Success in any business has always been whether the objectives have been met. That will vary from business to business. As nice as it is the have the ultimate finished product, sales normally define its success not the actual quality of the game. I'm sure we can name several games that were of good quality yet failed due to other reasons, a dev I used to work with went under because they delayed one of their projects due to development issues and ended up releasing after a rival game, so no one bought the game. The game itself was pretty damn good.
It's not that I don't see the plite of business and the difficulties they face, but I do not believe in giving up the value to the consumer in order to ensure the value to the business.
Is it really better to say "it's ok for businesses to cut corners on the products they sell you so they can stay in business" than it is to say "businesses need ensure that I get a good product for my money and if they can't do the job right in the time alotted, I am sorry but it's not the consumers fault"?
It seems everything is setup so the poor business doesn't have to risk any of the downsides of failure now... it used to be "if a business can't perform it doesn't deserve to succeed" and not it seems more like "the consumer should be ready to eat it and bail out a businesses if it can't perform so it won't go under".
I really dispise the spinelessness of the average consumer today...
You're right, it doesn't, but people are expecting more and more for less and less, I remember Nintendo games costing upwards of £50. Games are so much more technical than they used to be. When all the expectations are going up, it's hardly surprising mistakes are made.
No, people are expecting the same: What is promised.
Companies are advertising more and delivering less. Then they are trying to change the process of selling products to give the consumer less.
There is an important difference.
And yes I know games cost more now to produce than they used to... but the market is also much bigger. You can't just say games cost more to develop so we are lucky to get them for only $50... you have to remember one game can now be expected to sell to many millions of customers generating much more profit than 10 or 20 years ago. So while production cost may be higher, so are potential profits. There is no argument that the price should go up to balance this somehow.
As said before, the success of the business is its sales figures not the quality of the product. Though the two often go hand in hand, it isn't always the case.
And as I said before, I despise the fact the consumer has now taken the success of the business as priority over the proper treatment of the consumer.
I'll give you that.
I don't think it is. Internet based patching is an aid to both the developer and the consumer, the developer can use it to not only iron out bugs but improve various other elements. The consumer gets a better product, people seem to have this notion that pre-patching era the games were bug free, they weren't. It's here to stay and it's for the better.
Patching ALLOWS a developer to give the consumer more, but it also allows the developer to be lazier and cut corners and not be heald as accountable. Here it is important to look at what DOES happen and not just what could happen.
The statement "the consumer gets a better product" is far from a truth. It's a possibility, and does happen sometimes, but again, the reality of the sitauation is far more that testing times seem shorter and bugs seem more common with the expectation that they can be fixed later so aren't as big a deal. Of course when later comes around, whether they get fixed is up to how much the company wants to spend on the problem.
I am not saying that pre patching, games were bug free, but I am saying that pre patching devs were heald to a higher standard because they had only one chance to get it right, so product testing and QA were much more thorough. Now they expect a second chance to make a first impression, which often results in not as much effort in the first chance.
Maybe you don't need internet to play GT5, but your PS3 needs an internet, at your home or at you friends, because it requires firmware update, especially now due to piracy. Without firmware update you could not play GT5. Imagine if your stuck with no internet and no firmware update, i don't think you could play GT5 or any other game, other then those designed to play on original firmware.
You do realize that every game that requires a certain level firmware contains said firmware on the disc right? I actually took my GT5 to a buddieds house and played it on his PS3 that was not on the internet. The firmware actually updated FASTER than if we had had to download it from the internet becaues it was already there on the disc.
Your PS3 absolutely does NOT require internet. The system is self sufficient to operate on it's own without internet connectivity.
Your argument is totally wrong.
Look back a few posts, it's been covered many times. A mod even stepped in and explained in detail how you can post on a forum but not have the internet required for updates to PS3 games.
