Anyone think developers/publishers should be fined

I am somewhat annoyed with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky and I want to suggest to ELSPA (or similar) into (unless they already do) fining developers/publishers/distributors (whoever) for selling products that are simply not finished.

Too many games require multiple patches to get them working - not just hardware fixes - in fairness, it is difficult to fine-tune a game for every type of end-user system (taking into account third party hardware/software).

How can anyone sell a game and then expect people to wait for it to be fixed at a later date (or not at all) - I don't understand the legality of this.

There has to be some kind of incremental fine system for releasing a game that is effective broken by a gameplay bug(s) and then spend 5 or 6 patches over months trying to fix the thing.

We, the consumers, need to stand our ground. The computer games industry has got away for this sort of thing for too long.

Remember in recent years when people decided to make a stand against advertising that used FMV sequences to sell a game? The games industry lost out on that one. It is time for them to lose on this too.

We must rise up and stand up for our rights.

I certainly think it is a fight worth starting - Anybody see any flaw in my opinion?

If there are no reasons that people can think of then I will go badger ELSPA.

A possible problem:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky was developed by Russians - how the hell would they get fined? Unless there is a way of taking it out of sales profits in foreign countries/continents before it finds it's way to the developer/publisher/distributor (whoever).

Yes, its rubbish.

If buying games and then having to wait for a patch bothers you so much, how about just not buying it until the patch is released?

Should we be 'badgering ELSPA' to kick the crap out of BRL? Because by your logic Blitzmax isn't finished. Neither is Windows, or anything. What is 'finished'?

And another thing - when you 'badger ELSPA', will you be mentioning to them anything about your ever-growing collection of stolen IP? Or not?

People in glass houses, Puki....

I found the first STALKER actually quite good, because it was the hardest game I ever had. I finished all other FPS games like in 8 hours nonstop playing when I started them. STALKER was different. I had to restart the game like 50 times to get all quests done. If I did one mistake, or if I was too slow, some quest would fail and I would have to start the whole game all over again.

Simple. Because gullible people will go out and buy them without reading reviews to see whether this is a problem. I know for certain that reviews of this game were out 10 days before the release date, and they were making clear reference to a lot of bugs.

If you want to *really* do something, buy games from good developers and don't buy them from developers who behave like this. Read reviews. Read opinions. Think before you spend. It's the only way they will take notice. All the time people keep rushing out in some kind of drooling fit to buy something before everyone else - usually just for self-relief at the pleasure of being able to tell everyone else they had it an hour earlier - nothing will change.

"GfK" reinforces my point - thank you:



Let's be honest - the software industry, as a whole, has found comfort in the fact that we (purchasers) simply accept that something does not work as it is not finished.

We don't even know we are victims most of the time as we have become used to this.

Maybe the software industry needs to state when a product is not technically finished?

Surely S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky needs to be labelled:

Or similar disclaimer (on the outside of the box).

EA needs to be fired from life..

This isn't a good suggestion. You can't fine people for not finding all the bugs in complex software. The market should account for this as it is. No reason to create an artificial barrier.

If such a rule were in play, Microsoft would never make another dime since Windows and office both have buglists a mile long. It's virtually impossible to create 100% bugfree programs of any significant scope.

Worse, imagine what would happen to casual game writers such as the people on forums like these, if you were personally liable for unintentional bugs? (intentional bad behaviour / malicious software is already something you can prosecute over, so what would this add?)

Before the Internet -and- before Microsoft, nobody in the software industry had the luxury of selling banana software to their customers. Microsoft was the first company that deservedly obtained a reputation for knowingly selling buggy software while back in the day IBM software, for example, worked -exactly- as documented. That didn't make the IBM products bug free, but at least people -knew- what they had to expect.

But now we have this wonderful toy called Internet, and hey, all of a sudden every piece of junk on our hard disks calls home to check whether there is an update available for it. QA and testing have become things that 'others' might still do, but certainly not today's software companies.

"Rush it out, we can fix it later with a patch." And then it was out of the door and Mr Gates said "nobody is paying for bug fixes, customers only pay for new features; let's work on that new version instead of fixing the old one". Dang! Thank God he is not selling software for life support systems.

In short, no. When someone is fined who gets the cash? Charities? I don't think so.

As someone around here likes to remind us "Try before you buy but don't complain afterwards." In other words a purchase should be the buyer's responsibility, if you don't want it then try returning it (or give it to a charity).

There does need to be more accountability on the devs/publishers part, particularly for the larger companies.

Having said that, I see no fair way to enforce it, so I guess I will just stick to the old 'try before you buy' mantra.

No, no. That would be way to sensible.

Well said. Too bad Bethesda got their grubby little hands on Fallout 3.

Sure. But there a difference between "The game crashes before it's even done loading (like Mercenaries 2 and COD4)" and "The game crashes on stage 7 if you depress more than 12 keys at the same time, while subjecting your computer to a small EMP".

Unintentional? While sure nobody creates flawed software intentionally, but when they *refuse* to fix well documented bugs that break the gameplay (I'm looking at you Lucas Arts and Activision) I think it's quite reasonable to hold them liable, especially since there is little incentive for the publishers to fix bugs in software, after you've bought the game (unless it's a very successful franchise, like The Sims).

Sometimes the developer gets penalized by the publisher and lose a bunch of money, royalties or whatever for missing milestones and can forfeit stuff after release. But the consumer doesn't get to hear or benefit from it.

The Sims havn't received any more patches than any other EA game, ie 1 per release or thereabouts. There's just been so many expansion packs, each one deserving of one patch.

What's worse in this situation is that often bugs in previous expansion packs only get a patch if you have a more recent expansion pack. So in this sense you're paying EA extra to get right what you've already paid for.

They can do it because they've always dones it and got away with it. Most publishers don't give a damn if you liked or enjoyed the game at all as long as it sells, look at almost every film/movie tie-in.

Gradually the public are moving away and don't buy games that have lots of known flaws, one of the reasons console games are popular is because games generally hit the console in a much better state than PC games because they cannot be sure of being able to patch it later.

Things have improoved a bit over time, I remember games like "Sin" and many other earlier titles that were litterally unplayably broken when published and took many months to be patched into even something like working order and many games with gaping flaws that were simply never fixed.

However as long as there are pressures on time and resources to get a game to market before it's ready from publishers this problem will continue.

Basically Caveat Emptor is the position: if you look at the docuemntation for any game you will find an disclaimer expressly stating that the product is not gauranteed to be fit for purpose and absolving the developers of any liability, the fact they feel the need to do that should tell you exactly what their QA standards are.

Fining developers won't work, allowing gamers to return games if they don't feel they are of merchantable quality would be a good step in the right direction (like EB used to do with their "satisfaction guarantee", something which is now sadly missing). I would buy games from EB for that one reason, just so if the game was bad or bugged I'm not stuck with a turkey, since they dropped that, I don't buy from EB any more.

Darkheart

Or alternatively, legalize piracy.

Yeah. Ever wonder why that is? Me neither.

I'm not in favour of fining developers or publishers in the way that Puki recommends, but here's an idea:

Game companies should be obliged to make their internal bug databases of outstanding bugs (including ones that have been recently fixed and ones that have been "waived") available for inspection by the public in a simple, easy to view format whenever a game is released. This list should be freely available to be viewed or downloaded on each product's website. The download URL should be displayed in a prominent place on the game's physical packaging.

Falsifying bug databases should be legally classed as fraud, and a watchdog agency should have the power to (amongst other things) inspect bug databases at any time to ensure that the publicly available ones are not falsified.

... wait until it comes out fully patched for £4.99. You'll also know whether it was any good, what the unresolved problems are and, if you're into it, every cheat/walkthrough/easter egg under the sun.
You have to find something to do for 1-2 years but, once you have done

Scarily, my brother actually does this.

Darkheart

Next thing you know film makers are sued for making bad movies...

Technically it is possible to get a refund if the game is defect!

Easy solution - don't buy a game till after it has been out for a while and has been patched/reviewed.

Even then you may get one that does not work with your system of course.

Short of government regulation nothing is going to change the problem

Not sure what's scary about it. I do it. Takes a year of abstinance but you not only get a patched, cheap version of the game but you can get hardware upgrades cheap if you need them.
I haven't felt the need to play the latest games NOW for quite a few years.

This system is technically already in place. Developers can already get penalised by the publishers.

The consumer is the end victim, but the publishers are protected by contracts between them and the developer.

A publisher can, at present, sell a game as finished - knowing full well that it is not and possilby may never be finished.

So, has anyone had a problem returning software? I know that some retailers disclaimer their refusal to refund on PC games.

i also wait for the games to be in the sales (weither it is the latest up to date release or just an old copy gathering dust ...) but thats mostly cos my rig wouldnt play it first time round and when its cheaper my newer righ should technically play it ;)

i knew about the developers being forced due to penalties in place release shoddy software that could/should have been fixed if given an extra week or month
builders have similar clauses but funny how they normally go over build to get it right than build a house that could fall down on someones head

we dont get films rushed out for summer
"the live action is ready and edited all we need is the CGI"
"screw that we want it out in the cinemas tomorrow"
movie bombs due to bad reviews

nor do we get incomplete albums from lable pressure ok some albums sound incomplete but that might be intentional ;)

Depends what you mean by a problem. I've had a few stores refuse over the years, but I've only ever walked out without a refund twice, and on both occasions, a follow up letter/phone call to head office resulted in an apology, a refund and vouchers for compensation. There's no such thing as a disclaimer which is legally enforceable, even if they make you agree with it when buying the game.

What they actually do most of the time is try to misrepresent an existing law to cover something it doesn't. The law says that shops cannot resell a game which has been returned. This dates from the days of floppy disks when software could be infected with a virus before being returned to the shop. They will often try to tell you that this means they cannot accept returns on software, but it's a lie. If you're returning software which is faulty, they're not permitted to resell it, so it's entirely irrelevant. If you're polite but insistent, you won't go far wrong.

another clue is how many copies are in their 2nd hand rack

i swear my local gamestations 2nd hand shelf space is larger than the new releases and some of them ARE new releases

Although practically, you don't have a chance. Technically most countries have Religious Freedom, but practically that doesn't mean you can have multiple wives under the age of majority, regardless of what your invisible sky fairy says.

Not if it was still shrink wrapped. A game that didn't work? Yes. Although these days you can cut your loses somewhat by selling/buying it second hand, which is an implicit fine on the publishers. No wonder digital distribution is heralded as the second coming. Good luck getting a refund then.

Of course. It's free money.

I would like to see an indepenant organisation check all software that would be sold (above, say, £15) for bugs and problems, before the software can be sold.

This is above any internal software testing.

If the amount of problems found is a small amount and non-serious, then the software can be sold along with a certificate to state that the program does what it says on the tin.

If the software is buggier than an ant-hill, then the publisher could either re-submit it at a later date or release it with no certificate.

That way potential customers will know there are problems with it.

I always wait for budget releases, the only exeception to the rule will be Fallout3.

I agree with Puki, there is a difference as Flameduck said when playing a game and not even being able to install it (ie Spellforce 2's installer was broken on Windows XP, who didnt check that one eh, One of the tomb raiders you could die in the cut scenes). There are bugs then there are SERIOUS bugs surely most of them should be picked up before release.

There are many different hardware configurations but I have yet to see a configuration that Blitz3d's demos dont run on so if they can do it without problem why not everyone else?

If you want to financially hurt a developer for a perceived sloppy release, don't buy their product (or their next product, if you already bought the one you have problems with).

It's fairly well accepted now that games will get patches to fix them. The alternative is to release late, which the publisher is never going to accept (and the developer can probably not afford).

One fairly good solution is to not buy anything straight away. Wait a few months or at least a week to see if forums fill up with complaints.

My foolproof way:

Download the game (usually 2 weeks before the game is released). Play the game. Watch the regular game forums after the release and see if there are major problems with the 'legal' version.
If the game doesn't bore you to death within 3 days and no major problems are reported, go buy the game to support the creators.

I'm not gonna pay for a game with major problems or a game that doesn't entertain me atleast for a week.

How about :
DON'T support warez.
Wait for an online review.
Try a demo to see if you like the game
Check regular game forums after the release and see if there are major problem.
Decide if you want to buy the game

I have released deliberately buggy versions of my software onto the warez scene before now. If you cant beat em, ruin their day.

I dont get indiesoftware from the Warez scene, just the big commercial stuff..... and every sci fi series i can get my hands on.

Oh and Steam ofcourse offers a lot.

Look, i'm not too cheap to buy a good game but i'm not gonna buy a game and after 2 hours find out it doesn't meet my expectations.
I try before i buy and if a good demo is available i have no need for a warez version.

Thank Razor for warez otherwise i would now be the not so proud owner of a copy of Settlers: Heritage of Kings.

I agree, too many games are being released with broken promises, and broken code in order to get the product out quickly.


Why should we not be able to trust, that if it is on a shelf, it should run properly?

If I did that I would never have bought Overlord as the demo simply did not work on my machine.


If the warezed version of Overlord didn't work for me, I wouldn't have bought it ;]

How about "I wouldn't, but the draconian copy protection on SPORE, CRASHES my machine, and the only way to fix it is ... drum roll please, RELOADED!". In fact if it wasn't for cracking crews like Reloaded, people who bought Rainbow 6: Las Vegas from Direct2Drive, would be stuck without a way to legally play their game.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again. It's a sad day when you're rooting for the (overt) criminals.

Oh I do agree, one only need to look at music industry sales with Napste arriving and dissapearing to see that piracy does actually have a very positive effect.

What is needed therefore, is a way to make pirated games into demonstration of what the game is like, for instance an online game might leak some account details into the public domain deliberately, the account is of course shared and any attempts to change the password is met with "Password has already been reset". What you get is people trying out the game for free thinking they're being uber leet. When really they're being marketted at.

There's other tricks too, like removing copy protection from the initial stages of using the computer, but leaving later protection in place.

There is a race sim that users of the cracked version find that after 30 days their race car starts suffering mechanical failures at the end of every race. When they ask questions about this on the games forums they are of course immediately identifyable and have it explained to them they've had more than their fair use for free, the best bit of that is the community does the guilt tripping for the authors.

Then there is the seemingly innocuous corrupted file after a period of time causing the user to download again. The game is "completely innocent" of course, but second time round if the user wants to get it they're more likely to hand over cash.

If you are developing software and you don't view the pirate scene as a potential marketting tool then you are missing out on sales that could be got very easily.

I can't believe a search of the Internet wouldn't have produced other people with the same problem. It really doesn't need to resort to cracked versions.


Search, complain and return it.
I realise it seems like people are getting ripped off but the thing to do it boycott the game, return the game etc etc.
There always seems to be some excuse for supporting warez software
which a) supports the wrong people b) doesn't get at the people releasing the buggy software the right way.

I bought Clear Sky on Steam and haven't had any problems at all. Awesome game!

Except guess what? A search would also turn up people for whom the game worked flawlessly, although these will be arguably less vocal. How do you know which group you belong to, when the demo is not representative of the actual game?

I did (nobody else seems to be experiencing this issue, or at least nobody else is willing to admit that using the crack fixes it), I have (I'm sure EA will get back to me eventually), I can't (although I can trade it in for store credit).

You mean like Ubisoft releasing the Reloaded NoCD crack for R6: Vegas? I don't think there's any better excuse than publisher endorsement.

I don't see how a) downloading a NoCD crack "supports" anybody, much less the "wrong" people, who in this case are either EA or SecuROM or b) buying a game I can't even play, is correlated to "getting back at EA".

I'm not using the NoCD crack to make some sort of absurd political statement. I'm using the NoCD crack, because it's the only way to get the game to start. At all.

I can't even register the game, so that I could download a hypothetical patch, because the only way to register the copy is through the game interface, and you can't download a patch for a game you haven't registered.

The genius who came up with that brilliant idea, needs to be dragged into the streets and shot. In the head. Twice. Just in case.

If a demo didn't work and I couldn't find an answer online and/or the game company didn't respond or make an official announcement I wouldn't buy the game.
I would be in the category of "Didn't buy the game" people.


If you can't find anybody who has the same problem put it down to bad luck, report the error and keep badgering the company or decide to leave it and return the game (UK you can) or keep the store credit.

Know nothing about it but it seems a bizarre action.


Get rid of the game however you can.

Blimey, Puki is beginning to sound like the sane one.

It's all an elaborate plan for us to trust him with our media!

well blame the one who invented windows and its stability instead fo the poor coder trying it best to fix others problems.

I remember amiga times.. there was no buggs in softare cause the software had to work.. :D

Haha how people have such selective memory, I remember my Amiga had its fair share of "software error click any key to continue"s

I can think of several Amiga games that had colossal bugs in them. So clearly you don't remember amiga times at all.

Asuming it was Ubisoft's software to release Sony's I.P. that is :D Although I would imagine the release was likely to promote a newer version. It's a good technique to do it because not only do you get people to try the older version of your software to encourage them to get the new edition - but you also saturate the scene with the previous version making any releases of your new version that much harder to find.

Again, it's using the pirate scene as a marketing tool.

That's not to justify it, I mean personally I left the warez scene behind me when I left college MANY years ago, although I have no regard for M$ Windows, it happens that my machines are legitimate through no fault of my own!

I'm just saying that some developers can and do make use of the pirate scene as a marketting tool, and as Napster showed, it can be very effective.

It does, doesn't it? To recap briefly:

Ubisoft released a patch for the game which added a pack of new multiplayer maps. The patch had disc-based copy protection in it, of course. Lots of people who bought the download only version from Direct2Drive downloaded the patch and found they were asked for a disc they didn't own. Said people complained loudly on Ubisoft's forum. Shortly after, Ubisoft released a new "patch" which removed the disc check so that said complainants could play their game. Shortly after, people noticed that it was byte-for-byte a clone of the cracked EXE which Reloaded had released.

Oops.

I don't see what's wrong with using a NOCD crack on a game you bought. You bought a license to play the game, and if that's what you need to do to play it, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it, so long as you didn't further distribute it. I certainly wouldn't object to anyone removing the copy protection from any of my games they owned for their own personal use. If I use any copy protection at all, I do it to keep out casual pirates, I don't use it to inconvenience legitimate users, and anything they can do to make the game less trouble is good for me because they don't feel aggrieved.

I do have a problem with people downloading pirated games they don't own because they think they have some kind of God-given right to play my game for a week to see if they like it. I'm entitled to set my own demo limitations and if you don't like my demo limitations, don't buy it. These people are usually full of bluster about being potential customers but they almost never are. A week becomes ten days, becomes two weeks ( my dog was sick on the weekend, so that week doesn't count! ) and they just find ever more elaborate excuses to ease their conscience on why they shouldn't buy it.

Completely different situations, from my perspective. One is a customer, and should be treated as such. One isn't, and should be treated as such.

Well, I'm not sure that's a great analogy, given that one of the worst and most successful DRM sellers pretty much drives the online music 'industry' now (iTunes).

I'd blame Napster more on a bad business model than anything else.


I'm on your side, honestly, but that sort of thing could get you in legal trouble.


I like some of your methods, that's for sure. I might pirate a few of your ideas for any products I release in the future. =]


Nothing concrete and nothing that helped me. Additionally, reading about other peoples problems with a demo does not help me evaluate the full game, which had received a number of patches at this point.


Given I do not pay for warez this does not apply to me, correct?


Do it. You're not missing anything.


Interesting you should mention that. A patch was released yesterday which may or may not help you. Only problem is you need to install, boot up and register the game before you can download it internally via the game. I saved a copy of the 100MB file it downloaded but have no where to upload it...


That would have been extremely unfortunate for me as I would have missed out on a very stable and fun game and they would have missed out on my money. Lose lose situation you just described...


Actually it was a sole employee who wanted to get fired in a cool way (well, that was my take on the matter). In any case, a scapegoat was named and executed and the patch taken offline shortly after the news broke out.

Puki is a knob cheese that feeds on underage slugs!!!

My name is Michael Andrew Denathorn

My post code is DH7

I personally think he is full of shit!!!!

Byte me

Dabz

Sausages... He sticks them up his arse with walnut!!!

Dabz

I'd like to take this moment to say tara!!!

:D

I#m off to play golf!!!! :D

And yes, I personally think I've lost the plot!!! If there was ever one!!!! :P

Dabz

Perhaps I should explain specifically what i'm referring too: During the rise and height of Napster the industry for genuinely purchased music grew massively in size, and after the fall of Napster it shrunk again. The phenomenon was put down to more people being exposed to more music they would not otherwise have heard. Thus proving that there is 'some' merit to the "try before you buy" argument. It must be remembered that Napster opened piracy up to a wider audience than just the old "scene" pirates, it made piracy commonplace.


I think you missunderstood me, you wouldnt publish a paying players account, you'd put out an account set up for the purpose :). In WoW for instance you might create an account with a couple of characters at various levels, no gold, no valuabe transferable items, and lock the password on the account down so it gives a seemingly genuine and innocuous error message when you try and change it.

In todays over-saturated world marketting works best when the recipient doesnt know they are being canvased.

i too would have used old napster to bolster my record (well cd) collection as radio the main stay for 'free' music distribution has always been stale and sometimes stuck in a certain decade. when i first started working at my current job one of the local station's relaunched itself but seemed to be lacking in the CD department, i swear after an abba song would be a beegees one and you were lucky to hear a 'chart' song only if they had popped down to hmv for the latest "now thats what i call tosh"

we sometimes changed to radio1 or virgin and had some variety but even so after a week you felt like you could set your watch by their set lits too

but when old napster was around i was on dial up so it would have taken me for ever to get anywhere, so i just took the odd chance with a CD or waited till it was cheap, or a friend insisted i should listen to 'this' album, id borrow it (or a cassette of it) and within the week own my own, or think it was tosh and give it back.

True but it does give you more information to base your decision on.
Payment is one type of support. Adding validity to the action of pirating by downloading and justifying on internet forums is another.

or you can delay your decision to buy and your lack of purchase might go towards improving future products.
This is my point of view and I appreciate other people have their own. I just find justification for using pirate copies of games .... wrong.

Well I can happilly agree to disagree. I certainly appreciate your moral standpoint.