Quote:
Originally posted by Matt - SEGA:
Greg, you entertain me year-in year-out with your lack of perspective. Do you play any other videogames? How do you think FM stacks up with them, out of interest?
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Matt, I can't say that the feeling is mutual. You don't entertain me. Instead, you strike me as an apologist that can't accept legitimate criticism or blame. Doesn't it feel a bit hollow and spineless to keep hiding behind the idea that other PC games have bugs and that it's acceptable to rush an unfinished product to market because the software industry has a reputation for crap QA?
For the record, I've been playing computer games since 1982. I have played sports simulations almost exclusively. I have played dozens of titles on the Commodore 64, Macintosh and PC over the past 25 years, and I can recall only three releases with the sort of game-stopping bugs that we've seen from FM08.
One was Front Page Sports Football '98, and the developer recalled the product and discontinued the series afterwards. That was the end of a highly successful series that had sold massive numbers of copies. The product was rushed, it simply did not work properly, and the end result was disaster.
Another was Out of the Park Baseball 2006, which was an SI product. The added resources, the coding expertise, and the other influences from SI that were supposed to revolutionize the series led to disaster. Many customers felt the product was rushed and were still extremely unhappy after several patches. They were also upset with the new direction of the series. You can found countless postings on the OOTP forums and competitors' forums to back this up.
The game was never properly fixed, but thankfully the 2007 version was a vast improvement. I am the first person to say that OOTP 2007 came out quite nicely. However, SI has now parted ways with Markus Heinsohn, and OOTP is going back to its roots. Just check the OOTP forums to see how happy people are that the series is going back to its original path.
One other disastrous release was Tournament Dreams College Basketball. It was the first version of the game, and it was pretty awful. Then again, it was one programmer doing all the work. It was eventually patched to a somewhat acceptable level, but ultimately the game and the series failed because of poor QA and disappointing feature sets.
Anyway, let me give you some detail on my experience, since you questioned my perspective. I've long since lost count of all the sports simulations I've played, but here is a partial list of games that I've owned and played over the years. This is solely for personal computers. This does not include console games, which would add another 30 or so titles to the list.
Strat-O-Matic Baseball, Strat-O-Matic Football, APBA Baseball, APBA Football, APBA Hockey, Action PC! Football, Sporting News Baseball, MicroLeague Baseball, Championship Manager, Football Manager, Ultimate Soccer Manager, Tournament Dreams College Basketball, Total Pro Basketball, Out of the Park Baseball, Front Page Sports Baseball, Front Page Sports Football, High Heat Baseball, Total Extreme Warfare, Statis Pro Basketball, Pursue The Pennant, Jump Shot Basketball, PureStat College Basketball, Eastside Hockey, and Dynasty League Baseball, Old Time Baseball, and Tony LaRussa Baseball.
Those are just the titles, and it's not an exhaustive list. Also, that doesn't even cover all the annual or semi-annual versions of these series. It adds up to dozens of individual versions of software. I've also beta tested for a number of these products.
So I would think that I have a fair bit of experience with sports simulations, and I've seen a lot of software in my time. I'm sorry, but based on my experience, the huge bugs that I've seen in FM08 are far from the rule in this domain. They are an extreme exception with minimal precedent in my experience. I could think of only three versions of sports simulations that have been as troubling as the initial FM08 release and the beta patch.
Regardless, Matt, you have to ask yourself how you want to measure your performance. Do you want to compare yourself to crap software and crap developers, or do you want to measure yourself against the best? Do you want to make excuses and elude blame, or do you want to set high standards and hold yourself to those standards? I'm mostly seeing the excuses and the elusiveness, but I know that the core team at SI is really aiming to be the best. And I know that SI has BEEN one of the best for many years. But I don't have the same confidence that I did in past years, and this release has been very insulting and disappointing. I just hope that things aren't going to hell because of "commercial considerations" and all the branching off into other products, two of which have now been abandoned.
So please do yourselves and all of us a favor. NEVER AGAIN release a product until your testers have had sufficient time to help eliminate major bugs and not create new ones in the process. ALWAYS delay a release or do whatever is necessary to avoid bringing it to market too soon. NEVER AGAIN put so many customers in a position of concluding that they are unpaid beta testers for a product that they already purchased. Is that so difficult to do?
Linear Mode
