of a project, the costs can be multiplied by 2 or 3. Noone will ever admit having the responsibility of wasting millions of dollars (though I know people who have done just that).

The comparison with cars is flawed. First a bad car happens once in a while, you can replace it or fix it by the nexy series that you had planned anyway.The investment is usually much more important than in games. I'd like to remind people also that a company can change names. The first japanese cars were branded under now-forgotten names because Honda, Toyota etc. knew the first cars would be crappy, they used the brand name to learn their job and get started.

So even if you no longer buy from a bad-game-company, the company may change name, or its directors move to another one and you'll get crappy software anyhow.

[TCO]

Great column here. It still amazes me to hear how many gamers don't realize that this is a business. One that creates fun, creative product but still a business that needs return on investment. Movies are a good analogy.

(Um, mark, how about moving this to a more appropriate spot. A/C probably.)