It amazes me why people buy video games on day-one, particularly those that rely on online multiplayer. I used to be one of them, but in the last few years we’re into an age where a lot of games are released unfinished due to time constraints in the development cycle and the rush to hit a launch deadline.
The last major game I bought at launch was For Honor, but in the past I’ve bought many others where server issues have plagued the first few weeks, and patches to fix issues that really shouldn’t been there on day-one drop on a weekly basis.
What’s the point of buying a game on day-one if it’s not the finished article? Why not wait a few months, potentially get it cheaper and play the game it should have been on release?
For Honor is a prime example of why to avoid games at release. Slow-matchmaking, lag and frequent disconnections to Ubisoft’s medieval fighting game certainly made sure that I didn’t have good time.
By the time dedicated servers arrived – and after numerous patches – I’d moved on to other games. If I would have waited and bought For Honor at a much later date, I’d probably be playing it now.
Granted, you expect a triple-A game to launch with some bugs, but you can almost guarantee that games that launch with an online service will suffer some server issues during that initial launch period. And you’ll spend just as much time enjoying the game as you do trying to get into the game.
Recently, I foolishly took a punt and purchased a Founder’s Pack for Warface, the free-to-play online shooter for PS4. Over the first week, I couldn’t get into one match. Of course, that early access period is meant for testing servers and ironing out bugs, so I did expect some issues. However, I did expect it to be at least playable at some point.
So, I gave up during the early access period and waited until its official launch mid-September.
Once again it was plagued by technical issues, and to this date I’ve probably played online in Warfare for no more than three hours. It simply wasn’t ready to be released, the same as many other games that rush to hit their launch deadlines due to pressures from their publishers, and budget restraints.
If there’s one major lesson I’ve learned about buying video games in the last few years, it’s to hold back on that impulse to pick them up on day-one; and to wait until a few months down the line where all the major bugs have been fixed, the servers are more stable and the game is how it was meant to be on the first day.
There’s some exceptions to the rule, of course, and some developers and publishers I trust. For example, Sony’s first-party games are often extremely polished on day-one, none more so than the brilliant Spider-Man or the Uncharted games.
EA Sports also deliver a robust online service for its games like FIFA 19 that rarely have any server issues or major bugs.
However, my confidence in video games being the finished article on day-one has diminished over the past few years. Consequently, I now buy games a few months down the line, download all the numerous updates that has been applied to it over the weeks, get it for cheaper and enjoy the game it should have been.
What are you experiences of buying video games on launch day? Let us know in the comments below.
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Top image credit: Photo by Youcef Chenguitti on Unsplash