From Jerry’s post on Penny Arcade:
“You know how when you save your game, and a message comes up that says “Don’t Remove The Memory Card”? Well, if you are playing Precipice on an old Xbox with an MU and you decide to pull it out literally as you are saving the game, it will apparently crash. We thought we had accounted for that exact scenario but apparently our failsafes against timed MU pulls were not as tight as we had thought, so it failed Community Peer Review. That’s why it’s not coming out on the same day as the PC version, which manifests in all its glory on the 25th. We can’t resubmit for another seven days, so we (and you, if you want to play it on there) are in kind of a holding pattern. Zeboyd will push another build out on Tuesday; I’ll keep you posted.”
We’re sorry for the inconvenience for people who wanted to buy the XBLIG version. And keep in mind that this is just the XBLIG version – the PC version works fine and is still coming out on June 25th (5 more days!).
A bug is a bug. If it happens to somebody after buying the game, who is that somebody going to blame? What is that person going to say about Zeboyd’s games afterwards? I wasn’t happy with Hothead games, especially after I found out that the only thing I could do is play deathspank 2 from the beginning. I am lenient, but a lot of people aren’t, and if they thought they spent $15 on a game with game breaking bugs and the developer didn’t care, that would be the final purchase from said developer.
It doesn’t matter what kind of bug, even if its a funny one with no game breaking features, developers have to be careful to not get the reputation of maker of buggy games. Besides lowering the size of their fanbase, it also makes people wait longer to purchase a game until its a budget bin price, because they don’t feel like paying full price for beta testing games, or they are waiting for patches or complete versions of the game to release with all bugs fixed. Thankfully Zeboyd can avoid this because their games are a lot cheaper than the other games I was talking about, for now anyway, but that just means they can’t afford to lose fans because they need all of us to buy their games so they can make a profit, because with fewer fans, its harder to “make bank” so to say.
So what day will the game release in XBLIG?
@Chris C
The problem with your argument is that the bug in deathspank 2 is not comparable to the bug in Precipice 3. The bug in deathspank 2 occurs when the player does absolutely nothing wrong. The bug in Precipice 3 occurs only if the player breaks a hard and fast hardware rule (i.e. don’t remove a memory card while it is being written to). The bugs that occur when players mess with their hardware are UNAVOIDABLE. You cannot put code in your game that will completely mitigate hardware failure. Even if Zeboyd can keep their game from crashing when the memory card is removed during saving, what is the point? The player will still lose data and encounter other problems.
Suppose the NPC glitch in Deathspank 2 only occurred if and when the player put his XBOX in the microwave while playing, would hothead games have given you a free game when you reported that the glitch happened? Absolutely not! The player in this case breaks an obvious hardware rule, and is responsible for the consequences. But the NPC glitch was not caused by the player being irresponsible, therefore hothead games was liable.
The glitch in Precipice 3 NEVER occurs except in situations where the player violates his end of the gaming contract. Any player who doesn’t deserve to be hosed, won’t be.
It isn’t the hardware maker that is paying Zeboyd to make this game. Same goes with Steam and any other website that is willing to sell this game. Both Xbox and Steam have quality standards, and if constant crashing games are allowed to be released on both platforms, it lowers both the publishers and the developers reputation. If Zeboyd started becoming synonymous with buggy products, they will probably not last long in this business, so yes, its Zeboyd’s problem to fix, and I am glad this bug was caught.
Just a brief example. I bought Deathspank 2 from hothead games on xbox live. I made it to near the end when you are on a wintry island. There is a bug there that can cause a npc you need to spawn to not spawn. If this bug happens and you don’t realize it, and save your game and shut the game down, you get a game breaking bug that keeps you from being able to spawn that npc to get an item to beat the boss. I got the bug. To keep fans happy, Hothead games asked people to friend them on xbox live so they could check our save files, and if you pass the check, hothead gives you a free game to make up for that bug. That is how I got a hold of the first game in this series Zeboyd is continuing.
I’m sorry but when I discovered that smashing the XBox with a 25 pound sledgehammer caused the game’s music to fail (everything else worked fine) we were forced to give you a failing grade. Please correct.
@Chris C
You are right. Software testing is an important part of game development. And a game should not crash when it is played as intended. But when a player rips the memory card out of its socket while the game is saving, he is playing with fire, and should accept the consequences. Surely this self-inflicted glitch is not comparable to, say, the screen blacking out while you’re walking around on the world map, minding your own business.
In any case, I don’t think the software creator should be held accountable for what is clearly a hardware issue.
You can say that until you run into a game with a few quests or fights that cause random crashes occasionally and the developers just say, “Oh, it only happens occasionally and you can just reload your save and try again.” That is why something like that is required in peer review.
@Ryan
Well, as a programmer, I understand the need for robustness, but there’s just no way you can plan for every contingency. I mean, every game displays a warning while the game is being saved, right? If they require you to keep the game from crashing, even when this warning is ignored, then why not require that no data be lost, as well. In fact, why not require game creators to ensure that their game will keep running when the power cord is pulled out of the socket? Or tell game creators that their game must still be playable if the Xbox is wholly submerged in water?
You are right: it’s a stupid requirement, and it’s not fair to those who are waiting for the XBLIG version of the game. I just wish there was something we could do about this.
@Alan
If your game crashes anywhere, it’s an auto-fail in Peer Review. Even if someone deliberately tries to make it crash by pulling all hard drives/MUs/flash drives/etc.Kinda stupid requirement, but it’s what you have to abide by if you want your game released on XBLIG.
Anyone who owns an Xbox owns a PC anyway, I would think. And Xbox players should be smart enough to know not to remove a memory card while saving. If they really are that stupid, then they deserve to have their game crash.
Why you have to put in failsafes for this situation in order to qualify is beyond me.