2014 notoriously 'boasted' several high profile game releases
that were plagued with problems at launch, including the likes of Assassin’s Creed Unity, Halo: The
Master Chief Collection, and DriveClub.
However, it appears publishers have not learned from these mistakes and we
should expect a repeat performance this year, according to game testers.
"The run up to this Christmas will be no different to the
last one," Pole to Win's localisation director, Chris Rowley, told MCVUK. "Console games are
expensive to develop, so missing a street date is not an acceptable situation
to a publisher. Day One patches have become the norm over the last few years to
try and address this, but the reality is that it often takes several patches
where a title is significantly behind schedule."
"We’ll see many games launching with large errors and
bugs," added Babel’s functionality QA director, Mathieu
Lachance. "It’s impossible to release a flawless game."
"In some cases, delaying a game can have a more devastating
impact on the game and studios themselves than what quality concerns could
have. It then becomes a balance between quality expectations and financial
risk."
While bugs are widely expected in big games coming later this
year, Universally Speaking's QA manager, James
Cubitt, does expect there to be less issues in general with the games released
this holiday compared to last holiday.
"It is getting
better, but far from solved," said Cubitt. "People need to stop
seeing delays as a bad thing, both companies and the user base. The number of
companies that just squeeze QA testing into the remaining period, without
sufficient time to then fix the issues and re-test, is hurting their own titles
in the long run."
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