The most recent Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, has gotten some criticism, despite selling so well, over re-releasing the same game over and over again with a few changed features. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't actually sold at the same $60 price. When the game crashes, which it does often, it still contains error logs and messages that were Modern Warfare 2 specific. The code being used was obviously never changed and neither were over 70% of the sound effects. Instead, Activision has been keeping all the profits from previous games and not investing enough into the creation of the series. I could go on about models, textures and designs being done in the most amateur and quickest way possible, recognizable by any professional artist in the industry, but you get the point.
This is not a new thing in the industry, whether it's games, software or gadgets. Companies making big profits come to the conclusion that they're able to reduce costs without anyone noticing. When Microsoft released Windows Millennium, they had high hopes that making quick releases of their operating system means more profits. The entire operating system ended up lacking thorough testing and gave the famous blue screen its common reference to windows, needlessly harming its reputation. Apple's iOS 5 has had many crashes running downloaded apps and it does show that very little features were added into the release simply to give the new 4s phone a higher reputation. The list of examples goes on, but it is an apparent problem in the industry. It is forgivable when a company makes a mistake in the product itself, but when little work is put into it intentionally, they do not deserve sales for that product. People that work on such products know very well how the level of competition with other companies is very high.
Creating engines that make the work flow faster is one thing, but tricking people into paying full price for something that had minimal work put into it is entirely unethical. It's no different from scamming people. To me, it is a programmer's job to put his/her full effort and attention into a project until it is perfect enough to sell or distribute. Greed and professionalism do not mix.
Any thoughts on these companies or others being greedy in avoiding doing work on new products?
Think my post is to long going to break it up...
ReplyDeleteI don't think it’s fair to describe this as tricking people. If people are willing to go in and buy a game for 60$ that is the same as the previous one, then they are doing it of its own free will. Anyone angered by this will stop buying the new games...
The fact that people are still buying these games means that even the little content that they added to the game is enough for a good portion of consumers to pony up 60$. When a company releases very similar products they run the risk of disappointing their fan base and a decline in sales. As you are unimpressed with the new game, it’s simple, don’t buy it... no one is forcing you to.
You mention “but when little work is put into it intentionally, they do not deserve sales for that product”. But really is there such a thing as undeserved sales? If someone pays money for a product, you can’t be like “hey don’t buy that, they don’t deserve it!” if the person wants to buy it, they buy it.
DeleteI don’t see how it is unethical; if something is working why change it. Is it the ethical responsibility for programmers and companies to start from scratch every time they make a game? Do they not have the right to use and build upon that which they worked hard to make? Is it unethical when we program to re-use functions that we used in earlier programs, do we need to re-write them to be ethical?
I would argue that good companies do the exact opposite, they build on what works and change that which didn’t. That’s the way technology evolves, little by little we add and change. No one goes from discovering fire to building an electron microscope; we build on what we know.
NHL games are a prime example of game that are horribly similar, but really what is there to change? Modern Warfare is an FPS war simulator, they can’t exactly just make up new guns... there is little to change once the initial game is built.
DeleteIf the company is not giving consumers what they want people will simply stop buying. You can’t blame companies for minimizing costs and keeping a large portion of their consumers happy, that’s just good business.
When companies like Activision see that they're set for the next 5 years and lay off 80% of their programmers, is that in any way ethical or moral? I am well aware it's considered "good business practice" by definition, but it's pretty obvious that it's greed. Sure, people with no respect for the craft will think they're just games, they're made to make money, but being a professional means something. We're artists and scientists that are capable of so much, yet all we do is try to figure out the next easy-to-make useless thing to get people to spend their money. I am not advertising whether you should buy a product or not. I am simply pointing out their flaws. NHL games are a perfect example you gave. The amount of work done on the 2008 version to make it into 2012 one is probably less than 2 months worth of work. It's not true that they can't improve these games. There are so many bugs and crashes in mw2 and black ops that were reported multiple times to Activision, who carelessly didn't bother with them, not to mention the game itself has less quality than some 2006 and 2007 titles. As a programmer, that's what I criticize in these "professionals." If their business practices aren't the definitions of laziness and greed, I don't know what is.
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