The problems of the gaming industry have been laid bare more times than not over the last couple of years. Publishers and developers are rushing to make games that aren’t ready upon release, leading to layoffs and studio closures due to “poor performance,” some companies are trying to bank off of “big names and franchises” alone versus making things that are truly unique and special. Gamers have to deal with all of this, including having patches and updates come consistently just so they can play the game they want! Masahiro Sakurai understands that frustration but wants to give developers a bit of leeway on the topic.
In his latest video, Masahiro Sakurai notes that while patches and updates may seem frustrating to those who are just trying to play games, he’s honestly glad the option is open to developers like himself. How so? Simply put, Sakurai knows more than most that how games are now is MUCH different than how it was in the earlier console generations. He even notes that game sizes are at least 10-100 times bigger than they were in older generations. That means that teams have a lot more to do and attempt to debug before a launch happens.
He also revealed that for these projects, especially AAA projects, testing the entire game to look for every bug with a small Q&A team, or even a slightly large one, is nearly impossible within the timeframes given. As such, many developers use feedback from gamers to fix things that they missed. Obviously, they still look for things like game-breaking bugs, but some of the minor stuff, such as balance issues or things not looking the right way, can be adjusted after launch. Sakurai has done that himself with his legendary fighting title, using the players to achieve the proper balance among all characters.
Even with all that being said, Sakurai also takes the side of gamers by ending on the note that developers should try and put out the best game possible right at launch and then merely use the patches and updates as a kind of “bonus content” to make the game better in case they missed something. When you think of certain titles from key developers, you can see which ones did do that, like Larian Studios, and which ones didn’t, like Bethesda.
We’ll have to see if the game industry adapts to this belief or simply continues to operate as it often does.
