First Person Shooters Falling Short

 

As you read this blog the trend in FPS (First Person Shooters) continues. The trend I am speaking of is game developers releasing games before they are complete because of budget and marketing deadlines. Most of the time these restrictions are not the fault of the developers.

We sit by, as game after game is released without being completed. Developers struggle to make their deadlines and things like Quality Control fall to the wayside because of it. Game developers spend their entire budgets on marketing. We watch these trailers that look just as good as a blockbuster film and we start to salivate. The games get their sales immediately. We run to Gamestop to preorder a copy ASAP.

Release day finally arrives. You peal off the plastic in anticipation. You insert the disk into your PC or console... You play the shortest campaign you have in a while... you are ok with that. You don't buy games for the SP anymore. Now it is time to find out what this game has! You click on the online mode.... you enter a lobby... you are the only one there... This can't be right, the game was just released. So you keep trying for other lobbies. Eventually you make it to a game.. your hopes are high again. You start to play your new game online... kind of. You start to rubber band (back and forth motions caused by lag) all over the screen and then you are booted.

Situations like this shouldn't be common place. We as video game consumers have allowed this to happen. We continue to preorder products without a beta test. We continue to buy these games and then defend the developers by saying, "It is hard to make a video game." I am not saying that creating a game isn't difficult... but there are tons of services in the world that are just as difficult (if not more difficult). If these other services can put out quality products from day one... why can't video games?

I have read over and over again in multiple FPS forums... "Just be patient... they will fix the game. This is how it always is. Stop crying about it." The people who post this trash are the issue. It isn't the developers... it isn't the marketing... it is the people who have come to accept this trend as just how it is.

We have allowed this to happen. I fear we will continue to allow this to happen.