Good blog there jaa...wish I would've seen it when you posted it so we could've gotten up on the OS Frontpage!!

Bull_Dozer -- Mosh pit bug is a great name for it haha!!

I'm always leery of activist journalism because of all the problems it can cause -- and I'm not talking about losing free games, lord knows we can afford those regardless of whether a company sends them to us. There are bigger impacts of such a campaign which endorses a position, which means your site automatically becomes linked with that position even though it consists of many people with many different opinions and ideas across the entire spectrum. What I'd prefer OS to keep doing in the future is call out stuff, pursue truth, and try to be the middlemen who try to inform its readers to the point where they can make those decisions. It's what a great journalist should do...and maybe I'm naive and have high ideas here, but I'd prefer if OS kept to that standard.

The only problem with this whole line of reasoning (and I realize you did state there is no perfect solution) is that bugs on console games did exist before patches. I remember NBA 2k3 had a game killing freeze for the xbox and it completely made the game unplayable. If patches where around perhaps that could have been remedied.

I think you hit the nail on the head by stating that a one year development cycle might not be enough time to get everything done and implemented correctly but the public demands a new title every year.

I don't care about bugs like these - if they are going to ship games in these conditions before a patch arrives, why not release Madden two weeks after E3? I'm all for it! Maybe I could actually get through multiple years of franchise and play online a lot in football season.

DaTwolves21 -- Simple answer: No.

You are correct, but there comes a time (just as there was with PC games) when software shifts from developed with the 'get a great product at release' mentality to the 'oh we can just patch that later' mentality. There's no scientific studies on this, in fact I think it'd be darned impossible to quantify, but from a pure subjective standpoint -- it certainly seems like the safety net of patches cause a bit more laxity in the development QA process.

Of course it's entirely possible there are just as many testers now as there were 10 years ago -- and if that's the case it's a huge problem since there are now exponentially many more things which can go wrong with a game given the increase in detail.

Good write-up, I don't buy on launch day for these very reasons. For one, if I wait I might get the game cheaper or as part of a "buy 2 get 1" deal. For NCAA specifically I want to wait so the roster makers can put out a complete set, and the patches and/or tuners help clean up the unfinished parts of the game. I still feel like this suggests a higher price and 2 year cycle might make more sense, but that's another discussion.

It seems to me that an open beta test for these games would A) help to iron out many of these kinks before release and B) provide companies like EA with the feedback of millions of gamers free of charge (an invaluable resource). I think what Naughty Dog just did with the Uncharted 3 beta was brilliant. The fan base was ecstatic to get early access and we uncovered tons of glitches and bugs that can now be fixed by release. Right now, as jaa1980 eluded to above, these companies are basically forcing us to beta test after we've already purchased the game and leaving us to hope that we'll have a usable product somewhere throughout it's lifespan. It seems more logical to me if I'm releasing a game to get the core game play features and modes working flawlessly and then maybe release a patch adding the DLC/micro transaction features if necessary. Sadly developers seem to be taking the opposite approach of quantity over quality.

Les Miles was actually going to use this tactic against florida this year. Way to ruin it NCAA 12!!!

I could 't agree more, man. I was actually thinking of writing a blog to this effect the other day. Purchasing a sports game on release day is pretty pointless now given the fact that the version of the game that is most likely to yield long-term enjoyment doesn't arrive until the second patch--which is two months into the game's play cycle.

I actually used this approach with MLB 2K11 and NBA 2K11 and I'm loving those games. I simply waited out the patches and waited for the slider gurus to finalize their sets before I even touched the game. That allowed me to really enjoy the best those games had to offer without having to deal with any of the frustration. It also saved me $40 in price drops between the two games .

I always thought it was the Game Changers responsibility to find bugs. But more and more it looks their role is to PROMOTE the game. This year all you see them doing is hosting EA sponsored Online Dynasties and EA sponsored Tournaments.

I mean they went down there 6 times before the game came out. That is a record amount of times, but yet despite that NCAA 12 is the buggiest game they released in a LONG TIME.

When the program was created, I was led to believe they were suppose to fnd bugs and give ideas that actually enhanced the game. But in reality it appears they are more promoters then anything else.

I understand you want to play multiple games to see if a pattern occurs and that is an actual bug or glitch. But some of these things are so blatantly visually obvious that my 7 yr old nephew is calling them out and he is only 7.

So what is it ? Denial ? or what ? Also some of this stuff can be fixed via tuner, but yet they haven't released a single tuner file yet.

Kind of feels like they set their expectation bar so low, that no matter what, they will always meet their expectations. They need to raise the bar, have some pride.

They should make their game so good that everytime they walk into Walmart or Best Buy or Game Stop, people are talking about their game, saying how great it is. People don't do that with the NCAA series.

I know a lot of casuals who don't really play video games, but they know about MLB The Show and always talk about how great it is to look at and to play. Even women know about MLB The Show. That is how popular and good that game is.

If you think about it there's no reason to buy sports games until a patch (or two) have been released...otherwise your just playing a guitar with broken strings

Great article. I am starting to wait for sports games to be out for a few weeks before I decide to get it or not. Then if I decide to get it, maybe it might have a price drop.

It's funny, I know when I buy a sports game on release day what I'm getting. A unfinished product. A couple patches later and it be finished, well after I spent my money on it. It is a frustrating process to go though, yet every sports game that comes out, it's rinse & repeat. Before a game is released I hype it up, and I think maybe I can pick it up at the store and start my dynasty on the same day, like the old days. This fails more often then not.

The excitement of waiting months for a new game to come out, reading the previews, seeing screenshots, counting down to release date overtakes the truth that I know the game I'm buying will need a patch or two or three before it plays as advertised.