Whatever happened to taking pride in your work. Feeling happy with your end product and knowing when you show the world you'll have something to be proud of? Some places still have it, however, in the world of games development, not a sign of it.
Ever since patching PC games was a possibility, people have become more and more reliant on it. The situation worsened when the same became possible for console games, now iPhone games can be 'updated' the can be the worst.
For years it's been quite common place to avoid Football Manager games for the first few months as they are always broken on release. Usually they are simple obvious things 1000s of players find within hours of playing, so I ask myself, how did the teams of playtesters who test the game miss it? Or did they think, "Umm deadlines coming, bang it out and we'll fix it later. We'll have to do database updates anyway, so 2 for 1!" Probably the latter of the two.
It spread to consoles, the biggest example of it being Fallout: New Vegas, with it's literally dozens of graphic glitches, quest problems. Yes it's a big game so catching everything would be hard, but some bugs are so obvious and almost unavoidable. Don't get me started on the lip-sync on the intro, the compulsory can't skip me plot laying out intro, to Fable 3.
But there is a further type of breed, the "Ooooh let's add more stuff to our existing and slightly surprisingly popular stuff to push it to new people, quick" people. Step forward Stick sports and their iPhone app Stick Cricket.
Stick Cricket is a addictive excellent, slightly frustrating, game, the full upgrade is a snip at £1.79. I bought it and enjoyed it. Then stick sports decided to update it with a new game mode to make it more attractive by adding a quick easy graphics heavy as broken as the rest of it World Cup tie in game, so more people would upgrade. They screwed up royally.
The game became buggy and broken, it would crash to the home screen randomly, if you won a game it wouldn't recognise this and leave you hanging where the only way out is to forfeit the game. Generally, due to what can only be an absolute zero of testing, they destroyed it and essentially wasted my £1.79. The company don't respond to tweets, comments through iTunes but only put a note on saying for people not to update it. No good if you already have. No sign of a further update, don't even know if they're trying, iTunes doesn't do refunds, so I can't see anything would rush them as clearly high standards and good service are way down low on their agenda.
What this has done for me is destroy that company's reputation. Stick Sports have spent years online with reasonable browser games, and I respected that, hence buying the app, but now to me I think of them as shoddy chancers, who are unwilling/unable to fix their errors. They don't test their product and just bang it out unusable.
The app is still available for download (can't say I'm recommending it) and as far as I know every new download is as broken as mine. Oh and they also use the worst mechanic in the world, the 'please rate me message after EVERY game, that's the gaming equivalent of a spoilt child begging for praise every time they so much as fart.
If you own the app, contact iTunes, say fix it or refund us! Maybe if they're hurt financially they may just do something about it.
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