are patches killing our experience?

[shadio5]

To many people say nba 2k3 & 2k8 were the best of the series. Ok i have been around the block when it comes to gaming and sports games. Back in day when games were developed they were all tested and shipped out to the customer just ONE time. When we got home we knew what we were playing and it never changed. Today developers seem to have PATCHES on their mind before they even release the game. Deveopers probly say in the back of their mind "dont worry guys, if something gos wrong we will just patch it up later"...developers these days are not giving it their all when finalizing their products. Patch after patch after patch, personally i think patches are doing more harm than good....yes i love the fact that we can download add-ons, accessories, and attire, but when it comes to changing the games core engine that is where the problems come in.

Also im starting to see weird damage to how the game reacts to changes made by a patch. Weird things start to happen to my game when patches are givin out, ands its not just with 2k sports games, but with other sports as well. The game turns into something completely different. The animations are the same, the graphics are the same, but something happens to the gameplay engine. Patches are suppose to make the game play BETTER, but instead it causes more and more confusion. Now this confusion should tell the developers something. For some reason one area of the game gets fixed, but then a whole new list of problems follow. The game just turns into a strange game...you gotta think, these developers take a good year or two to create these games, then they send us a patch that is developed in only two months...this is scary because they touch the information in the data that has been worked on for a whole year. Messing with that information can screw many things up if not done correctly.

Get the game right the FIRST time developers. Stop changing the core engine of your games because something totally wrong happens when you touch that area of the game. Bring it back to the old days before patches. Those games were the classics games. We never went threw all this garbage patches back then...also what about the people who do not have internet access??? You developers dont take into consideration the people who dont have internet access at all.....wow

Patches are killing our games.


VC/2k sports fan

[Pared]

You're out of touch - seems like you decide to make this same exact thread every single year.

Patches allow game developers to work on a game for more than 9 month they typically have. It also allows them to address bugs that would otherwise make a game "unplayable."

You, as a consumer, are given free support after a game is released for a one time fee. Features that are advertised don't work and they basically use patches as a means to make them work the way the should.

Is it ideal? No. But to ask developers that have a third to half the time of normal game development and Q&A to perform the same amount of quality control yet add in more features than other games is a bit unrealistic in terms of expectations.

By the way, this goes in the Console forum since it has more to do with gaming in general than NBA 2k.

[Skyboxer]

Pretty much every game in existance could have used a patch. We are fortunate now to be able to get them.
However back in the day there was not the amount of coverage medias as there are now.
So we hear about a lot of issues now with games that we probably would never have seen and known about years ago.
It's so bad I think a vast majority of people are addicted to finding issues to post about them.

Either way, glad they are patching games.

[Altimus]

To add to that is that these games are getting more advanced and more technically harder to make while the time frames are the same.

Sent from my HTC EVO

[youvalss]

Back in the day I think games had the same problems they have today. We just didn't log on the OS to report about bugs/glitches every 5 minutes.

I actually recall some older basketball games that didn't even have a post-up game. I'm sure no one complained about that as much these days people complain about...say...the CPU shooting from 3-point range 10% more than the average NBA team does in real life...

Back in the day you had no contact with developers, unless it was someone you actually knew. At some point in time, all you knew about a game was what you'd read in a magazine, saw in a commercial and read on the back of the box. That doesn't mean developers got it right the first time.


And as for 2K8, didn't it get a patch?

Spoiler

It's crazy! These days people complain about calf sleeves! CALF SLEEVES!

[Cletus]

Patches aren't killing our experience, CEO's are. There's a lot of pressure on devs to come out with big extravagant games. Sometimes it can't happen the way shareholders and the corporate guys want, so they force in something new. It's a formula thing and just because an ingredient sounds good doesn't mean it will flow well. Now we have patches and devs throw it in anyway to make a lot of people happy or to sell a thousand more copies. If it doesn't work it can be patched and if the patch doesn't work then they will already have made their money and gamers will be on to the next big game. It's not going to get better until the industry crashes again.

[bukktown]

Patch quality has become really poor. They used to be like leather patches for clothes now they are like polyester.

[LambertandHam]

I have no issue with the patching process, or patches themselves. My main gripe is as a Xbox 360 owner, MS's certification process is too long.