In the changing video game market, now filled with prices of 69.99 and delayed releases, games that aren’t completed on release have no business. However, recent releases have proven that companies are willing to cut corners to release their game and begin their revenue streams, much to the dismay of their customers. While this certainly isn’t new to the gaming scene, some companies (Hello Games and CD Project Red) have found ways to please customers once distraught by their poor commitment to excellence. This article will dive deeper into how these companies turned an atrocious release into a product they were proud of, while others released an unfinished project, collected their earnings, and left.

Hello Games’ 2016 release No Man’s Sky was not well taken when it first became available, with many customers claiming the version they received looked nothing like the advertisements shared at E3 and other gaming expos. Reviews on steam showed less than half of the players were happy with the product they had received. Hello Games decided to offer refunds to unhappy players and promised to do better on their word to release a top tier space exploration game. Hello Games’ lead developer, Sean Murry, decided he wouldn’t stop production on No Man’s Sky until the product was what he envisioned. The developers took their first steps down a long road of redemption with their 2018 release of Next. This was the first major update to completely change the way the game was viewed in the public eye. Next fixed a wide variety of bugs and issues while adding extensive gameplay features, such as multiplayer, new and improved base building, and deep space frigate bases. After Next, Hello Games released 27 more major updates, still continuing to this day. These updates, while not all especially positive in the community’s eyes, have made the game a smashing success, and has been a yearly nominee for the steam labor of love award. The user reviews have bumped up to 75% all time and almost 90% in recent months. A turnaround like No Man’s Sky was due to immense dedication from a very savvy team of developers with no intention of giving up. Hello Games should not be a role model for how you release a game, but more for how you keep going with a project you believe in and listen to your community. Appealing to the players can be difficult but always pays off.

A case just as famous as No Man’s Sky is CD Project Red’s Cyberpunk: 2077. Upon it’s release in winter of 2020, Cyberpunk: 2077 had been the most anticipated game in years. Advertisements and gameplay teasers made the game look extraordinary both in graphics and in story. However, once players got the 90 gigabyte download complete, the disappointment was immeasurable. An unoptimized mess of a game was all players could see, with unfinished graphics engines and VSYNC troubles all around. Bugs ran the streets, glitching through buildings, driving through roads, falling upwards were all extremely common bugs in everyone’s game. Fans were furious that this $60 game, which had been teased for years and delayed multiple times, was so atrocious. Refunds were given out on every platform, with PlayStation offering preemptive refunds to all customers who purchased the game. Only a few days after release, Cyberpunk: 2077 was taken off the market. Just like Hello Games, CDPR didn’t give up. Development continued until a massive release in 2022 fixed many issues and added additional content available through DLC. Cyberpunk’s player base shot back up and the reception was so positive that the game won the 2022 labor of love award from steam users.

While the two games and two companies talked about above did a great job fixing a product that should’ve never been released, the same can’t be said for EA. One of the biggest video game producers in the world, EA produces mainly sports games, but also releases the Battlefield series. In the last few years, EA has released some of the most widely disliked games of the last decade, Battlefield 2042, Madden 22, and FIFA 22. All of these games shared one thing in common – they were unfinished, lazy attempts at a cash grab based upon a brand name. For Madden 22 and FIFA 22, the story was the same as always, EA released the same game as the year before but just changed the player rosters, at least that was how it seemed. As players began to play these games, it became obvious that they were even worse than the last year’s version. Frequent issues with graphics, physics, and saving caused many players to be immensely dissatisfied with the games. Both games, on release, had an overwhelmingly negative score on Steam, under 20% positive. These games are always released as is and receive no updates other than more pay-to-win activities throughout the year. This is not how a bad product should be, there should be some innovative to fix it. EA doesn’t care, as the product name itself is enough to sell copies, no matter how bad it really is. Sales may go down slightly, but EA doesn’t care as their target audience, kids, and teens, don’t seem to care about how much of a scam the games these days are.

Even worse is EA’s Battlefield 2042. What an absolute disaster of a game. Released in late 2021, the game simply didn’t have any redeeming qualities. While many players complained of it being a reskin of previous Battlefield games, this is simply the nicest of ways to discuss the game. Horrific physics issues and connectivity/optimization problems plagued the game through it’s release. The game was simply not finished in any aspect, player models were missing parts, guns didn’t work properly, building weren’t loading in, and many other issues popped up frequently. Many people who bought the game instantly refunded it and gave it a negative score. The game is still sitting at 34% positive at the time of this article. EA learned nothing from its previous complaints and likely never will.

A future where game companies with the power of EA can continue to release, let’s face it, trash, is not one I want to live in. Games like those listed above should have never hit the shelves in the states they were upon release, but at least Hello Games and CDPR had the dignity to admit they made a mistake, something EA is not willing to do. It is an absolute travesty that many consumers still remain blind to the money thieving happening within the video game industry, mainly by large scale game producers such as EA who can take a negative PR hit and still make millions off of an unfinished sports game by the name itself. If customers don’t wake up soon, small scale producers will be run out of the market, their quality products with them. No one wants to see a future of heinous EA disasters, but unless gamers take a stand against these disasters it looks dim for the future of quality products.

The same issues listed above have been brought up about recent Pokémon Games, but due to differing circumstances, these are not deemed important in this article.

I consider myself an old school gamer. However, I have noticed unfinished games becoming popular. Also a lot of games my friends play seem to come in parts 1, 2, 3 and etc but the game never really gets finished. I would find this annoying and a big turn off. Again, I'm an old school gamer so I'm used to games being finished. I do not know were this is going. I do agree the big video game makers will still make money. But smaller video game makers are going to hurt. As long as people buy these games they will still be made. Anyway its not a trend I'm a fan of to say the least.

I couldn't agree more about how Electronic Arts has basically killed the very good reputation it had built with all its sports games. No wonder why they lost the license for the FIFA games after all of this, and it may not be the only loss they experience (and they truly deserve it not being the only one).

It is already horrible to see how companies release games considered to be finished but with many things missing that will be included in future paid DLC, but to see examples like the ones you brought up makes you lose faith in the video game world. I do have lost faith in developers because of the very poor quality of their games or how they switched from the best there is to the worst they could produce, and sadly this seems to be a trend nowadays.

These companies will bring up excuses like the pressure they have for releasing specific games or franchises, or even say they're experimenting with new technology whatsoever and as such mistakes can occur. But we all know it's a ruse, there are closed betas (and sometimes open as well) to test all of this and if they work well we can only expect the full game to go well. This is another good thing demos had back in the 90s, and the fact they've been mostly discontinued doesn't help the industry at all.

I wish people would stop being so stupid as to inevitably buy whatever these companies release without waiting for opinions, tests or whatever can give them some real information about what they're going to acquire. But this mindless world now works like this, and examples exist outside the video game field as well. What a time to be alive, huh?

tornadocam : I'm okay with games that are episodic like Light Fairytale, Deltarune, and the Telltale games as long as the price matches up with the content because it allows you start playing the full game early or serves as mini sequels. But then there are a ton of games that are released in parts due that shouldn't.

There's this one game that's coming out that I've been really excited for that I actually talk about here like at least once a year. I backed it on Kickstarter a long time ago, so long ago that the game was supposed to release at the start of 2018. There were a ton of delays even though the game looked like it was ready and then in October it was revealed that the game would be released as two parts with the 2nd part counting as both the rest of the main game and DLC, and being an extra charge.

The worst part of a scenario like this is that you have to sit through the delays but ALSO wait longer to have the complete game.