Lunchtime Discussion: Patches
'Another patch!? PATCH THIS!'Published 14/12/2009 at 12:00 by Gamoc
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Patches are omnipresent in console gaming lately. They may well have been around for a long time on PCs but it’s only with this generation that they’ve stormed onto consoles to a chorus of complaints from the general gaming public.
So are they good or bad? Well, it depends which way you look at it. You can choose to either believe that developers are lazy or you can choose to believe that patches are a way of fixing bugs that got through QA. The truth is that the reality is a combination of the two with deadlines thrown in, just for the hell of it. Add some salt and bring to a simmer and you’ve got yourself some poached patches.
Uh, anyway – some developers do release games when they know there are bugs plaguing them because they know they can patch it later. Obviously, this is a terrible practice that shouldn’t ever happen, but that’s the thing with things that shouldn’t happen – they do anyway. However, sometimes this isn’t actually the developer’s fault – they have to meet deadlines, so they release the game and patch it later in to avoid the thunder-y wrath of the publisher. Other developers release a perfectly playable game, but then notice there are a few bugs and are nice enough to iron them out via a patch.
Secret option number 3? DLC. Some patches lay framework for future DLC, whilst some patches add things in (a recent example being the new multiplayer level for Uncharted 2). This is the jammy dodger of patches – tasty and a wonderful treat.
The problem with patches, ignoring the dodgy practice of the buggy release-and-patch, is that they take time. When you start up a game, you generally want to play that game, not watch a progress bar to the tune of 300mb slowly fill up like a loading screen – and we hate loading screens. This takes up our precious time, time in which we could be having sex or, more likely, shooting people in the left nostril to suppress our sexual frustration. Not great.
Patches are a necessary annoyance. When games take more code commands than the Lord of the Rings took letters, it’s unavoidable that there will be bugs that slip through. What shouldn’t be happening is developers releasing games that are extremely buggy and patching them later, and for this I look to both developers and publishers and say to them ’stop it’ and ‘bugger off’, respectively.
Well that’s what I think. I’m not important though, I’m merely a fleck barely surviving on this rock as it hurtles through space – what do you think?
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
DJ Judas | 14/12/2009 12:09
Epic
515 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2008
I think that patches are a double-edged sword.
The ability to patch a game, improve it and make changes after it has gone gold and sat in someones disk-tray for a while is priceless, however I think it does bring with it a bit of complacency.
Are games more glitch-riddled than they used to be? It’s argueable that it does seem that way, or is it that there are more games released, with more players, so more glitches are noticed? Or is it that the ability to patch makes said glitches more obvious and annoying, as you sit there wishing they’d fix the game so you can complete the damn thing.
Patches always existed on PC games, but the errors in the original code pre-patch never seemed as major as, say, the problems MW2 has encountered.
I think it’s a combination of all of the above, it’s great that problems can be fixed retrospectively, but I feel that pushy publishers and lazy devs may use it as a fall-back sometimes.
DJ Judas | 14/12/2009 12:10
Epic
515 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2008
My apologies for the poor formatting, the enter key is obviously ignoring my commands today.
cc_star | 14/12/2009 12:12
Team TSA: Writer
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Publishers have deadlines and games need t’i be on shelves at certain points in the year, so bugs are inevitable, to cure the patches are good – great even.
But some games rarely if ever receive a patch, for me FIFA is broken and very badly in the modes I play the game in ‘Online Head to Head’ and FIFA most likely won’t be patched as the team are probably under pressure to get FIFA 11 out for next October.
I would kill for a patch which stops the game fatally freezing approximately 50% of the time a game launches, and the ridiculous process of downloading and saving squad files everysingle time you join a game, even if you downloaded and saved moments before
cc_star | 14/12/2009 12:13
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Damn iPhone
Cerberus64 | 14/12/2009 13:05
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They had deadlines when writing games for the PS1 and PS2 but I don’t recall game-breaking bugs in those games – clearly pre-release testing has been cut back on because now they can use the general public as game testers rather than paying people to to it – shameful practise!
djdustb | 14/12/2009 13:21
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PS3 games have major differences over the PS1 and PS2 games you mention, they have a whole heap more going on for them, more modes, more code, and most games have online now which was not a feature before and means more people finding more points of failure.
It used to be that you wrote a game to work on a PS1 knowing all hardware was equal, now you have people online with different ISP’s different routers, exchanges etc, so many things can go wrong with this, Loads of people have connection issues with online FIFA, I have never experienced this, in this respect my FIFA 10 is working, other users are not so lucky.
Cerberus64 | 14/12/2009 13:56
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Then developers should test their games more prior to release – not less! If it’s online where most of the bugs are (something that isn’t born out by the laundry list of fixes applied to Assassins Creed recently) then do a closed or open beta program to iron out the problem before launch – not after (Infinity Ward are you listening?)
shields_t | 14/12/2009 12:12
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Well, I’m certianly less annoyed to see the “this software requires an update” screen since last Thursday when I made the switch to Virgin broadband, but to be honest, it’s nice that they now have the technology to improve/fix/add to the software we buy.
It’s just a shame when there are games like Fallout 3, which, while loved it, was a massive pain in the ass to regularly require restarts, and it seems that absolutely none of the kinks were ironed out via patches.
glennpfc | 14/12/2009 12:13
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Well the Xbox doesnt force you to download them like the PS3 does. I just wish they would auto update for me. I do hate that patches seem to have created more bugs in releases, I would like to see if there has been any budget cut backs in QA departments.
teflon | 14/12/2009 12:18
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1998 TSA Points | Member since: May 2009
PS3 doesn’t force you either. If you load up a game and it tries to patch, just hit circle and skip it.
It might have used to do so, but not since I’ve had my PS3 (Sept ‘08)
glennpfc | 14/12/2009 13:52
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Really? I thought it still forced you, I will check this out!
hazelam | 14/12/2009 14:05
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it only forces you if you want to stay online, you can play unpatched but it will disconnect you, same as with the xbox.
hazelam | 14/12/2009 14:06
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at least i think so.
lewis815 | 14/12/2009 12:14
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The worse kind of update. The one where you buy the game a year after release and you have to wait a decade before you play it.
For example. I have just purchased littlebigplanet, put it in my drive, and now wasting a hell of a lot of time waiting for it to complete a lot of patching..
teflon | 14/12/2009 12:22
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if you just want to play the SP, then I’d say to skip the patch and then when you’ve finished playing quit the game and restart it and let it patch. Just walk away from the console and come back later to turn it off.
It’s more annoying when this is the case with a GotY edition or Platinum range game. You’d have thought that they’d apply all the relevant patches to the initial release, and then have that be burnt to the discs, when all they do is another run of the original disc with some slightly different artwork (at best).
lewis815 | 14/12/2009 12:28
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Thats true, always an option. But il let it complete just in case it fixes any offline bugs
Aitrus | 14/12/2009 12:36
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I had the same when I finally got round to buying Burnout Paradise.
But I agree with Teflon on this: skip the update, play the SP, update afterwards.
BadBoyBoogie | 14/12/2009 15:06
Let There Be Rock
2689 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009
I agree also, to ignore the patch and play the SP, then after you’ve finished playing, download the patch.
What would be nice though, is if you could download the patch in the background whilst playing the game.
teflon | 14/12/2009 12:16
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A great article. I think you’ve managed to cover all the points so well that you’ve not really left much of a discussion for the rest of us to have
I’ve always found them to be a necessary evil of more and more advanced gaming. PCs had the problem of needing Windows, GPU drivers and having hundreds of thousands of possible hardware combinations, which is something that consoles don’t, so it’s only now that games are so huge in terms of code that we really need them on a regular basis.
It’s better than having to post send your game back to the publisher and get a new copy… And it’s miles better than having to live with w*nk*rs who love to sit outside the map and snipe at you, or insta-kill you and everyone within 30 meters upon their death.
TSBonyman | 14/12/2009 12:38
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It is frustrating especially with the larger updates. It’s even more frustrating is that the update can’t be downloaded in the background . After all, when you start a game and you choose to install the update, it exits you out of the game anyway, so the PS3 should then switch to background downloading and allow you to carry on with something else.
I think your article covers it pretty well though, patches are a mixed bag, a necessry evil but on occasion a treat.
I wonder how many ppl don’t have their console connected to the internet, are they blissfully unaware or plagued with buggy games?
ghost5 | 14/12/2009 12:39
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An example of a brilliantly made game this year was Batman: Arkham Asylum. This did not have a single patch and it played brilliantly. But there was one major thing missing from it and that is online play.
When you add online play to a game I fully expect it to be patched at some point in the near future as no matter how much testing goes into it, you can not prepare for hundreds and thousands (mmmm… cakes) of people going online at the same time and looking for new ways to gain an unfair advantage.
I got AC:2 yesterday and noticed a bug within an hour where my character thought there was a gap on the floor and had to jump over it. I don’t know if it has been patched yet but I am hoping so.
If it is a single player game then in my opinion these should not need patching.
djdustb | 14/12/2009 13:18
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I quite agree about your comment on the rise in multiplayer games meaning more patches.
I find that the problem is that a QA team can only test so much and cannot recreate the real world with 100,000 people trying to find a bug to get an extra win by hiding in scenary. I do occasional testing for a piece of software my company makes, and it is impossible to spot everything. Someone somewhere will find a bug that 99.9% of the people didn’t know existed, and in the case of the PS3 they will tell the other 99.9% online so they can see it and complain/exploit as required.
Severn2j | 14/12/2009 12:55
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I think, as with DLC, its a good feature that has become abused and I think the reason for that is the release schedules that devs have to perform to.. Back in the mists of time, (around the Doom/Quake era) games were finished “when they were done”. Now they have to release at specific times of the year and if it doesnt, then it has to slip to the next release window (which apparently costs a lot of money), so they release it before its ready and patch it later.. I think the solution is to go back to the way of releasing “when its done” and then we’ll have a decently working game and also wont have to buy a years worth of games in one or two months.
bunimomike | 14/12/2009 12:56
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Until the game is out there making the studio money it’s not showing any Return On Investment. This is why they rush it out (these days) more so than ever. Simply because they know they can patch it online. However, there are thousands of offline gamers who don’t even sign-up to the PSN/for updates. Make sure the game is 99% perfect THEN release it. Don’t take the piss with consumers or we’ll remember for next time and negative influences are a bitch when purchasing sequels/games. Sure, pop an emergency patch out when it’s a one-in-a-million bug or when the game’s had time to settle, as it were, but seeing some of the rush-jobs during the online generation of gaming is piss-poor to say the least.
bunimomike | 14/12/2009 12:57
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Sorry. Forgot to mention… I absolutely love the idea of big selling games rewarding great sales with extra goodies for the buying public. Builds loyalty too.
leonlime | 14/12/2009 13:07
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dare i say it again, mgs4 has had no patches. it still functions as it did day one. With time and money even huge assed games can be free of bugs and patches.
i spose its that time thing again
Tuffcub | 14/12/2009 13:13
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Everytime you switch on your console it should scan your hard drive and go “Hmm, little johnny has games x,y and z installed – ill check for patches and download and install them in the bakground”.
djdustb | 14/12/2009 13:29
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I would love that, but it ain’t gonna happen as many people have bandwidth issues and limits on braodband, downloading 50 patches is not going to go down to well.
shields_t | 14/12/2009 13:34
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Just being able to dowload patches in the background would be a step forward!
Jeebers | 14/12/2009 14:24
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Yeah, a ‘windows update’ kind of feature would be good. You can then decied which patches you want to install while you do something else and then come back safe in the knowledge that everything is up to date. For a while.
djdustb | 14/12/2009 14:35
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I like the idea of that, however the problem with deciding which patches to download is that as it is only a Sony based console then only Sony games would have this feature it would take a lot of co-ordination from developers and publishers to get this running.
That being said I would welcome this or even as mentioned above just being able to download in the background So I can at least play a PSN title or the like while I wait.
shields_t | 14/12/2009 16:49
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Surely game patches are hosted on psn servers though?
hazelam | 14/12/2009 14:13
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patches are great if used to fix genuinely unpredictable errors or to add new functionality to a title but lately it seems patches are being used instead of proper testing.
i’m not talking about the something like the glitches in mw2 people have been using to cheat because, i couldn’t see how you’d discover those without thousands of players trying to find these glitches, but there are bugs that effectively kill the game, i can’t believe some of the bugs i’ve seen in certain games would ever get through a proper testing process.
for the most people it’s just an annoyance, but there are some people who can’t get their consoles online to get the patches to fix the games, i’ve heard people at colleges and that can’t get online with their consoles.
part of the premuim we pay for console games used to be quality control of the product, along with cheaper standardised hardware.
deadwelsh | 14/12/2009 14:14
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Patches are better than having a buggy game, although i get pissed off with the continuous updates when you are not expecting them (looking at you MW2).
More annoying are some of the firmware updates that don’t seem to do anything
iNsAnE_gAmInG | 14/12/2009 16:31
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Developers and publishers are under a lot of pressure to get games finished and to obviously stick to planned release dates to avoid disappointment for gamers (are you listening Polyphony?!?!?).
The result of this is bugs and glitches and the ability to patch things at a later date is very beneficial to developers therefore they milk the whole concept of ‘we can fix it later’ without considering the repetitiveness of it when we have to download so many.
I don’t mind downloading updates as it is highly beneficial to us gamers e.g. the Burnout Paradise bikes and trophies update. However, when are playing is significantly postponed due to bugs that are the result of laziness within the development and publishing team, it does no doubt get irritating, as when PS2 was the latest thing and online play was nigh-on unheard of, glitches and bugs were very rarely evident in any games.