Luke Plunkett, Kotaku:

I get that making games is hard. That publishers force deadlines on teams, that accounting for millions of players is rough work, that a myriad of technical complexities mean completely eradicating bugs is an impossible task.

As a paying customer, though, I just don’t care anymore. Why? Because right now, the blockbuster video game industry is taking more than it’s giving back.

Another good read about the growing trend of broken games, the need for bigger testing budgets, and the call not to pre-order games.

Plunkett continues:

If a car, or DVD, or rice-cooker, or phone, or basically anything else launched with significant parts not working, or not working as well as advertised, it’d be slammed. People would demand their money back, and they would get it, because there is an expectation that when you pay money for something, it works.

My similar thoughts from November 11, 2014 below:

This does not, however, address the problem of protection from broken product. This is not film or music— botched playback would never escape manufacturing; a bad bounce would never escape the studio. Pre-orders for products so deeply rooted in real-time mechanics and engineering, notoriously subjected to time crunches and annual release dates, cannot wisely be considered for pre-order without subjection to reviews. While I implore patiently waiting for reviews on this type of product, release date and post-release date embargo lifts, as Kuchera implies, are cowardly and bullshit.

Hat tip to Brett Batesole.

MIT lecturer Michael R. Trice on #GamerGate numbers, emphasis his:

In both the case of tweets and RTs about 500 accounts create half of the total volume in the conversation. Regular daily participation floats around 3,000 users. Then there’s a large body of several thousand accounts dipping a toe in the conversation.

This suggests that however organized or unorganized the movement, the conversation around #GamerGate on Twitter has a central core limited to a few hundred highly active accounts. The total mass of the conversation is in the tens of thousands, though over 80% of those members are involved on less than a daily basis.

Interesting case study. Social media can certainly act as a megaphone for tiny groups and individuals. These small groups get even louder when they play to our natural sensitivity toward criticism, threats, and negativity. An 8-year-old kid and sound as legitimate and scary as a group of fully capable 28-year-old adults.

@Spaceageapp:

Making sure Space Age is colorblind friendly.

Awesome accessibility awareness. And top level too. (Tap Options on the title screen and there they are!) That alone earned Big Bucket Software my $3.99.

Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure is currently available for iOS. Looking forward to playing. Also hearing great things about the soundtrack by Cabel Sasser.

@ustwogames:

That’s it, we’re giving up the premium game. Next time we’re just going to sell you 500 coins for $2 instead.

Love this tweet.

Relinking to some thoughts I had on Clash of Clans; a gross, empty, unfulfilling, time and wallet suck.

Ben Kuchera, Polygon:

This is how publishers should begin looking at their launches: Players with set time and budget concerns are looking for reasons not to buy a game, and the better your game works at launch, the more reasons we have to pick it up.

There is always a choice to be had, even if that choice consists of playing the things we haven’t yet finished. A bad launch takes you out of the running, and stressed-out players may almost be happy to see you go.

This is another reason why pre-ordering games is a terrible idea, and waiting to buy is so smart. If you’re not locked into a purchase you can simply buy another game, or wait for things to become more stable. There are people who ran out to pick up Unity yesterday only to get to work and read the reviews. Or worse yet they opened it, played it and are now stuck with a product they can’t return.

A simpler way to read yesterday’s rant.