ACTIVISON: They don't care anymore (as if they ever did)
Mike Evans
Did you notice that Activision has been extra lazy recently. From the Heavy
Gear Glide controversy to the laziness with updating the Mercs and I'76
patches (glide coming, I hope). Sure, they make some good games, but they
really don't care for the customer anymore. They are making me mad. Anymore
comments are welcome.
--
Mike Evans
gev...@atlcom.net
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Michael David Cunanan
Why would they bother with patching games that people already own? When
they could be making more money working on new games to sell...
It's all about the $$$ with game companies.
Mike Evans <gev...@atlcom.net> wrote in article
<66pton$gog$1...@www.3dfx.com>...
Travis Prebble
Michael David Cunanan <c311...@student.anu.edu.au> wrote in article
<01bd06c4$8081f880$0f02000a@Default>...
> Why would they bother with patching games that people already own? When
> they could be making more money working on new games to sell...
>
> It's all about the $$$ with game companies.
Hmmm, I'm not an expert in economics, but something tells me that all
companies are in the business of making money. :)
We would like to think that game programmers are all in it "for the games",
but the fact of the matter is that profits, making quarters, and keeping
investors happy is the main function of any company that has public stocks.
-- Trav
DW
Activision does a better job than most in my experiences. Recent articles
in PC Mag, etc. discussed the challenges faced by software companies as they
are continually faced with new and divergent 3D "standards". There is no
real standard, not even MS D3D, so vendors are stuck in the middle of a
dilemma: spend more resources to issue hardware specific enhancements, or
get onto the next project. Anyway, they are as good if not better than the
rest.
Dusty
Mike Evans wrote in message <66pton$gog$1...@www.3dfx.com>...
Richard Read
But lots of other companies manage fine like Ocean (I-war) and whoever
did G-Police.
Heavy Gear was just appauling, so many bugs it is unplayable on my
machine. It is not just 3D standards but there are also problems with
the sound. This thing about standards is just an excuse, Activision are
just cheap.
Jeremy Beal
Activision probably hasn't really cared since about the early eighties when they
were a small company struggling to grow and survive... It's inevitable. To me
the very worst is Electronic Arts, and they are doing a pretty terrific job of
killing the good attitude that Origin once had. (Admittedly it's been awhile...)
Large established companies are straight-out brutal and not to be trusted
without a wary eye. They don't care much about the savvy and clued-in people in
their customer base, we're just the hard ones to satisfy. They have a large
market of people who aren't responsive to them, and they take as much advantage
of that as they can.
OK, enough cynicism for now...
Jeremy Beal
Get my e-mail address at www.nvmedia.com/jbeal
(Tired of the damn spam)
NerveGas
> Heavy Gear was just appauling, so many bugs it is unplayable on my
> machine. It is not just 3D standards but there are also problems with
> the sound. This thing about standards is just an excuse, Activision are
> just cheap.
This is a very common double-edged sword. Companies have the
option of (a) writing games that use the latest and greatest
technologies, or (b) writing games that most people can use. It's like
when a company decides to either (a) take advantage of Intel's killer
FPU, or make a lesser game that will work with lesser FPU's. Heavy Gear
in general runs pretty well, but since they used the "latest and
greatest", it won't run well on some machines.
Also, if you say the thing about standards is "just an excuse", it
sounds like you have never programmed a D3D application. Why do you
think that Id software refuses to release anything in D3D? It is a
horrible API. The one thing it has going for it is that a lot of
hardware supports it. Activision could have:
1. Wrote only 3DFX support into the game. Then they would be leaving
out the majority of 3D-card owners.
2. Written support for every single card out there (S3, ATI, 3DFX,
Rendition, powerVR, etc.). Then the game would perform really well...
when it was released in summer of 2078.
3. Used D3D, including pretty much all 3D cards, and had it work for
most people. It may take a little longer to make than some API's, and
not work quite as well, but includes almost every 3D owner out there.
I tried it just for fun on a Stealth II in D3D mode with the normal
DX5, it worked flawlessly - and looked terrific, other than not having
the framerates of a 3DFX. Oh....and this was on a machine that is
*seriously* weird. I have never seen a machine with as many weirdnesses
and problems as this one had, but HG sure worked great on it.
NerveGas
Richard Read
But this arguement falls down because other DX5 games, like I-War
(flawless no bugs at all that I have seen) G-Police (flawless no bugs at
all that I have seen) do not have these problems, or at lease the
problems are not so bad.
It is things like Heavy Gear not being able to cope with altered windows
cursors. All they needed to do was to use their own cursor. It is just
lazy in my opinion. And look both Mercinaries and Heavy Gear have had
the same level of complaints. One duff game I can forgive but not two in
a row.
> Also, if you say the thing about standards is "just an excuse", it
> sounds like you have never programmed a D3D application. Why do you
> think that Id software refuses to release anything in D3D? It is a
> horrible API. The one thing it has going for it is that a lot of
> hardware supports it. Activision could have:
>
> 1. Wrote only 3DFX support into the game. Then they would be leaving
> out the majority of 3D-card owners.
>
> 2. Written support for every single card out there (S3, ATI, 3DFX,
> Rendition, powerVR, etc.). Then the game would perform really well...
> when it was released in summer of 2078.
>
> 3. Used D3D, including pretty much all 3D cards, and had it work for
> most people. It may take a little longer to make than some API's, and
> not work quite as well, but includes almost every 3D owner out there.
--
R
Cynic is a word used by optimists to describe realists.