Yeah, developing complex software is not easy, but I personally think one of the biggest culprits is the publishing industry. They often have unrealistic and unmoveable release dates, put tremendous amounts of pressure on dev teams and 9/10 times decide whether broken games are even worth fixing in the first place.
Well lets look at FSX again on this one. The ACES team were only contracted (well before release) to only 2 patches. So the first was to get fsx original playable out of the box and the second was thrown in the "paid patch" called FSX acceleration.
So even before the game was finished, microshaft already limited the progression of FSX which i can't understand, as previous fsx versions have sold loads and fs9 is still being widely used today.
I remember (foolishly) purchasing FSX on day dot of release. The minimum specs said i could run it, so i bought it. Well, the minimum specs was a blatent lie and microshaft knew it. Making people think it will run fine on computers that really can't handle it due to poor coding.
Talking about coding, who remembers the classic f*ckup by the aces team on the FSX release of the head turning memory bug.
"What was this?" i hear you say...
Well it was a simple error in coding where the wank aces team stuck in a figure for memory way to low which resulted in about 5 fps if you panned your view in cockpit. Yep, this 5 fps was felt all accross the community and made the game unplayable if you wanted to turn your head. But this bug made it to release, past the devs, past the beta testers, past quality assurance.
It took a community member to point out a simple fix via notepad to increase the memory value number (which was absurdly too low). Hey presto, we can now pan with an acceptable frame rate. WTF were the aces team thikning? doing? researching?
Buying FSX on release was like sitting under an elephants rear end who has chronic diorhea, feet tied with only a straw to get out. It left a really bad taste in my mouth.
UBI - well, they shafted us time and time again with silent hunter and failed features (that even appeared on packaging) that were not and never intended to be implemented in game - Milche cows anyone?
But what is the problem here? I was an avid member on the ubi-zoo forums and whilst everyone (rightly) moaned and groaned over the sh1te state silent hunter was in, the time it took for basic patches, the missing features, the lack of polish.............. well these people bought SH3, SH4, SH5.
I had enough after SH3. i refused to buy any more. What message are we the public sending to publishers if we cannot show any self restraint but mindlessly buy every next iteration of a game even though we prolifically poo-poo it?
The publishers are just laughing as the joe schmo local public have set a precedent that says we cannot control ouselves and we will accept rubbish and happily pay for it.
Clod - well don't get me started. I was one of the most avid die hard fans of IL-2. I have refused to pay for clod and i am glad i didn't. I am sorely dissapointed and they lied to us on release, as it was not no where near completion.