Sigh; what the actual fuck Wyzak?
You were the one that proposed they were busy adding features close to the time of launch. Now I must provide proof that they
didn't lock down features? This is not not something I even asserted in the first place; what I actually said is it's unlikely they decided to add features at a late stage because that typically is not how development processes work (day-1 DLC anybody?).
The publisher/developer will always push the envelope and will introduce new features if the game is 100% stable a few months before release. It's a trade-off that happens, but the game will be released with bugs that are hopefully not too major. The fact that no games of this magnitude are released entirely bug free should tell you something.
In fact with the language you used, you created a neat little dichotomy in which they either had the game working 100% stable and then botched it by adding new features close to launch, or by inference they never got it working 100% stable in the first place. Of course this is a false dichotomy at any rate, so it's dismissable out of hand, but I'm trying to illustrate the absurdity of this stuff you are coming up with.
GTA V is just a red herring so I won't go into it.
Unfortunately that is an unrealistic expectation when it comes to 100 million dollar+ projects with thousands of people working on them.
Egads man! What exactly is unrealistic about expecting a company with the aforementioned $100 million+ development budget and hundreds of developers on the team to actually be able to deliver a decent working product? For the umpteenth time, we are not talking about minor glitches and bugs - the game is quite frankly running like a piece of shit for a lot of people who can quite happily run any number of other demanding games without problems on the same hardware.
Want to draw another analogy? Apple Maps launched with the iPhone 5 and it was a complete dysfunctional mess although the rest of the product was fine. Let's think of Apple Maps as the affected gamer segment of the Watch Dogs userbase, and the perfectly good "rest of the phone" as those who report no problems. The Apple Maps problems were an utter embarrassment to the company who looked foolish compared to their competitors. This led to the CEO publicly apologising and also firing the head of the Apple Maps development team.
We get it, it's okay for you and you think the game is pretty fun. That's great, I'm genuinely happy for you. Your feedback is most welcome in this regard, and in fact it only goes to further highlight the disgusting nature of this game launch, where the product apparently works fine for one segment of the customer base, and barely works at all for others.
Yes, we know that games rarely launch without problems. This does not excuse the hideous problems in this individual case and speaks of a broader malady in game development. We are all on the same side of this problem - the ones getting fucked over by it.
Yes, we know that in the face of the corporate juggernauts it's a good recourse to "vote with our wallets". Once again, this does not excuse any of the problems. Furthermore, the business-consumer relationship can also be one of discourse, and this is actually preferable - we want Ubisoft to deliver good products so we can buy them! Since we can't phone up Yves Guillemot and give him an earful of our collective opinion, we take to discussion boards to get it out there and vent our dissatisfaction.
And yes, I've agreed with you multiple times that we should show some restraint when it comes to pre-purchasing products because when stuff like this happens, it makes us mad. Once again, pre-purchased or not, the problems cannot be excused or brushed aside with a simple "making games is hard, man" dismissal.
We've all heard out your opinion and views on the discussion, we've agreed or disagreed, and we're moving on to others areas of the discussion within its context, and yet keep getting dragged back into the same tired old arguments going nowhere fast.
I know it's been brought up before but I do recall you were very vocal about the poorly delivered SimCity product despite the fact that you didn't own the game at the time. You were perfectly within your rights to complain about the poorly delivered product because it indirectly affected you as a gamer as well. I found it quite bemusing how people ostensibly told you to shut up and stop complaining because you didn't own the game as if, once again, isolated experience somehow trumps the problems of the broader picture.
I wonder, do you realise what it is that is actually getting up everyone's nose with your arguments? You're defending a company that delivered a botched product. Once again, it's great that your experience is satisfactory to you, and broadly speaking, it's nice that many other people also had relatively few problems with the game. It's valuable for us to know this.
But once again, a working game is the default position - it shouldn't be news and praiseworthy that a company delivered a game that mostly worked. Heck, if this was the case I'd be running articles headlined: "Call of Duty Ghosts launched with barely any problems on most platforms. Developers say they are pleased with the results because making games is hard, man, and $60 is basically a bargain for the customer".
And with that I think I've exhausted myself of this conversation for the time being, although I will probably respond to rebuttals later on.
