1. Cyberpunk 2077
2. GTA: Definitive Edition
3. Battlefield 2042
Three huge franchises released games that are well below standard, all filled with bugs that make them unplayable.
All three that should have been delayed for at least 3-6 months to address the issues but didn't.
Is it purely profit driven that these games have been released in this state?
Or are we seeing the COVID effects on games developed during the pandemic?
Maybe companies don't give a shit and know suckers will still buy Day 1 and release updates to fix the issues over the next 6-12 months?
The main reason is that projects are severely mismanaged.
Mismanagement in large problem is like a snowball, if you don’t stop it early it becomes an avalanche you cannot stop.
Why are they mismanaged?
Three reasons:
1) Short term goals are targeted for profit, plus with mtx, loot boxes, passes and so on they can make big bucks without changing much and problems are never addressed (see fifa, nba, GTA online).
2) Bad people are promoted. Nerds on average are not very good as being social and often are promoted one step too high, sometime frustrated Assholes are promoted too (see harassment cases).
Rotten apple stay when they find their niche where they can survive, good and talented people are not martyrs and many of them when the shit hits the fan or grow older move to other industries where they work less and are paid much more.
3) Unrealistic deadlines and budgets
This has become quite uncommon in the last 5 years because publishers make more money than ever and people have at least learned that asking the impossible guarantees a disaster.
This is why Cyberpunk has been in development for so many years and despite this it was massive failure.
Then you have 20+ million units series that skip an entire generation because their developers can’t get their shit together In a reasonable amount of time.
There is a third option but it is very uncommon in big established studios: the dev are incompetents, you can see this in GSG and GTA Trilogy Disaster Edition
