Quality Control in Videogames

[ysabetwordsmith]

supermario128 has posted a great piece about videogame quality, patches, and crunch culture.  This is part of a much wider cultural conflict over the right to own, right to repair, and quality products vs. planned obsolescence.

Remember, you're not a captive audience.  If a product -- especially entertainment -- is shoddy then you are free to buy something better, buy nothing, make something better yourself, pay someone else to make something better, or go do something entirely different.  Shop mindfully. 

Comments

[kengr]

A big answer to this and to related issues is to kill shrink wrap licenses dead. at least with regards to these things.

Picture the fun if companies were requires to supply patches indefinitely, And for free. Also, include the option to *cheaply* obtain patched copies of the disc/cartridge/whatever.

There *are ways to deal with the old, busted version. There are industries where it's normal to send the replacement and then have the customer send back the item being replaced. Usually enforced by a combo of legal agreements and charges (ie if you don't return the old version, you get charged full retail for the replacement)

Note that I specifically omitted upgrades. Upgrades should also be available, but they should be seperate issues. A patch makes the program function properly. An upgrade adds functionality.

Upgrades should be reasonably priced, but not connected to patches.

And all of this should include a clause where they can drop support, but have to release the source code to the public domain.

Heck, having a fee that goes to the government or a foundation or the like that supports a set of archival servers might be an idea. Fee paid by publisher/manufacturer, not the customers.

Adding back "first sale" rights and stomping on the "you don't actually own it, you are renting it" nonsense would be good too.

Oh yeah, kill the waiver of mercantibility or whatever it's called. If the package claims to do X, it *must* do X or have a patch issued that will let it do X.

That's another reason for seperating patches and upgrades. Patches are at the manufacturer's cost and will encourage them to get it right before release.

Having upgrades seperate will prevent to long-standing game of making users pay for the patches.

Under these conditions, sales departments would get slapped down *hard* over inflated claims as it cost the company money. Potentially *lots* of money if they have to pay damages based on how long it takes to issue the patch.


It'd also benefit users who don't *need* all the bells and whistles. They could keep using the fully patched version they have and not have to shell out more money for functions they don't need/want to get the patches.

[see_also_friend]

I observe that computer stuff (i.e. software) tends to 'rot' more quickly than non-digital stuff like books, boardgames etc. The non-digital stuff is often easier to recreate with lower technology.

And it's no wonder I prefer to stick with physical stuff like art or books or whatever over digital stuff I can play for 5 or 6 years then never again. I still haven't been able to play an old computer game I had as a child, since we got rid of the computer it was compatible with. And I doubt we'd be able to find the software now, anyway.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I observe that computer stuff (i.e. software) tends to 'rot' more quickly than non-digital stuff like books, boardgames etc. The non-digital stuff is often easier to recreate with lower technology.<<

That is true.

And even books are flimsy compared with cuneiform on ceramic.

>> And it's no wonder I prefer to stick with physical stuff like art or books or whatever over digital stuff I can play for 5 or 6 years then never again.<<

Exactly.

>> I still haven't been able to play an old computer game I had as a child, since we got rid of the computer it was compatible with. And I doubt we'd be able to find the software now, anyway. <<

Alas!

There's one old game that I knew as Worm, also called Snake, that just consists of a line and a dot. You move the line trying to catch the dot. But the line keeps getting longer, forever, and if you hit it then you die. It's the best kinetic explanation of baggage that I've ever found.

Re: Thoughts

[see_also_friend]

>>And even books are flimsy compared with cuneiform on ceramic.<<

I've read physical books that are from the 1800's. If we add in copies, we can go back to sometime in the 1600s, (with the translation of the King James Bible). Translations take us back to the Epic of Gilgamesh.

And even if every book in the world disappeared overnight, it would be possible to rewrite a lot of the stories from memory, with access to ink-and-paper-and utensils... or clay-stylus-and-kiln as the case may be.

>>Exactly.<<

I'd actually figured that part out as a kid. I wanted to play with things that were familiar, and keep them for a good long while. Even today, there's some old games I'd play again for nostalgia, despite the fact that they are simple and have old-timey pixelated graphics.

>>There's one old game that I knew as Worm, also called Snake, that just consists of a line and a dot.<<

First phone game I played (one of my parents had it on their cell phone). I think they have it as an app, for some modern smartphones. (They also have a Tamagotchi app, I think.)

I remember these old Sim games:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimLife
https://archive.org/details/msdos_SimEarth_-_The_Living_Planet_1990

And for a few later ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosaur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odell_Down_Under
https://oldgamesdownload.com/zoo-tycoon-2001-gg2/

Here's a modern one with nostalgic-y graphics (though it is a postapocalyptic survival game):
https://dayr.fandom.com/wiki/DayRWiki