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Why doesn't UbiSoft thoroughly bug-test their games?

Kumiko Nikaido

Vindication...sweet.
No doubt UbiSoft has been churning some great stuff as of late (Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, etc.), but it seems that every game they release, they are riddled with bugs (some annoying, some not....some major, some not).

Problems like freeze-ups and lock-ups (PoP games), graphical abnormalities/hitches (Splinter Cell games), audio synching problems (PoP games), online hang-ups (Rainbow Six/Splinter Cell/Ghost Recon games), and several others. And since these games are multiplatform, these bugs are spread across all versions.

UbiSoft can craft graphical and artistic looking stuff with quality gameplay, but when it comes time to press those actual discs.....it seems they don't spend ample time going through them to fix up those errors.
 
The worst ones are bugs that prevent you from going further into the game, forcing you to start all over from the beginning
 
I'd say SWKOTOR 2 for PC is pretty bad too... no first patch yet
 
Because they've got major PC game roots. Like a lot of PC devs, their QA is shit. They're used to being able to patch everything after the fact. The Clancy games especially have this background ingrained in their production.
 
To say UBI uses PC roots as far as polishing games is a disgrace to current/past PC developers. UBI bugs and gamekilling glitches go heads and tails above and beyond what the competition can offer. I bet they are proud.
 
They might possibly have a great QA department, and a team of management that does not care about releasing buggy product.

Contrary to popular belief, QA generally does not have the last word on any games release. That decision is most often left to the producer, and in a lot of cases producers will ship a buggy product to meet deadlines for both budget and marketing reasons.
 
Wario64 said:
The worst ones are bugs that prevent you from going further into the game, forcing you to start all over from the beginning

This happened to me when i first played PoPSoT. I got to 78% then the game would freeze whenever I try to resume.
Surprisingly I wasn't mad at having to start over ;D
 
I know Rainbow complained about Kasavin giving Chaos Theory a lower score than Pandora Tommorrow, but it is time for reviewers to stop giving UBI Soft a fucking free pass when it comes to their software. CT shouldn't be scoring higher than an 8 with all the glitches in the game. UBI creates some good games that are extremely hampered by bugs and scores should reflect this. Not encourage them to continue this shoddy quality process.

No other big name software publisher/developer comes close to the amount of game killing bugs included as extras for their game.
 
oBa said:
Contrary to popular belief, QA generally does not have the last word on any games release. That decision is most often left to the producer, and in a lot of cases producers will ship a buggy product to meet deadlines for both budget and marketing reasons.

A winner is you!

This is the same for every company in the business. Some have executives that care more than others. You should never blame testers for a buggy game, as it is often not their fault.
 
It's sad; I remember a long, very well written piece on Gamespot a week before PoP:SoT came out doing a behind the scenes on the last day of production before gold. I frankly don't recall a bug in that game, but PoP:WW....yeesh...
 
Date of Lies said:
Because Wyzdom isn't doing his goddamn job :lol

:lol

Seriously, this whole matter is little bit more complex. There's many factors as to why there's still bugs in some final builts. Your game have to be on schedule, there's no more budget, you find the bug but for X other reasons it's not corrected, etc etc etc etc.
Stuff happen ALOT more than people think in game devellopement studios.
 
because, ya know, bug testing and even beta testing costs money -> and all poor companys dont have money - ya know because of all the software pirates. >:O
 
I'd like to say it's a management decision, mostly because they want to deliver the game on time. I've seen stupid bugs and gameplay glitches go by, which made lots of people unhappy.

And by the way: The AI in SC is a big pile of shit. Advance AI, my ass!
 
*Still waiting for POPWW patch (PC version) promised a few months ago*

That game must be one of the most bugged game ever. I play for a total of 2 hours and couldn't go on because of some *fatal* bug. The cause : I save at the wrong spot.

After reading the official board i gave up on the game. Thanks god i didn't buy it.
 
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