Open Letter to the Big Bad Game Companies

A few things I want to cover before I get to the point of this post. One, yesterday was a crazy day here at the Nest, with my take on Fifa UT getting lots of traffic from the EA Forums and we broke all the single-day records here in our little spot. Two, my apologies to regular Nesters, who had noticed that I had taken an unannounced sebatical for a few weeks where there was no new content. I know Pat’s review of MLB 2k9 was excellent, but I’m sure you’re sick of the mullet after a week or two. Third, a friend and co-worker has a pretty funny sports blog that you might want to check out. It’s called The Dome Factor and for a Syracuse fan, he’s got some really good stuff up there. Check it out when you are bored and/or there’s nothing going on over here. It’s over on the blog roll for future reference.

Ahh, that felt good to get out of the way. Now, there’s something way more important to be discussed. You may know that two of the favorite games here are Fifa and Fallout 3, both of which had DLC released within a week of each other. The Pitt, which has been covered in several different posts over the last few months, was finally released today. Now, first reports are that there are so many glitches and bugs in this DLC that it is unplayable. There are missing textures, sudden crashes, and is a general disaster.

Add this to the server and database debacle found in FIFA’s Ultimate Team launch last week and we have two immensely popular games dropping the ball on what should be momentous releases for each of them. I’ve been looking forward to both the Pitt and FIFA UT for quite some time, and after spending 1600 Microsoft Points on them, you’d expect them to work. Alas, both companies have disapointed their legions of hardcore fans who downloaded the DLC as soon as they could, only to find it completely worthless.

I’m not here to flame the companies or place any blame. I’m not writing this because I want my money back. If I wanted my money back every time I bought a glitchy, unplayable game, I’d have to start another blog. This happens all the time; in order to get the DLC/game out to their audience, game companies seem to taking shortcuts in order to meet their advertised release dates, instead of focusing on putting out a polished and stable piece of software.

This HAS to change. I know EA could hardly have anticipated the server and database needs for Fifa UT, and I’m sure that Bethesda didn’t plan on releasing just half of the DLC file today, but it happened, and now gamers will always remember how much of a hassle it’s been. They are a fickle bunch and deciding who gets their hard earned skrilla is a pretty involved process. Reviews, message boards, previews, trailers and gamer discussions are all factors that lead up to a purchase, but when deciding to buy an add-on for a game that you already dropped sixty bucks on is an ever tougher decision.

Sure, what’s another ten bucks compared to the thousands already spent on games in my career? However, every time a release hiccups like this, another moment of hesitation is added to the decision making process. And moments of hesitation will eventually build up into passing on certain companies releases all together. I obviously will buy Fifa 10, and every piece of Fallout DLC. But those two games are my bread and butter. If NHL 09 had a DLC, I certainly would not be queing it up at work, eager to download when I got home.

My advice to you, EA, Bethesda, and any other company that hypes up it’s releases and DLCs: TAKE YOUR TIME. The backlash felt from pushing back a release by a week to get the kinks worked out vs. having to shut down the release after 4 hours will be much more managable. If you were upfront, saying “I know we said we would release this on Tuesday, but we’re running into some issues and it won’t be ready until Friday,” people will understand. Rather then release an unfinished or untested product, give yourself a few extra days to make sure everything is in order.

I recognize all the hard work and effort that go into all aspects of Game Developement. But if this keeps happening, the big game developers and distributors are going to start to see the effect, in the place where it hurts the most. I don’t mean 22 pages of message board threads, they don’t give a shit about that. But when their bottom line is affected, they might start giving a shit.