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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?
Page:
With the rating system by Nintendo/Sony, are you talking about coding type stuff i.e. efficentcy, speed, bugs. Or gameplay issues i.e. graphics, gameplay, sound? Also nearly all games have this kind of thing on already from mags (we know how relaxed they are with giving out marks), so to be effective it would have to be tough on games.
Nice post there AliBoy... (deserves a GAD)
But there was one little fault..
If console manufatcurers reviewed games then how biased are the reviews going to be?...
Remember the manufacturers make a LOSS on the console and therefore need as much money from the games and so if we left the job to them then they will give what possibily copuld be the MOST biased reviews around.. worse than the magasines that dont award a game less that 90% *cough*NOM*cough*...
Other than that you have a very good point there.. maybe an independant mag can review games like GamesMaster or Edge who can be assigned by a governing body.....
Dont you think so?
But there was one little fault..
If console manufatcurers reviewed games then how biased are the reviews going to be?...
Remember the manufacturers make a LOSS on the console and therefore need as much money from the games and so if we left the job to them then they will give what possibily copuld be the MOST biased reviews around.. worse than the magasines that dont award a game less that 90% *cough*NOM*cough*...
Other than that you have a very good point there.. maybe an independant mag can review games like GamesMaster or Edge who can be assigned by a governing body.....
Dont you think so?
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?
Page: