Volition thought Saints Row was finished…wasn’t even close.
CD Projekt Red thought Cyberpunk 2077 was finished…now they are on 1.6 of updates and it’s still buggy, but more playable than launch.
Don’t even get me started on Madden or FIFA…
AAA game publishers push release dates, designers are caught in a vice on what “features” will make it to launch. What the consumer ends up with is a buggy, messy, beta test for the first few months until a few patches in. And hopefully, more bugs aren’t introduced.
This is…true, to certain extents and contexts. That said, like a lot of excuses I’ve seen across multiple games and franchises, it’s something that is more often used to handwave away transgressions (for lack of a better term). Yeah, the consumers and eventual players have a good deal of responsibility towards what they choose to invest their time in. But the developers and publishers also have a responsibility to deliver things worth investing time in, and if need be, to maintain and nourish that investment long after the initial encounter. Even Call of Duty understands that (…sometimes).
The problem I see is consumers are buying games at full price, and are expected to beta test out the bugs after release. These are multi million dollar companies that we “should” be able to trust when it comes to their product. I held off on CP2077 and it was the right thing to do, as with many other games. I stopped buying EA sports games because of their failed practices. I guess I will wait on the next FM, until “proper” reviews come out after release (not like the massaged reviews that GT got before adding micro-transactions to their game).
That’s where I stand now. I’ve been burned and almost burned enough times over the last few years that it’s no longer justifiable to show that kind of support to publishers and dev teams, sadly. Motorsport’s continued lack of presence is also a contributing factor; there needs to be a bigger push on the PR front than there is now, especially given the extended period of time between FM7 and the new game’s scheduled release date (one that I’m honestly expecting to change between now and then).
But the primary reason is, as you said, the idea that we are paying premium prices to be the beta-testers.
To add on to that, there’s also the idea of sending out games that are plainly unfinished and shipping out the rest of the base game content as DLC (and in the case of PGG, limited-time content at that). I find it borderline abhorrent, and cynically blatant.
Going with the Turbo R for cars. It’s a cool car and I had a blast drifting it in FH4. To be fair, the selection of cars this month is very disappointing. Yet another Audi, yet another Audi except it’s a reskinned Taycan, a fricking Sentra. The Lynk And Co is probably the better of the 4 there and I’m excited to see how it handles A Class Road. It looks like a fun car.
Not excited about long routes and 5 races in the championships. Would’ve been cool in 3 or 4 but the routes in this game are quite boring compared to previous games.
RS7 for the rivals because it isn’t an EV. Although I can’t say I liked either. Just two Audi boats once again, as if there isn’t enough.
Thank god they fixed the audio cutouts, that was driving me insane.
I rate this series pretty low compared to others, the car selection is meh and so are the events.
Ditto. Course choice for both was awful, especially whichever one was on Bola Ocho. Two ton cars and tiny circuits just don’t mix. Thankfully, it was a Rivals event, so no one needed to ping pong off Drivatars to get to the end.
FWIW I played CP 2077 completely all the way through on both PC and Series X without one single bug, problem or Quest failure. I had one crash on Series X in 60+ hours of gameplay and zero crashes on PC.
Unfortunately, not everyone (hardly anyone in actuality) could say they shared your experience. The multitudes of complaints (reddit, twitter, etc.) and YT videos showing the bugs (T posing NPCs and such) that suggest there was an issue. It only recently became playable for some (1.5 patch).
Car list: not bad, but not quite what I expected from a “road trip” theme.
It would have been nice to have included cars like the Ford Country Squire, Ford Woodie, Honda Odyssey, Pontiac Aztek, etc.
Seasonal Championship: Worst. Perhaps they thought of this theme just to increase “user engagement”.
It was just a waste of time and not fun at all. The prizes are crappy.
I’d much rather play Extreme E, which I finished after only one lap, just to get it over with.
If this consisted of only two championships, one five-race championship and one Goliath championship, and if these two championships gave the traditional three championships worth of points, it would have been a little better.
Body kit: the most wonderful feature of this update. I would like to see these updates done more aggressively. No complaints.
I am already looking forward to the possibility of further ADRO body kits being added if their testimony is correct.