Stalker: The Shadow of Vapourware
The gaming industry needs a shakeup. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, there needs to be a concerted effort to release games finished. It is becoming a more common trend for games to be released in an unfinished state with the view that the developer can patch the game later. Ideally, getting the game out in to the public and expecting the gamers to be their playtesters. This is a dire straight for any publisher/devleper to view the gaming public. Secondly, there needs to be a concerted effort for accurate and true information to be reported about games. The gaming internet web sites are all too often concerned with being the first to report news and information about games rather than reporting accurate information. This creates a sub-culture of misinformation surrounding game releases which don't do the gaming industry any justice. Thirdly, I feel, that there needs to be some tact taken in relation to promoting new games or games in development.
My first point, is sadly, a common problem for gamers. X3 being the most apt recent example of a game being rushed out in to the gaming public. I understand the reasons why this happened, however, the amount of bad blood circulating about this game is going to have a very negative impact on future game releases from egosoft & deep silver. The other thing that disturbs me about this problem with X3 is that it has been up to a core fan group to defend the game's release and it's state. The core fan group have been prepared to wait for the release of patches because they know that this has been the way previous incarnations of this game franchise has been released. Another recent example is Civilisation 4. What happens with games that are released on a multi-format basis? Developers in this instance can't go on and release patches to fix gameplay issues and bugs after release because the consoles won't support it. Morrowind on the Xbox, while being an excellent game, was an extremely buggy release. Does this mean that developers take more time to develop console based games so that they can iron out the bugs before the software hits the market? If so, why can't dedicated PC developers do the same? As far as I am concerned a patch for a game should be about value adding to an already completed product, rather than finishing something that was incomplete. Where is the criticism of this recurring problem in the gaming press? There isn't any. It may be mentioned at the time of review but it certainly isn't a bug-bear for so-called gaming journalists.
Stalker: The Shadow of Chernobyl has been reported as being finished on a gaming website. Unfortunately, there is no official word of this on the Stalker web site. If I was to take this word as gospel I would wait till an official statement was released. However, I am drawn to look at the details provided in the article and think that maybe gossip is what drives this industry more than any thing else. While the article says the game is finished they still say that there will be another 6 - 8 months of the game being tested and balanced. So, what they are actually saying is that the game is not finished. If it was finished there would be an announcement that the game has gone gold. Because when it is finished then they get the game ready for distribution. This makes me feel that the article is just a means for a web site to keep the concept of the game alive when many gamers feel that Stalker is headed for the vapourware scrap heap. The use of the word finished in the article is inaccurate. The game, in fact, is not finished. There might be aspects of the build which are complete, but as a software package on the whole the game is still not ready for distribution. Another thing about the article which bothers me is that they report that Stalker has 20 levels in the game. From all the reading I had done on this game's release I was under the impression that the game was a survival shooter in a free roaming environment. Where a gamer could undertake missions at their own pace. How do levels come in to this? It completely goes against what the developers have said Stalker will be. They wanted to get away from a "level" based concept of a first person shooter and create an environment in which the gamer had to learn to live in the environment and ultimately survive. What is going on here? Is it a level based shooter or a free-roaming sandbox based game game?
Anyway, I think you get my drift. The gaming industry lacks a completely critical component to its reporting. More often than not it serves the publishers wants and needs rather than offering a mirror and getting those that produce a chance to look at themselves.
The gaming industry needs a shakeup. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, there needs to be a concerted effort to release games finished. It is becoming a more common trend for games to be released in an unfinished state with the view that the developer can patch the game later. Ideally, getting the game out in to the public and expecting the gamers to be their playtesters. This is a dire straight for any publisher/devleper to view the gaming public. Secondly, there needs to be a concerted effort for accurate and true information to be reported about games. The gaming internet web sites are all too often concerned with being the first to report news and information about games rather than reporting accurate information. This creates a sub-culture of misinformation surrounding game releases which don't do the gaming industry any justice. Thirdly, I feel, that there needs to be some tact taken in relation to promoting new games or games in development.
My first point, is sadly, a common problem for gamers. X3 being the most apt recent example of a game being rushed out in to the gaming public. I understand the reasons why this happened, however, the amount of bad blood circulating about this game is going to have a very negative impact on future game releases from egosoft & deep silver. The other thing that disturbs me about this problem with X3 is that it has been up to a core fan group to defend the game's release and it's state. The core fan group have been prepared to wait for the release of patches because they know that this has been the way previous incarnations of this game franchise has been released. Another recent example is Civilisation 4. What happens with games that are released on a multi-format basis? Developers in this instance can't go on and release patches to fix gameplay issues and bugs after release because the consoles won't support it. Morrowind on the Xbox, while being an excellent game, was an extremely buggy release. Does this mean that developers take more time to develop console based games so that they can iron out the bugs before the software hits the market? If so, why can't dedicated PC developers do the same? As far as I am concerned a patch for a game should be about value adding to an already completed product, rather than finishing something that was incomplete. Where is the criticism of this recurring problem in the gaming press? There isn't any. It may be mentioned at the time of review but it certainly isn't a bug-bear for so-called gaming journalists.
Stalker: The Shadow of Chernobyl has been reported as being finished on a gaming website. Unfortunately, there is no official word of this on the Stalker web site. If I was to take this word as gospel I would wait till an official statement was released. However, I am drawn to look at the details provided in the article and think that maybe gossip is what drives this industry more than any thing else. While the article says the game is finished they still say that there will be another 6 - 8 months of the game being tested and balanced. So, what they are actually saying is that the game is not finished. If it was finished there would be an announcement that the game has gone gold. Because when it is finished then they get the game ready for distribution. This makes me feel that the article is just a means for a web site to keep the concept of the game alive when many gamers feel that Stalker is headed for the vapourware scrap heap. The use of the word finished in the article is inaccurate. The game, in fact, is not finished. There might be aspects of the build which are complete, but as a software package on the whole the game is still not ready for distribution. Another thing about the article which bothers me is that they report that Stalker has 20 levels in the game. From all the reading I had done on this game's release I was under the impression that the game was a survival shooter in a free roaming environment. Where a gamer could undertake missions at their own pace. How do levels come in to this? It completely goes against what the developers have said Stalker will be. They wanted to get away from a "level" based concept of a first person shooter and create an environment in which the gamer had to learn to live in the environment and ultimately survive. What is going on here? Is it a level based shooter or a free-roaming sandbox based game game?
Anyway, I think you get my drift. The gaming industry lacks a completely critical component to its reporting. More often than not it serves the publishers wants and needs rather than offering a mirror and getting those that produce a chance to look at themselves.
posted by thecynicalgamer @ 10:19 am
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