Poor Play Testing + A Rushed Product = A Broken Game

There is a growing trend in the industry that seems to be affecting all types of games, regardless of genre, size, or console. Despite the leaps and bounds we’ve made in technology through the years, numerous “glitchy”, barely-tested games are hitting the market. In fact, this seems to be becoming more and more acceptable with game publishers who just want to make a quick buck by putting their title on the market without thoroughly testing it.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about this problem besides voting with our wallets. If you have heard about a game being filled with bugs then simply DO NOT purchase it. If you would try to return a bug-ridden game to the store you would only be provided with the same copy, and most of the time game publishers could care less about these bugs. A popular and well-known game publisher, Activision, provides walk-throughs and tips on how to get past known bugs in their products, but this is rare and if they didn’t’ have these rushed products filled with bugs in the first place it would not even be necessary. Many PC games provide patches for these problems, but on consoles it is not too often that a patch is released to fix some known-issues in a game (the only title I could think of is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360).

One recent occurrence of a major glitch is SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighter’s Clash for the Nintendo DS, and this one is a doozy. This huge glitch prevents you from progressing through the game at a certain point, and the sad thing about this is that it wasn’t found in the original Japanese release. That’s a sign of piss-poor play-testing, and so far the official word from SNK on this issue is, simply,

"We're looking into it".

Um, thanks for that response, guys, but some people blew $30 on this broken game. Sadly, this occurrence is happening more and more often in games and needs to be stopped before it becomes even more of a problem.

Update: SNK is offering replacement cartridges for those who have received the initial broken version of the game, but the growing trend of glitch-ridden games continues...