Well... at least a (former) lead designer of Bethesda does. Bruce
Nesmith, who headed the Skyrim team, recently admitted that Bethesda
games lacked a certain degree of "polish", but that at some point you
have to release a game even if it still has "700" known bugs* and that
players should just understand that a bug free release is impossible.
Which, like the recent comment by a Paradox CEO, lacks a certain
self-awareness. It's not so much that players are expecting a bug-free
release. Rather, it's the sheer number of bugs (and the obvious nature
of so many of them) that's causing a ruckus, and the obstinance of
publishers to do anything about it.
I get it; developing software is HARD. I mean, I can speak from
personal experience in that, and I was never involved in anything as
massively complex as a modern AAA video game. A typo can set you back
for days trying to figure out what the ^#$%^#$ program isn't doing
what it's supposed to, and God forbid you misunderstand the goal or
use some deprecated technique. You might be looking at a huge rewrite
of vital code that puts all the rest of the project on hold until you
fix your mess. It's even worse when you're on the cutting edge and
creating entirely new techniques almost from scratch.
Except... there are solutions to these problems; solutions that are
readily available to the multi-billion dollar publishers funding these
projects. Sure, a little ten-person Indie studio might be forgiven for
not having these options, but Paradox? Bethesda? EA?
Better project management helps allot, allowing the development team
--especially the programmers-- enough time to work out the kinks in
the core systems before building your house-of-cards framework on top
of it. Or just allowing enough time to better plan out what you're
going to be doing with the game so it's a less rickety structure to
begin with. A clearer vision, with a fixed number of goals. Stamp out
feature creep which keeps adding neat but costly additions. And add
plenty of time for QA... and give your developers the time they need
to fix the problems found.
But it's even worse with Bethesda, because their products are neither
cutting edge, and some of the bugs gamers are dealing with date back
DECADES because Bethesda keeps reusing the same cranky engine. Worse,
these are issues that MODDERS have fixed yet Bethesda refuses to
include them into its own releases. It isn't an inability to fix the
game that aggravates players; it's Bethesda's outright refusal to do
so, despite the work being already done for them.
Sure, game development is hard... and its expensive. But with big AAA
games already taking years -in some case /decades/ to release, that
excuse wears thin. Publishers who can invest that much money into a
game that gets developed for so long can afford to keep it in the oven
a little longer so it doesn't come out a goopy mess. They don't, not
because it means the difference (as it does with small Indies) between
the company staying afloat or going under, but because it means the
difference between OODLES of profit and only SOME profit. It has less
to do with profitability and more to do with how the company is
perceived on the stock market. The company will do fine either way;
it's just the gamers -the customers- are held in lower regard than the
investors.
So I don't buy into these excuses that the C-levels are making for
their buggy, under-baked products. Sure, I understand the problems
that lead up to them, but their solution of "it's hard, so just suck
it up buttercup because that's what games are now" just isn't a
winning argument with me. YOU CAN DO BETTER. And now that more and
more gamers are waking up to this, asking all of us to just close our
eyes and accept the status quo of buggy games isn't winning you any
favors, publishers.
* interview here:
https://www.videogamer.com/news/skyrim-lead-bug-free-starfield-impossible/
Bethesda Embraces Its Bugginess