TLDR; Look for the red text below
This is a common thing it appears in the game/software development world. I personally know of many games where the developers moved on to new projects while leaving glaring bugs in their previous products.
Now, while I realize their business is really not so different than many others, in that they've constantly got to move forward, or get new projects so that they can eat and pay the light bills too, just like I need to constantly find new clients if I wish to keep the lights on, the difference seems to be that when I create a project for a client, there is just no way that I can leave some glaring mistake in their project and move on to a new project. So why is it that so many developers do this exact thing?
To bring it into focus with this forum, there are a couple bugs left in Diplomacy and the last thing that I read suggested that while they would like to fix the problems, they only have so many hands to go around, and apparently all their hands are in a new project. So the past game is left to wallow with it's problems while they continue to pay the light bills and feed their families by starting a new project.
This brings me to the point of wondering... I've been playing games now since the 1970's and in the past 8 years I've been fortunate enough to be able to say that I have over 300 games for the PC, and maybe 20 or so for my Xbox 360. The reason that I mention this is because I'd like to somhow quantify that I've seen this action where developers leave their last title to move onto the new project and they NEVER come back to finally fix it. That is to say, it's a blue moon event for a developer to come back to a title that they've already been paid for and fix it after having moved onto other projects. In general, people that have only a few games, they've not really experienced this situation enough to have it bother them, but when somebody with 30 or so games has experienced this 60% of the time in their game that they own, they start to get, well..., let's just say they start to get a tad frustrated, and eventually it boils over and really angers them.
There comes a time when as a customer, I have to wonder... Why should I buy any (not just Sins developers) developers new game when they left their last game with some glaring bugs still in it? I know that the best way of dealing with developers that have left their previous game with bugs that affect it's gameplay or performance is to vote with ones wallet by not buying their future titles, unfortunately this is the gaming market, and luckily for developers and publishers, there is a large percentage of gamers thata re children who's mental facilities have not fully matured yet and are still of the mind of 'I want, I want, I WANT' and so it doesn't matter to them that a dev or pub's last title was left with problems or not since they just WANT. So getting a large enough group of people that ARE willing to vote with their wallets is really not a viable option.
I personally have voted with my wallet quite a few times, many times against Atari for leaving a game that they produced about 4 or 5 years ago, completely feeling unfinished and ridden with performance issues and have never bought another Atari game since. While I realize that few people vote with their wallets and those that do don't amount to a hill of beans to the devs or publishers, it is unfortunately the only thing that we have. Sometimes grass roots efforts start up like this and unfortunately put developers out of business because the ball gets rolling on some site and then BAM! People don't want to buy that developers new titles and then publishers don't want to touch that developers work anymore. This is truly unfortunate as I never want to see people go unemployed, especially in times where they might be living from paycheck to paycheck and or have children in their family. But seriously, there has to be a point where developers are held responsible for their code and assuring their consumer that it's working as intended and not left off with a bunch of bugs just because a good portion of their audience has moved on to other titles. There are most assuredly people that still want to play their last game and who might not because of some glaring bugs in the code.
Now, I'm not suggesting that anybody makes an example out of Ironclad or anything like that, but I for one am a bit fed up with other developers before Ironclad that have done the same thing, left their last game still buggy and moved on to their next project and it's sort of come to a head for me with Sins, a game that I like very much but which frustrates me with some of the more obvious bugs that were left in the game.
To get specific here... you know TLDR;
Why would I want to buy Sins developers new title when they didn't fully complete Diplomacy and left stuff in it (theres many threads, so I won't repeat the problems) or left stuff out of it, or didn't fix it? Theres no way for me to be assured that their next title won't be left in the same way that they left Diplomacy. And after 300 games, to be quite honest, I'm a tad tired of buying games that are left with problems when the developers have to move on to their next project to keep paying the light bills and can't afford at least 2 hands to fix the left over problems in their last title.
I am a small business owner, and I assure you that I can't leave problems in my last clients projects and just 'move on' to my next client. Eventually clients get to talking and wondering why their project was never complete or still has issues in it and my reputation suffers and eventually I get no new clients as I have no references to give them as every client I've ever had was burned by my moving onto the next project. It's my duty as the owner of my business to put aside the resources needed to complete my clients projects even if I have to move on to another clients projects and then come back in an acceptable time period and fix the first clients project, I feel it's time to hold developers and publishers to this same standard that 90% of the other business's in the world have to be held to.
