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Well I guess what this is all about is the really poor games. There are a lot of great games out there, classics in some people's opinions, and some games that are truely masterpieces. But with all of these decent or great games there are also a handful of God awful attempts at games. So why are they made? Allowed to be released? and also how can we stop them?
Well I was talking to Stryke about ideas for topics, stupid things, just having a laugh. He suggested a post on rock-games instead of pop games which I laughed off. Then I said something along the lines of games to wipe your bottom with (sorry for being rude :) ) and that is how I got started on this.
I have played games, well tried too for nearly 14 years. In that time I have seen a lot of good games, a fair number of brilliant games but also some very poor games. I thought that as the technology improved the standard of games would also improve and it has but still there are games that spoil it all.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, set up a standard that all games they release must pass, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. How could a game that only deserves 7% be released? Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can and get the most out of their game.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing. I think that things seem ok now but if things continue the way they are we could see big problems in the industry, developers feeling we will accept anything they produce. I just hope that the industry dosn't suffer in the long run for something that could be solved fairly easily.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
Well I'll stop there as I have to go out and you are all probably bored by now. Has anyone got any views on any of this?
Well I was talking to Stryke about ideas for topics, stupid things, just having a laugh. He suggested a post on rock-games instead of pop games which I laughed off. Then I said something along the lines of games to wipe your bottom with (sorry for being rude :) ) and that is how I got started on this.
I have played games, well tried too for nearly 14 years. In that time I have seen a lot of good games, a fair number of brilliant games but also some very poor games. I thought that as the technology improved the standard of games would also improve and it has but still there are games that spoil it all.
All games are made for one reason. Money. Sure some developers like producing games for us all to play but they ultimately do it for the profits. It is an industry that if you do well you will be rewarded in a big way. These days most games cost millions to make but the profits that can be made are well worth the risk. I am currently studying computer science at university and one course focuses on designing software systems and programs and faults in software.
On average with every 1000 lines of programming code, the number of errors will be around 10, these take between 2 and 9 hours to fix. This means for a whole game it could take a very long time to completely rid it of bugs and faults. (remember windows 2000 has 30 million lines of code, it was released still with a lot of unfixed errors) so there isn't much surprise that games have bugss but most developers can keep these to a minimum which don't spoil the game at all.
There are a few reasons why some games don't match expectations and can only be described as pants. First up is time and money.
Money is needed throughout the development for various things, each game is given an expected time for release, usually this slips but as it slips more money is required from the publisher etc and sometimes a game is released before it really should be as money is no longer available and the publisher wants money back from it all so the game gets released.
Another problem could be down to the individual programmers, if a programmer is very good at his job they can produce good code which does what it should in the simplist and most efficient way possible, often programmers are snapped up by the bigger companies so sometimes in the middle of a games design the programmer of a certain part could leave and the part they were working on needs to be re-done.
I was reading through a magazine at the review scores for some games to see what to look out for in the near future, then something I didn't think I would ever see, a game scoring only 7%. The game in question is International League Soccer (Sounds like an ISS copy) and I think that name could confuse a lot, thinking they are buying an ISS game when they are not. This game did sound very poor so why was it released?
I did a post before on maybe a standard should be set that all games released at the time are matched too, when we buy a car we get to see details about the condition it is in so why not have something similar with games, if they have any faults surely we deserve to know about them before we buy it.
So what other solutions are there to reducing the number of poor games?
Well we as people/gamers could complain to developers more. If a product isn’t what it should be or has many faults then we should let them know. We don’t complain enough whether it be in a restaurant or to a developer about a shoddy game. Stand up for your rights and let them know how you feel. It’s time to whinge! If developers have a lot of pressure from the gamers then they will know they will have to do better next time of face a loss in sales, may also give you freebies if you moan enough just to try make you happier.
Manufactures like Sony and Nintendo could do something like this themselves, set up a standard that all games they release must pass, they already do but they aren’t as strict on some games as they should be. How could a game that only deserves 7% be released? Also they should provide more help to the developers on certain aspects of the hardware allowing developers to use it as best they can and get the most out of their game.
Maybe a universal rating system could be used for all types of software, say a star rating out of 10 where 0-1 was very poor and 10 was awarded for very advanced and great quality software (maybe out of 100 would allow easier rating?) The console developer (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) could rate each of the games available for their platform. This way you know if you pick up a game with a high star rating you know it has been approved by the console manufacturer.
I guess the real way to prevent games like this being released is to not buy them, but sometimes due to clever marketing techniques and sometimes biased magazines reviews we can sometimes be fooled into buying a game that isn't what we thought it was. Most marketing teams can find good ways of selling even the most rubbish items available.
Something like these ideas could be beneficial to the gaming industry (and also any software industry) as it improves the overall standards for the customers and users and also for the developers as it would mean more would buy it as it has passed a suitable standard and people would recognise that it has something worth seeing. I think that things seem ok now but if things continue the way they are we could see big problems in the industry, developers feeling we will accept anything they produce. I just hope that the industry dosn't suffer in the long run for something that could be solved fairly easily.
I know all of us know what games are going to be good and which are not, but for those who don't pay enough attention to the industry surely something should be done to help them?
Well I'll stop there as I have to go out and you are all probably bored by now. Has anyone got any views on any of this?
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The more games you play, lean and experiance the better mind you are going to have coming too think, "i should have payed more, £40, mad, mad !!!", it was good, it was bad, "how dare thou waste my time, should have been getting ready for my degree exam!"
one thing you learn over time is that games based on real ideas/themes tv and movies etc are often very vague, small in gameplay/levels etc, i.e harry potter, or big brother , what i consider a great example of a rush just to get timed riht with the release of the movie/programme while it is is popluar, active in your mind.
There are people who look for simply graphics, they want the graphics to be a smooth as a data's bottom, (that android from star trek), there are those who look at game play, how much there is to play, or how much is possible, me i;m an all rounder.....and not not someone who judges how old something is
but now there is a new way of judging how good something looks, lets take an example, say the ps2, from now on when i look at the game i am gonna look at the game, see what the formatt is, and decide from what i know is capable from the machine its for,
the ps2 will allways be the ps2, but yet better games are coming out and we ar seeing that the full potential of the ps2 has not been reached, its just getting better, its been reancarnated from the bomb dropped by microsoft, namely the x-box. And to know that a cetain game for a cetain formatt could have been better, you know it was rubbish, just to be chared that the standar price of all ps2 games...i.e top gun, or one of the earlie pane games, top gun, and now look at the latest releases,
GTA3, GT3 A-spec, Jax and Daxter, Dropship, and even coming soon, metal gear solid, will that bee the best game ever on the ps2, or can they do better? why can they do better, to know that i payed the standard price.....thats when i know it wasnt such a good game, and i know what the ps2, x-box, game cube is fully capable of, and so if you see a game with the graphics of GT3 on the x-box, you know its not that good looking as it should be.
As for older consoles like the spectrum, amiga, who can get tired of pong!, ping, manic miner :)
one thing you learn over time is that games based on real ideas/themes tv and movies etc are often very vague, small in gameplay/levels etc, i.e harry potter, or big brother , what i consider a great example of a rush just to get timed riht with the release of the movie/programme while it is is popluar, active in your mind.
There are people who look for simply graphics, they want the graphics to be a smooth as a data's bottom, (that android from star trek), there are those who look at game play, how much there is to play, or how much is possible, me i;m an all rounder.....and not not someone who judges how old something is
but now there is a new way of judging how good something looks, lets take an example, say the ps2, from now on when i look at the game i am gonna look at the game, see what the formatt is, and decide from what i know is capable from the machine its for,
the ps2 will allways be the ps2, but yet better games are coming out and we ar seeing that the full potential of the ps2 has not been reached, its just getting better, its been reancarnated from the bomb dropped by microsoft, namely the x-box. And to know that a cetain game for a cetain formatt could have been better, you know it was rubbish, just to be chared that the standar price of all ps2 games...i.e top gun, or one of the earlie pane games, top gun, and now look at the latest releases,
GTA3, GT3 A-spec, Jax and Daxter, Dropship, and even coming soon, metal gear solid, will that bee the best game ever on the ps2, or can they do better? why can they do better, to know that i payed the standard price.....thats when i know it wasnt such a good game, and i know what the ps2, x-box, game cube is fully capable of, and so if you see a game with the graphics of GT3 on the x-box, you know its not that good looking as it should be.
As for older consoles like the spectrum, amiga, who can get tired of pong!, ping, manic miner :)
Another excellent topic there Aliboy!
I agree, ban all these crap spin-offs etc which clog up the shelves. Personally i think someone should burn the Harry Potter stuff (my view, which i know many disagree with before i get an earful for saying it). It was blatently designed to get as much money from parents who know nothing about computer games and bought it for their kids for christmas. Disgrace.
GAD worthy (once again) i think. You have my notable vote
I agree, ban all these crap spin-offs etc which clog up the shelves. Personally i think someone should burn the Harry Potter stuff (my view, which i know many disagree with before i get an earful for saying it). It was blatently designed to get as much money from parents who know nothing about computer games and bought it for their kids for christmas. Disgrace.
GAD worthy (once again) i think. You have my notable vote
Yeah Harry Potter is one of them.
I believe that Harry Potter had potential to be a lot better but was rushed to be ready for just after the movie release so the developers could maximise profits from fans. I would guess this happens a lot of times and in the end it usually is the gamers who suffer.
I believe that Harry Potter had potential to be a lot better but was rushed to be ready for just after the movie release so the developers could maximise profits from fans. I would guess this happens a lot of times and in the end it usually is the gamers who suffer.
AliBoy wrote:
About the second part is it people being gullible or are they being
> mislead or tricked into buying something which has been hyped and cleverly
> marketed to make it appear a lot better than it really is.
Stand up Harry Potter, your name has just been mentioned.
About the second part is it people being gullible or are they being
> mislead or tricked into buying something which has been hyped and cleverly
> marketed to make it appear a lot better than it really is.
Stand up Harry Potter, your name has just been mentioned.
pb wrote:
> Bad games get made when developers get lazy or see some easy money in a licence.
> If the people who gave them the licence cared about their games, they would get
> the software companies to sign a contract preventing them from selling anything
> they weren't happy with.
As you say though, not buying the crap games sends a
> message right where it hurts the most, the wallet. Shame there are still so
> many gullible people around though.
So what does this say for the future? Apart from a few developers who are interested in making good quality games we could see a lot of developers just out to make a fast buck and we will probably just let it happen.
About the second part is it people being gullible or are they being mislead or tricked into buying something which has been hyped and cleverly marketed to make it appear a lot better than it really is.
> Bad games get made when developers get lazy or see some easy money in a licence.
> If the people who gave them the licence cared about their games, they would get
> the software companies to sign a contract preventing them from selling anything
> they weren't happy with.
As you say though, not buying the crap games sends a
> message right where it hurts the most, the wallet. Shame there are still so
> many gullible people around though.
So what does this say for the future? Apart from a few developers who are interested in making good quality games we could see a lot of developers just out to make a fast buck and we will probably just let it happen.
About the second part is it people being gullible or are they being mislead or tricked into buying something which has been hyped and cleverly marketed to make it appear a lot better than it really is.
er-no wrote:
> keeps doing some silly magician stunt.
I have to perfect the art.
pb wrote:
> Bad games get made when developers get lazy or see some > easy money in a licence. If the people who gave them the > licence cared about their games, they would get the > software companies to sign a contract preventing them > from selling anything they weren't happy with.
Remindes me of the weakest link & who wants to be a millionaire.
> keeps doing some silly magician stunt.
I have to perfect the art.
pb wrote:
> Bad games get made when developers get lazy or see some > easy money in a licence. If the people who gave them the > licence cared about their games, they would get the > software companies to sign a contract preventing them > from selling anything they weren't happy with.
Remindes me of the weakest link & who wants to be a millionaire.
Bad games get made when developers get lazy or see some easy money in a licence. If the people who gave them the licence cared about their games, they would get the software companies to sign a contract preventing them from selling anything they weren't happy with.
As you say though, not buying the crap games sends a message right where it hurts the most, the wallet. Shame there are still so many gullible people around though.
As you say though, not buying the crap games sends a message right where it hurts the most, the wallet. Shame there are still so many gullible people around though.
RastaBillySkank wrote:
> *Falls over in shock*
Good god, it's Vai!
Yeah... .... oh... him.
He appeared about a week ago..
keeps doing some silly magician stunt.
> *Falls over in shock*
Good god, it's Vai!
Yeah... .... oh... him.
He appeared about a week ago..
keeps doing some silly magician stunt.
*Falls over in shock*
Good god, it's Vai!
Good god, it's Vai!
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