Developmental Crisis: SHOURYUKANT!
Remember those academic days when teachers would assign two to four-page, double-spaced essays on a topic, designate group members for the project, and inform you of its due date? Everyone would hem and haw, complain about their group members, the topic, and the amount of time they had to complete it. The instructor always gave the “Don’t wait until the last minute...” schpeal but, like consumers that swear they will not go Black Friday shopping only to be first in line at 4am, there was always at least one person burning the midnight oil the day before. Rarely was the student’s last minute efforts rewarded with a gleaming “A+.” Rather, bright red streaks criss-crossed their work and the project or assignment would fail.
CAPCOM needs to revisit their academic days.
On May 10th, 2016, CAPCOM CEO Kenji Tsukimoto informed financial review attendees that “...it’s best to spend a little more time in developing and running a high-quality title that will perform well globally.”¹
404. Common sense not found.
Back to the Lab Again
I am sorry — no, actually I am not sorry—what do you mean you “...learned from the past year...” that games, especially AAA titles, should spend more time on the development room floor before releasing them AND asking audiences to dish out $60 for a shoddy product?
It took Street Fighter V having server issues and players lamenting about the lack of single player campaign story for CAPCOM to realize that maybe they screwed the pooch? What about learning from fellow developer Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed Unity debacle? At launch, players did not have to worry about using stealth in missions because Arno would get stuck in hay carts or fall through the damned ground. Pulling off a “7-kill streak” would have been easier than Ubisoft trying to dig their foot out of their mouths long enough to apologize. Oh, apologize they did, as well as asking players to leave their devices on and connected to internet so that day one updates could be applied to resolve the issues.
I am sure several of you remember Blizzard’s hellish launch when World of Warcraft released in 2004. Servers could not handle the megaton force of thousands of players attempting to authenticate their accounts and log in at the same time. As many columnists have pointed out Blizzard underestimated the world’s interest in the game² the way some people in tornado country underestimate “a little wind.” Blizzard vs the World II was a same round T.K.O. when Diablo III launched; players suffered through “error 37” codes and queues longer than OTAKON pre-registration lines day one.
Bloody hell, just when you think everyone took notes on E.T.’s catastrophic Atari 2600 launch—reference BURNED IN A SEA OF FIRE—and could pass Development 101, development studio Big Red Button³ actually asked people to invest in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric! To pass off that trash as complete is the equivalent of trying to sell someone three tires and a cardboard box as a car. It is a graphics and game play nightmare. You can skip entire game elements by flying with Knuckles! Just watch Barry, from Game Grumps, dissect this debauchery. I have seen studio Lab Zero Games’ Indivisible game play—available on Steam—with my own eyes; it is a majestic (children cover your eyes) fucking eagle in comparison and it is only the BETA!
I need a moment to quell my anger.
***
Look, I get it. Game development is a stressful business. You cannot merely like being a developer; you have to love it, commit to it, and present it a dowry because enjoying the fruits of your labours takes time and is short-lived. Big name publishers tend to give development teams miniscule time windows to deliver a finished product.
The studios for Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty franchises are pressured to debut late-Fall, holiday season, annual installments that improve upon game mechanics, multiplayer aspects (C.O.D.), graphics, and still rake in millions to recover development costs. Every year. This does not include any other projects the teams have on their tables. The games could be utter crap *cough “Infinite Warfare” cough* and fans will pitch tents for the midnight releases, pre-order special editions, and then complain later about the lack of quality at launch.
It is what our ancestors call a “catch-22.” As consumers, we are saying that we will pre-order a game and put pressure on the development team to commit to a potentially crappy deadline even if the product is not finished. The flipside of the coin is that when some developers refuse to deliver half a game on launch day to meet publisher demands, consumers raise hell and claim sacrilege because they have to actually be patient. Final Fantasy XIII Versus fans you are an exception. I empathize with your struggle.
This is not the logic and business savvy we need guys and gals. If CAPCOM and others take out the time, from the starting line, to prune and polish games on the development floor we have greater potential for hi-quality titles. The preceding statement does not imply that games will be gems of perfection, but rather that enough time will be invested to prevent large hiccups. For example, Blizzard’s server overloads are understandable because those are specs they cannot truly analyze prior to launch day unless you do beta testing.
We can accept mistakes, negligence is a different story. Hark back to when DICE announced Mirror’s Edge 2 (now Mirror’s Edge Catalyst) at E3 2013? The release date has changed since the original February 2016 date announced last year—to many a fan’s chagrin. But before people begin whining maybe audiences and developers alike should take notes from DICE for the Gaming Dev and Launch 101 final exam and deliver a spectacular experience...
“...when it is ready.”
Sources:
1. “Financial Results Briefing for the Year ended March 31, 2016 Summary of Chairman and CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto’s Presentation” . 10 May 2016. http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/pdf/explanation/2015/full/explanation_2015_full_04.pdf
2. “Remembering the Launch of World of Warcraft”. David Piner, 24, Feb. 2016. http://www.tentonhammer.com/articles/remembering-the-launch-of-world-of-warcraft
3. “Redeeming Big Red Button After Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric”. Blake Hester. 09 Feb. 2016. http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/2/9/10939924/big-red-button-sonic-boom-rise-of-lyric
