The state of the gaming industry

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" It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process."

How did the gaming industry get to this point? No man's sky, mass affect, the witcher, Anthem, you name it. While I did enjoy parts of cyberpunk, I think these gaming companies and investors are getting away with literal murder. How has it become somehow acceptable, to release half finished, bug and crash filled, and less than what promoted games? Anthem literally created a fake gameplay reveal for e3, and now they're working on "Anthem next".

"It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process." Why is it that we're paying 60+ dollars, making these people millions of dollars, for games that will take "quite long" just to be what gamers are expecting?
Bugs, crashes, cut content, literally unplayable optimization, a totally out of sync story centered around Keanu Reeves to the point that it's lore breaking. The "open world" aspect is literally gone, the story and all the side missions can beat completed in 30-40 hours, there is no post game, life paths are completely pointless, AI are completely brain dead- If you analyze this game at any level deeper than the surface....there's just so many issues.

In my opinion these instances should be considered literal crimes. You don't buy a ferrari, pop open the hood, and do nothing when there's a suburu engine in it. When you sell someone a product, and it does nothing you marketed it to do, you get sued, and usually lose. Why is the gaming industry allowed to be different?

It took years? So what, the lead quest designer is telling us "Don't worry, by 2023 the game will have some of the missing content, and maybe an actually good story" ??
I probably haven't had this much hype, this much anticipation, for such a long time, for any game since destiny 1.
And then they come out with the half assed apology. "we thought the game was running better on console each day" yeah? how exactly? The game literally looks like minecraft on console. Console reviews were also non existent...So what's really going on here?

I'm fed up, can you tell?
 
Get a refund, no drama, move on, thousand of games waiting.

I refunded No Man's Sky, 2 days after launch, 2 years later buy it again at a discount, and the game is good now, no fuss, for me No Man's Sky never released in 2016.
 
Seems like quality control is outta whack. From a Playstation user perspective, I've seen a lot of crap come through that doesn't even makes sense how it got to the store. Things like PS VR games that are suppose to be for 12 and up, but it's geared for more like 11 and down. Have you played Turkey Hunt? How in the world did that even make it to the store?

This game would be very cool to play in VR.

I dunno, hopefully the gaming industry isn't taking the Arasaka approach.
 
For the tweet, he was referencing how long it took for many gamers to discover all the content in the Witcher3. It took a couple years for many in his view to discover pretty much everything.
 
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While I would say to others to not dismiss this issue, as I agree with OP that it's a concern from consumer's point of view (the whole reason why there are regulatory commissions against other industries), but we ourselves cannot resolve this issue ranting on reddit and forums, and at the end of the day it's just a video game industry, not some refinery leaking out chemicals into drinking water.

However, this is how it is intended. It's economy. It's the system. Despite the scandalous debacle the release of this game was, sales were high. But I am quite sure it hurt the investors plenty as CDPR took a nose dive thereafter. It's slowly gaining back but not enough when compared to about a month ago, before release.

When it comes to game industry, investment is half the time a gamble. You either succeed as its investor by lying to consumers or not.

Perhaps other industries might have gotten away with reassurance from official statements, but game industry aren't really flexible and established enough to do that, despite the whole industry is worth a lot more than Hollywood.

But yes I have personally noticed falsified marketing in tons and tons of games lately, and the final product is disappointing. The laws pertaining to software IP are wholly different than the usual conventional products; so much so that they can get away with pretty much anything.

And video games cannot harm consumers despite the defectiveness of the final product, and despite the falsified marketing. Hence, despite it being a large money making industry, in regards to regulations and other government oversights on protecting the consumers, it's off the radar. All they can do, at their best, is try and protect you from possible privacy violations.

What I am personally bothered by is that they have mass-industrialized a form of entertainment, and mass-industrialized its personnel who are of the highly-educated artists with talents, and those certified enough to be engineers even. And the mass employment of these sectors sooner or later leads them to become mere numbers and laborers for a large body, that is the corporate.
 
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I understand the point you're trying to make but not on top of this tweet. He's not talking about what you think he is.

Indeed.

Re: OP's post: I understand that it can be frustrating when a product does not meet your expectations, but you can't reference what is said in this tweet and then deem the whole gaming industry and the game a failure as a result of it.

Game development is not a production line of vehicles. The parameters are not defined at all like those that make a car. Game development is a creative enterprise and especially in the time we live in, innovation can take things in multiple directions. Some well-received, others not so much.

While I agree there are issues with Cyberpunk 2077 that need to be addressed, if you so vexed with the game, you need to step back and ask yourself, what if you did get what you wanted? Having so many consumer protection policies in place governing video game development, would help the game industry or hamper it? Personally, I think it would stifle creativity and innovation.
 
Get a refund, no drama, move on, thousand of games waiting.

I refunded No Man's Sky, 2 days after launch, 2 years later buy it again at a discount, and the game is good now, no fuss, for me No Man's Sky never released in 2016.

How do i refund something i bought physically from a store?
 
My two cents: with the passage of time the games will become bigger and more complex, therefore less and less bug free, considering the size (in every sense) of many games, and we must also deal with deadlines, many very tight times (two-three years in the case of ubisoft), and for this reason I advise everyone to wait at least a year to play certain games (especially in the case of Cyberpunk 2077), for example Borderland 3 and Odyssey have played them a year later, I know they are not excuses, this is my point of view, those who encounter too many bugs, stop uninstall the game and wait a year, only then you can see how the game is
 
at some point, they should have been honest with themselves and should have delayed the whole project to 2021/22.
With the same move, they should have scrapped the last gen version completely.

the base 8th gen consoles were not up to snuff when there were released and now, they are completely dead.

they could have released a perfectly fine game without bugs, working AI, police, nice driving and a full story.
 
" It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process."

How did the gaming industry get to this point? No man's sky, mass affect, the witcher, Anthem, you name it. While I did enjoy parts of cyberpunk, I think these gaming companies and investors are getting away with literal murder. How has it become somehow acceptable, to release half finished, bug and crash filled, and less than what promoted games? Anthem literally created a fake gameplay reveal for e3, and now they're working on "Anthem next".

"It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process." Why is it that we're paying 60+ dollars, making these people millions of dollars, for games that will take "quite long" just to be what gamers are expecting?
Bugs, crashes, cut content, literally unplayable optimization, a totally out of sync story centered around Keanu Reeves to the point that it's lore breaking. The "open world" aspect is literally gone, the story and all the side missions can beat completed in 30-40 hours, there is no post game, life paths are completely pointless, AI are completely brain dead- If you analyze this game at any level deeper than the surface....there's just so many issues.

In my opinion these instances should be considered literal crimes. You don't buy a ferrari, pop open the hood, and do nothing when there's a suburu engine in it. When you sell someone a product, and it does nothing you marketed it to do, you get sued, and usually lose. Why is the gaming industry allowed to be different?

It took years? So what, the lead quest designer is telling us "Don't worry, by 2023 the game will have some of the missing content, and maybe an actually good story" ??
I probably haven't had this much hype, this much anticipation, for such a long time, for any game since destiny 1.
And then they come out with the half assed apology. "we thought the game was running better on console each day" yeah? how exactly? The game literally looks like minecraft on console. Console reviews were also non existent...So what's really going on here?

I'm fed up, can you tell?

Wow... pretty harsh. I am not sure that going to jail in the case is a necessity... however there should be a proper social feedback.
(btw I guess you got the tweet wrong)

Indeed.

Re: OP's post: I understand that it can be frustrating when a product does not meet your expectations, but you can't reference what is said in this tweet and then deem the whole gaming industry and the game a failure as a result of it.

Game development is not a production line of vehicles. The parameters are not defined at all like those that make a car. Game development is a creative enterprise and especially in the time we live in, innovation can take things in multiple directions. Some well-received, others not so much.

While I agree there are issues with Cyberpunk 2077 that need to be addressed, if you so vexed with the game, you need to step back and ask yourself, what if you did get what you wanted? Having so many consumer protection policies in place governing video game development, would help the game industry or hamper it? Personally, I think it would stifle creativity and innovation.

And here we go again... It is not a matter of meeting or not meeting expectations. It is a matter of an UNFINISHED product. If you insist that creativity in game industry is something different from creativity in car industry than tell me how would you distinguish an unfinished painting from a finished one? Or you would find something postmodern in it? It's nothing to do with author's vision. It is his or her work that he or she has not finished for whatever reason.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a decent consumer protection system, because companies are not charities. They are making money. It is their job. And if there will be no proper feedback from the community and defenders of rights than we will eventually be buying sketches or ideas.
Do not get me wrong. I got a lot of respect for game developer crews. I know it is a hard work. And I personally love Cyberpunk 2077. It could be the best game I've ever played. But I am not blind. The community is not blind. And CDPR is not blind either. Everyone knows the current status of affairs.
We have no right not to talk about this experience for the sake of future projects and game industry on the whole.
It would be perfect for CDPR management to state that they messed up without any excuses but it is a GOOD LESSON FOR ALL OF US and that they will put things right and welcome all the talented modders to take part. In this case I would donate on a regular basis. But they can't say like that because this is business. And investors in this situation don't care about games, gamers or anything but their money (and that is absolutely ok).
There is no creativity in releasing an unfinished product. And it is not very nice to treat people that are upset in a don't-like-don't-play-refund way.
 
" It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process."

How did the gaming industry get to this point? No man's sky, mass affect, the witcher, Anthem, you name it. While I did enjoy parts of cyberpunk, I think these gaming companies and investors are getting away with literal murder. How has it become somehow acceptable, to release half finished, bug and crash filled, and less than what promoted games? Anthem literally created a fake gameplay reveal for e3, and now they're working on "Anthem next".

"It took years for #TheWitcher 3, so it will take quite long for this game too. I love observing this process." Why is it that we're paying 60+ dollars, making these people millions of dollars, for games that will take "quite long" just to be what gamers are expecting?
Bugs, crashes, cut content, literally unplayable optimization, a totally out of sync story centered around Keanu Reeves to the point that it's lore breaking. The "open world" aspect is literally gone, the story and all the side missions can beat completed in 30-40 hours, there is no post game, life paths are completely pointless, AI are completely brain dead- If you analyze this game at any level deeper than the surface....there's just so many issues.

In my opinion these instances should be considered literal crimes. You don't buy a ferrari, pop open the hood, and do nothing when there's a suburu engine in it. When you sell someone a product, and it does nothing you marketed it to do, you get sued, and usually lose. Why is the gaming industry allowed to be different?

It took years? So what, the lead quest designer is telling us "Don't worry, by 2023 the game will have some of the missing content, and maybe an actually good story" ??
I probably haven't had this much hype, this much anticipation, for such a long time, for any game since destiny 1.
And then they come out with the half assed apology. "we thought the game was running better on console each day" yeah? how exactly? The game literally looks like minecraft on console. Console reviews were also non existent...So what's really going on here?

I'm fed up, can you tell?
Preach
 
IMO the scopes of the games is just to big. Every studio works with the huge pressure to be relevant and make games that will stand up from the crowd.
And the bigger the project the more complicated it gets, more engine instabilities, team management problems plus old consoles bottleneck is only making things worse.

It looks like we are going into more Larian/BG3 kind of releases with Early access or like MMO are being made with expansions that will add new chapters of the story and features to the game.

And that means that this is the beginning of the end of the “full package in one purchase” games and more like game as a service model like above.
 
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IMO the scopes of the games is just to big. Every studio works with the huge pressure to be relevant and make games that will stand up from the crowd.
And the bigger the project the more complicated it gets, more engine instabilities, team management problems plus old consoles bottleneck is only making things worse.

It looks like we are going into more Larian/BG3 kind of releases with Early ascces or like MMO are being made with expansions that will add new chapters of the story and features to the game.

And that means that this is the beginning of the end of the “full package in one purchase” games and more like game as a service model like above.

Good point. I say this is pretty exciting to buy add-ons, dlcs, various packs. I am not kidding right now. I think this is future. And it brings a vibe of cozy collecting and being a part of a huge and evolving project. It would be a great path for Cyberpunk right now. The question is if it's core is capable of being heavily modded.
 
Good point. I say this is pretty exciting to buy add-ons, dlcs, various packs. I am not kidding right now. I think this is future. And it brings a vibe of cozy collecting and being a part of a huge and evolving project. It would be a great path for Cyberpunk right now. The question is if it's core is capable of being heavily modded.
and if you wait you can just get some very nice offers, i remember two years ago when i buyed the handsome pack for just 20€ and with 8€ more i got also borderlands 1 (goty) that was upgraded to enhanced (for free) one year later
 
Sigh

While i get your point you cant compare the game industry to the automobile industry

One is well over a hundred years old and has had all that time for legislation/laws to be put in place, primarily to save lives, another is relatively new in a even newer and evolving world/market that if faulty wont kill you unlike the other.

Governments are notoriously slow at legislating these types of things, especially in a digital world, just look at smoking/drinking/gambling, things that cause way more harm and damage to ppl than gaming ever could an just how long it took them to step in there.

Your seeing action the now, slowly yes, from various places, but it takes time.

Personally, i dont think gaming is in as bad a state as alot of ppl make it out to be, like all entertainment products i can get ones i like and others i dont but there is some scummy practices that do need looked at which is being done albeit slowly
 
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