There's No Longer a Reason to Buy Sports Games on Day One - RaychelSnr's Blog

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There's No Longer a Reason to Buy Sports Games on Day One Stuck

Posted on July 24, 2011 at 03:03 AM.

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Many of you that have read my blog over the past 3 years know that I'm a man who loves to spot trends and then extrapolate what they mean into the future. I love to see where our endlessly exciting and hugely creative industry is going in the future while also enjoying what we have to offer in the present.

One of the trends I became very worried even before my time here at Operation Sports was the advent and pursuit of patches in console gaming. Everyone who's anyone who remembers the hey-day of PC gaming will remember what happened at the apex of that generation -- the typical mantra was, "only fools buy a game on launch day."

Well congratulations longtime console gamers (and old PC diehards), you've now gotten your wish -- you just didn't know you were wishing for it.

PC Gaming is back, it is just on a console.

"Don't be spun, avoid the dry run, never buy a sports game on day one, else you'll never have any fun."

It has really gotten to this point. Every sports game launches with a variety of bugs which can ruin the experience in 2011. No title is immune, and depending on how careless a developer is -- the bugs can run from annoying to downright "why is this defective piece of crap on store shelves at $60?" infuriating.

Given that every sports game launches before the official sport goes in season -- there is literally no reason for you to buy a game on launch day anymore. Games are often shipped with a variety of bugs, outdated rosters, and oftentimes you pay $60 for a game which might just fall in price by the time the kinks are worked out.

The Good Ol' Broken Gridiron

Let's take NCAA Football 12 for example.

NCAA could be a great game. It could feature potentially great gameplay. It could have an incredibly deep and rich experience in Dynasty and Road to Glory mode.

So long as a patch addresses the coulds mentioned above.

And a patch probably will. And NCAA will probably be a great game worthy of the high praise many have given it.

But right now, at this point, there's no reason to buy NCAA.

There won't be a compelling reason to buy Madden on August 30 either.

For that matter, there won't even be a really good argument for buying NBA 2K12 on October 4 as well.

Not until the patches are out and the game actually works as intended. It is a good thing the automobile industry doesn't work like video games, we'd all be driving potentially great cars right up until the engine quit working or the air conditioning was found to actually never blow cold air (a real travesty given the current heat wave I might add).

And yes, I know there's a lot of irony in that previous statement, especially if you've bought American.

Perhaps we can give games potential ratings?

And let's not even begin to talk about how flummoxed game reviewers are these days (much less their editors).

What is there to do? Wait a month before giving a likely still incomplete game a review? What about reviewing a game on day one and completely missing the fact the game is likely broken and the majority of your readers are going to be ticked off about said game?

Shoot here at Operation Sports, we give games a week before issuing a score and many of the biggest bugs appeared after we released the review of NCAA Football 12. Is there any justice in this world?

And the thinking man would be right, there is nothing you can do about this quandary. It is a darned if you do and darned if you don't kind of situation where the only perfect answer is that there isn't one.

But perhaps a small disclaimer on reviews going forward that bugs can and will appear that will affect the experience, or perhaps the experience is different for different people, or maybe we can just start throwing a dart at a score sheet on the wall and giving a game a new score each day until it is fully patched.

There's no real answer here.

The Blame Game

But really, who is to blame here?

You see, PC Developers back in the day had a very convenient excuse about PC Hardware being so various, with endless combinations to test for. There was literally no way to ship a game without a few bugs.

Consumers, the ones who didn't leave for the console where games were finished and working properly, understood.

Fast forward to the bright and shiny days of console gaming -- where bugs don't occur at launch and where the worst of PC Gaming (unfinished games) was left in the 90s -- or not.

For the amount of bugs to be getting through the cracks for so many different titles at each studio lends me to believe sports games really can't be developed in a year. Yet, they can't be profitable unless they're developed each year on the nose.

It is a weird catch-22 I know.

We will never know if quality assurance (aka the video game testers) budgets have been cut and there simply isn't as much testing going on these days, but we do know whatever is being done is no longer effective.

And to the consumer, that is all that matters.

So What Can You Do?

So the real question is, "What can I do about this travesty?"

Well short of not buying sports games on launch day, nothing.

This is the United States of America and money talks. If Madden were to see a huge dip in launch day sales, the panic button would be pushed and things reexamined. Ditto for NBA 2K, MLB 2K, NCAA Football, NHL, etc. You want to see real change in the products you buy? Then don't buy them.

But let's be realistic, unless you decide to start a few viral campaigns with a compelling message which people will believe in (which is stronger than their desire to play Madden on August 30), this effort is doomed to failure in achieving your goals of wide ranging changes.

The rest of your options begin to get rather limited after that. You can complain on message boards, but most places which like to keep law and order (and civil discussion) will probably send you on your way if you really say what's on your mind. You can write angry letters, but short of getting a refund you probably won't get too far there as just one person in a sea of very willing customers.

You can, however, just choose to be wise and not buy a game at launch. Be patient, be calm, and just wait things out before diving in. Compulsive buying of things we really don't need is an issue larger than what I can write about here on Operation Sports -- but I can say that if you want to see a change, sometimes the best place to start is with yourself.

Maybe more will read this and follow you. Maybe they won't.

But at least for a short time, you'll feel like you beat the man.

And there's no price you can put on that.

Comments

# 31 DirtyJerz32 @ Jul 24

Nice write up. Very true on all points. I've stopped playing NCAA as of yesterday because of the issues. Hopefully everything gets patched and we'll have a great game on our hands. Hopefully...

# 32 jwilphl @ Jul 24

This is why I don't like the yearly development cycle for sports games. It is also why I only buy these games once every other year or even less often than that. I do not see an end any time soon to yearly releases, however. That's just how this section of the market operates.

And as you mentioned there has to be some form of "social loafing" in a sense that developers can simply patch after release. The game won't get as much strict scrutiny prior to release for that reason. Developers have admitted they have to "prioritize" bugs and only fix certain ones before distribution. Other bugs they simply will patch.

Although with all the bugs, I think it is possible that more sophisticated or knowledgeable programmers could make a product that wasn't as bug-ridden. You'll be quick to notice that NCAA is probably one of the least-polished sports games on the market. Perhaps EA would do well to hire more experienced programmers. I realize NCAA is probably very low on the totem pole there at EA sports because it doesn't generate the revenue of a FIFA or Madden, but I still don't think it should get the 2nd-class treatment that it seems to receive.

# 33 rudyjuly2 @ Jul 24

Hard to disagree. We all want the day one purchase but the amount of bugs and glitches is getting bad. It's getting really bad at EA where they seem to have negotiated two or three free patches and mistakes aren't really punished. Maybe we Sony and MS need to institute a one patch only for everyone and massive fees for secondary patches. Money talks and the bottom line is what concerns all these guys.

# 34 xITSxDAWKINSx @ Jul 24

this right here proves to me that ea doesn't test their game or even play their own game at all

# 35 Gotmadskillzson @ Jul 24

From what I seen, they test user vs user way too much and pretty much the only thing they care about. Which is online play. If online play is working, everything is else is just an after thought.

Been that way for all games this generation. Online play is the priority, everything else isn't. Far as patches go, I said it for the past 3 years now, companies are using the ability to patch a game as a crutch and a cop out for releasing games that is basically in the beta phase.

Just because we have the technology to do it, doesn't mean you should have to do it every year, multiple times. Got to the point NCAA series rely on patches so much, that RELEASE DAY patches are the norm now for the series.

Who would have ever thought everytime your game comes out, you have a RELEASE DAY patch. I mean can you imagine every time you bought a car, the 1st day you got to take it to the shop to get it fixed ?

# 36 dannyr326 @ Jul 24

Great Article. Hopefully Madden can learn from NCAA's mistakes and get their game "right" on day 1.

# 37 acreyman @ Jul 25

Well if you wait then you miss the incentives like $20 off the game for example. I was gonna wait till at least the 2nd patch but the game will the a full blown $60. But since alot of stores were offering cash discounts, like the Target trade in deal.....I went ahead and grabbed it. Its not that bad really, the game is playable to me. I am just about to finish dynasty year two and I am gonna put NBA 2k11 back till the next patch. But it is NOT an excuse for EA. I feel sorry for the guy who does not have an internet connection and cant get a patch, so he is stuck with a buggy game. THAT guy got ripped off, we have a fix in the future at least but it still sucks that the industry considers this an acceptable way to do business.

# 38 FrankieOliver @ Jul 25

Did it ruin the game THAT much?

# 39 H to the Oza @ Jul 25

Perhaps youre being too harsh. All video games have had glitches, its not like this is new. There is less now then 10 years ago, and even less with patches.

I understand it can make developers 'lazy' when it comes to designing, but they work hard and do deliver a solid game year after year.

Just my .02

# 40 sarlndr @ Jul 25

You're saying NCAA 12 is a solid game out of the box? SMH

# 41 gilla @ Jul 25

wow, couldn't agree more, the only reason to purchase the game on release week is for the added bonuses or discounts on the game. A powertrade at Gamestop gives me 50% more on my trade ins so I'd be stupid to wait and end up costing me $20 more two months later.

# 42 Phobia @ Jul 25

This is easily one of my favorite articles written on Operation Sports and is something I have been screaming for a long time now. It is good to see it acknowledged from a larger "organization"!

# 43 TheTodd84 @ Jul 25

A couple things. A huge issue is the yearly release cycle. Wouldn't it be more prudent, financially, as a company to release a roster the year after and have the same patched game and THEN release the new game the following year so it follows a two-year cycle? You would not have to spend as much money on a yearly cycle for R&D and paying people to assure quality and what not as quickly and there is not as much overhead. You could spread it out over two years and have people just release an updated roster for the next year.

Also, wouldn't this help with marketing as you could hype the new game two years down the road a TON more because you talk about all of the game's TRULY new features since you had two years to perfect them? That would just seem to make more business sense. THeir launch day purchases would be much higher because every release, the game would be exponentially better, you would hope. And then they could just release a patch along with the rosters.

You could charge maybe $20 for the rosters or something.

2. EA, please, look at the polls here at OS and at other places... STOP DOING Q&A ON USER VS. USER GAMES. The majority of the community has said repeatedly they DO NOT PLAY ONLINE, or they spend most of their time in offline dynasty. So that should be the focus, gameplay vs. the CPU.

Anyway, that's just my .02. I can't wait for FIFA and NBA 2k12. Physics, FOR ONCE, in both of those games.

# 44 mdiggitydawg @ Jul 25

One of the best OBJECTIVE articles written about the travesty that is the game industry today. Thank you and thank you to OS for allowing an open, honest article which even mentions it's own shortcomings.

Again Thank you and maybe one day we will make a change.

# 45 LucianoJJ @ Jul 25

The comparison to PC gaming is a good one. Everyone had different specs, different hardware, so getting a game to run was not always certain. Console gaming took away the need to upgrade a video card every other year, adding RAM, switching anti-virus software on and off. Console gaming was the solution for all the frustrating tweaking you had to do to play PC games. Now, as Chris points out, console games are shipping with bugs and seem incomplete. Patches are one thing, and do improve the games. But patches are just as frustrating as tweaking a PC was. This gen of consoles is about two or three years from being over. Sony and MS need to get going with replacements for their current systems. If an outsider like Apple could design a console that would include current day specs with true HD quality, they could bury Sony, MS, and Nintendo.

NCAA Football 12 has been the one game that made me regret buying on release day. Waiting until the fall wouldn't work for me because that time is for FIFA. Tiburon is now stuck having to scramble to patch multiple issues now. Drop the prices of these games or improve them. This isn't worth $59.99 retail.

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