Gamers’ Voice, a UK based consumer rights group, announced that they were taking Activision to task for the buggy release of Call of Duty Black Ops. The group submitted their complaint to the UK Office for Fair Trading, citing the game’s “never-ending list of problems” as violating laws which are designed to protect consumers.
Activision has been pretty quiet about the whole thing, but one well known industry analyst was keen to share his opinion – Michael Pachter called Gamers’ Voice a bunch of cry-babies, an aspersion they did not take too kindly to.
Treyarch has since broken their silence on the problems they have had with Black Ops, with Treyarch’s Community Manager sharing his views on the negative reaction the game has received from some segments of the gaming community. Gamers’ Voice welcomes such dialogue between developers and the gaming community, stating: “The status quo clearly isn’t sustainable; the industry needs to do more to engage with gamers on the issue of bugs in games and address the causes.”
That said, they did not agree with Olin’s comments made to NowGamer – to paraphrase, Olin said that ‘angry gamers’ are irrational and stifle innovation in the game industry.
Gamers’ Voice responds: “ While it was not meant as a threat, that if gamers keep complaining there will be no more Braid, Flower, Echochrome 2, Demon Souls for you ever again but bland sequels, Mr Olin does seem to suggest those who complain about the games they are playing having bugs should put up or shut up. Frankly speaking, innovation is not an excuse for a game not to work nor is it a defense to shield developers from criticism.”
Olin also conducted a second interview with Videogamer.com in which he stated that while shipping a bug free game was impossible, Treyach wanted to make “every effort to ensure that every fan is happy.”
“The sheer number of people [playing] is staggering, and they hit buttons and they hit glitches and walls in such weird, strange ways that we could never predict or think of,” said Olin.
Gamers’ Voice disagrees, saying that the problems were far more serious than the “odd texture glitch or unbalanced weapon damage, it is instead that parts of the game that simply does not function as intended for many gamers.”
“The over reliance on patching to fix errors which should have been addressed in development, even months after a games launch is becoming increasingly common. Mr Olin makes reference to launching six or seven patches since launch in November as evidence of good post release support; Gamers’ Voice sees this as evidence that gamers have been playing something with game breaking bugs and faults for three months,” states the group.
Gamers’ Voice Chairman, Paul Gibson said: “Gamers’ Voice does not expect games to be bug free and we recognise it’s not possible, particularly in light of the size and technical complexity of modern games. What we do expect are games with all the functions of the game working as advertised and that gamers are not treated as beta testers for a game they have paid for.”
“We don’t have unreasonable expectations, but such game breaking bugs as those that everyone is aware of in Black Ops are unacceptable, particularly given how long the game has been out. Gamers’ Voice hopes that Mr Olin continues to engage with Call of Duty players and invite him to contact us directly should he wish to talk or debate on the issue of bugs in games further,” concludes Gibson.
Discuss the Gamers’ Voice Black Ops complaint on the MyGaming forum.
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