Starhawk and the state of modern gaming.

[RubiconAlpha]

Other than Battlezone and Freespace, I'm not a PC gamer at all. Most of my time over the years have been playing PlayStation and have been a very active private beta tester for Sony going back to the PlayStation 2 days.

My year so far has been centered around one game mostly, Starhawk.

Back in the beta of Starhawk I was really enjoying seeing a modern game using the "Build'n'Battle" game play I loved so much in Battlezone. Starhawk is really light on the RTS compared to Battlezone but it was still fun dropping buildings from space to change up the playfield and the game play was fast and fun.

This game showed so much promise during the beta and this was a real beta, not just some early demo like most console games release if you bought some other game. Every few days we would get a new build to test and there were still plenty of weapon balance issues and in-game bugs that had to be worked out before release.

Sadly, the studio never released a full multiplayer build with all weapons active during the beta to check how players would use them in a real game. They instead stayed with their set street date and released a hot mess of a game balance wise.

In addition, the game still had a host of system crashing bugs with its retail release (even worse than the beta) that forced players to have to unplug their console every other game for total system lock-ups and reboots. It's been two months and the game is still unstable and the studio is trying to correct the weapon balances with a "hot fix" update every few weeks.

Starhawk total sales to date seem to be around 200k. In this day and age, a game in development for two plus years by a first party studio should have seen sales much, much higher after two months. At its core, there is a good game trying to get out, but with all the issues, it has taking its toll on the players that bought the game and was hoping for a better gaming experience.

It seems more and more game designers are just rushing games to market and hope to fix them afterwards, if sales warrant it. This is something many of us here know all too well. I often have wondered what Battlezone 2 would have been like with a full studio of programmers and designers working another six months on our beloved game before shipping it to the public.

I'm very thankful to GHS and Ken for the many years of hard work for this often times ungrateful lot. Nevertheless, it seems the lesson is never learned that getting a game to market just to make a deadline can be the death of a game (if not the entire franchise) at retail if shipped in an unfinished state.

This has been happening a lot to me lately with recent console games. I do wonder if quality assurance is dead and everyone lives by some street date to get a game to market and then move right on to the next game. I did get a direct reply to this question by another game designer who told me that indeed, “we do release a game and move right on to the next thing”. When I asked if there was any plans to fix the game’s issues that many other players have posted on their official forums he told me “we didn’t think many of you would play the game enough to find all the problems we knew about”. WHAT, you didn’t think we’d notice on repeat playing? Wow. That floored me.

He then took the time to tell me, in detail, how expensive it is for a small studio to release a patch on a console game compared to a PC game. It made perfect sense to me but I then asked him, would it make more sense then, to release a finished game than one you know had more than a few issues with, he reminded me no game is every finished. I too, understand that being a Battlezone fanatic.

In the year 2012, I would hope more studios tried to make the best experience possible for gamers if they hope to keep us excited not only for their current game, but also for their next game. Sadly, they seem to think we won’t notice or remember by the time their next game gets released.

Nothing changes.

[Red Devil]

it's kinda like building tract homes in a subdivision. people used to care about their product and build them well. now they just make them look good enough to blind the buyers and good enough to get past the warranty. then people like Mike Holmes, Nathan, and Ken have to step in and 'make it right'.

[MrTwosheds]

I used to work for a company that made printers/copiers and their software, here you simply cannot take the attitude that we've got their money now, doesn't matter if the product fails to deliver. If you sell someone $20,000 worth of kit it has to do what you said it will and if it does not, you fix it quick. Fail at this and you might just as well call in the receivers, nobody will be coming back to buy another malfunctioning product from you if you don't.
Console developers trapped you when you bought a dedicated machine, you have no choice but to use whatever they offer you to run on it.
I still have my sega megadrive (genisis) Its got 2 good games, both of them ports from PC... apart from the well developed games released at its launch everything else I bought for it was just a way of getting more cash out of me and mostly junk, I never bought another console.
I don't expect this pattern will change, manufacturers know their product has a limited life span and there is little to be gained by investing in quality games for it after the first couple of years.

[RubiconAlpha]

The main reason I was more hooked on consoles was I got tired of building a better PC every six months to play the lastest games. That, and I'm more of an arcade type of player. I want a good quick game over something like WoW.

Battlezone 1 was the first PC game I couldn't get enough of and multiplayer back in the day was great even with the common issues.

And to RD point, I also notice that very few take pride in their work no matter the type of work they are doing. I worked for a company for nearly 10 years that were the leader in their field but then new CEO's came in and nearly destroyed the company by making a cheaper made product and shipping hundreds of jobs overseas.

They hoped that customers wouldn't noticed but my job was on the front lines with our customers and believe me they did!

I left that company for a better company that still took great pride in the quality of their work. Sadly, they went out of business a few years back leaving me out of work. Seems most people would rather have cheap than better.

[GSH]

Finishing a game is a big, expensive proposition. Dedicating time and effort to the extra polish costs more. Fixing bugs also costs money. Right now, the commercial games industry is in a severe state of contraction, shrinking year over year several years in a row. Some will argue that the numbers presented there are US retail sales only, and doesn't do online sales like Steam. But, for the past ~12-15 years, console titles have been the best selling parts of the retail commercial games industry, and what's kept the rest of it going. And now the marketplace is changing, and changing rapidly.

If you're not a charity (like Ken and my spare time), cutting losses and trying again makes more sense. Rovio tried 52 times to make a successful game before Angry Birds. Most companies don't have time or money for 5, let alone 52 failures. Only cutting support early, cutting often can get companies to try again.

With new EU laws saying that games must be able to be resold, I think that's only going to push things more and more towards subscription model (think MMORPGs) or freemium. There's a 'donut' problem already in the industry, where super-successful (think Halo, Call of Duty, Skyrim, 2-3 others) titles can move product at $60, and everybody else competes for the free to $1.99 pricepoints. There's just about no space on the market for a $30 game at launch, period. And at the lower pricepoints, selling addons or repeat gameplay is the only way to try and stay profitable.

I wish commercial game companies success, but anyone taking a look at the larger trends in the game industry has to be honest and note that it's in a big time of transition. A few years ago, people claimed that because it was part of the overall entertainment umbrella, videogames would be recession proof. Links above show that's wrong. Other forms of entertainment (music, videos, etc) have gotten cheaper per hour in the last 10 years. Commercial games tried to increase their price to $60 at retail. And I think that pushed more people to the dirt cheap games. And so, it's a big time of transition where I'm not sure anyone's got a good idea what'll happen in the next 5 years.

-- GSH

[Psychedelic Rhino]

The main reason I was more hooked on consoles was I got tired of building a better PC every six months to play the lastest games.

I imagine you're exaggerating a tad on 6 months, but you're right, PC game advancement definitely has that aspect to it.

But it's also a bit like not wanting to ski anything more than the bunny slopes because it will require you to rent or buy better skis.

Console game devs know their box has limits so all games made for it are technologically stuck in time. PC devs know the ceiling is higher, or soon will be. . . so they can push the size and graphics harder.

Both types of platforms have games constantly being released for them, so I suppose it's a choice between being technologically static and inexpensive or riding the wave for few hundred more every couple years.

[RubiconAlpha]

Starhawk was a $60 game at launch and was far from worth it in the state it was released. That is more my point. I would gladly pay $60 for something new in the console market (namely a RTS/shooter hybrid) in a world full of CoD clones. However, not for a game that may never be fully playable.

I may dislike some of the game choices a developer put in the game but it should at least work on my machine. This is more and more common now in the console market. The “don’t worry, we’ll fix it soon” statement I keep getting months after I gave a studio my cash. I’m not even talking “polish” at this point. I’m talking basic playability.

If a studio needs more time to get it right, for Pete’s sake, take it or expect failure. This is why more buyers are turning to the “free to $1.99” game space. You can only “get burned” so many times before you say “enough”. Not every game can or will be a CoD or GTA in sales but we would at least expect the game to work at the time of purchase.

I would think console games are the easiest to make since all the hardware is the same unlike a PC game. There is little excuse for buggy game play other than the “cut our losses” approach that GHS mentioned.

So maybe some new games should release a beta to the public for a fee and use the money like a Kickstarter fund. We get a better game when more people invest like Minecraft. I’m not a game insider like GHS, just a lifelong gamer that is getting tired of feeling taken at the retail counter.

[MrTwosheds]

I would keep your money clear of any console game that feels the need for a public beta. Their need for unpaid and unorganised testing to complete their development of the game should be read as a warning.

[Red Spot]

Rubi, no offence intended, but I've been reading this topic and I hear you say you rather stick to consoles, dont want to rebuild a system every 6 months and dont mind paying €60,- for the next console-game.

Do you realise that you can buy a system today for less than €300,- (without monitor) that will run pretty much every game that isnt all about graphics? Thats about 5 console titles, and I wont even mention that it doesnt require 2 providers to go online. Now if you want to argue that such system wont get you anywhere. I've build my system 6 years ago for just over €600,- and today I can run titles like Portal2 on max settings.
If you want to stick to populair titles there is no point in argueing either, IMO. As you wont really be buying games for the gameplay but for the volume of active players and your just fooling yourself when you say you want to play games.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

And once again, if you are "building" (inferring a new box) even close to every six months, something is desperately wrong. Building a new PC every two or three years is more than frequent enough to stay ahead of the curve unless you want everything maxed and have frame rates above 100. Which, to me, is going overboard.

[RubiconAlpha]

Rubi, no offence intended, but I've been reading this topic and I hear you say you rather stick to consoles, don’t want to rebuild a system every 6 months and don’t mind paying €60,- for the next console-game.

Fair enough. Like I said in the start of my post, I've been a console game tester for many years and I guess I have enjoyed working in that community so long that I may not feel comfortable playing games on a PC other than my early favorites. I know the day is soon approaching when console games and next gen systems will be a thing of the past.

Steam and digital downloads to hand held devices will rule the game market entirely in a few short years. I just feel console developers are shooting themselves in the foot and bringing that day closer when they repeatedly release buggy and forgettable games.

I know most here on these forums are more PC gamers, than console gamers. I just haven’t seen any exclusive PC games I could get into the last few years and other than the modding community for console ports, like the work done on GTA IV, I’m happy just firing up my PS3 and doing some couch gaming with friends.

Again, that’s the type of gamer I am. I could never see myself tied to a keyboard for hours (or days) walking around some “never ending” game hitting stuff for a monthly fee. I only buy about six $60 games a year these days. The rest are downloads for a much lower price and many of those cheaper games lately have been much more enjoyable.

Therefore, when I do go into a store or order online a $60 game, I hope to at least, be able to play it once I put it in my machine. Not be a paying beta tester for an unfinished game a full price.

As to the point about beta's, Starhawk's private and public beta was a good idea in my opinion.

Sometimes designers just get set in the ways they “think” everyone will play the game. A “real” public beta will let designers see firsthand how the public will use the tools and weapons they have designed. If they listen to the beta community and have the data in front of them, the gamer usually gets a better game at retail.

After 6+ months of both a private and public beta, Starhawk’s designer just didn’t take the time to correct many of the issue the game continued to have during the beta and released frustrating game experience. Like I said before, the game has some great potential but making the street date seemed to be the bigger concern, not getting it fully ready for release.

[Red Spot]

I understand where you come from but you have issues in both console and PC games, in pretty much the exact same way, but on a PC the games seem to get patched (more often) and its easier to get the patches applied. Which just makes me wonder even more why anybody would even want to get such expensive piece of equipment (indirectly ofcourse).

[Red Devil]

consoles are used as babysitters by parents/single parents to keep little bobby/suzie entertained while they do whatever because they are simple: plug in a cartridge/dvd and plug the kid in and you're free.