Bug rating system similiar to the ESRB?

[Nephrinn]

I recently purchased and have been playing the most anticipated Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, which is a fabulous game littered with so many obvious bugs it's ridiculous. I pity the people(and I'm sure there are many) who don't have an internet connection or never plan to patch, and fork over the $40 or $50 for an incomplete product. And it's just not this game, it's many others that do the same "release and fix later" routine, it has sort of become the standard nowadays.

Why not enforce some sort of "quality of software" rating sticker similiar to the ESRB sticker at the bottom of the box that tells the customer basically how "bugridden" the game is. And the ESRB may be the perfect candidate for such a position, they play and rate every game that's released, why not at the same time tell us how buggy it is? I'm sure this would at least make publishers like Atari give developers like Frontier a little more time to fix the bugs, especially the obvious ones.

Just my take, what does everyone else think?

[Blackhawk]

And the ESRB may be the perfect candidate for such a position, they play and rate every game that's released, why not at the same time tell us how buggy it is?

Because they don't. The ESRB doesn't play a single game, ever. The game developer provides a short movie 'clip' of what they consider to be 'typical' gameplay for their game. The ESRB watches it and bases their rating on that sample.

If a game publisher were to try and pull the wool over the ESRB's eyes by sending in inaccurate footage, the ESRB would eventually find out about it ('watchdog' groups), and that company would no longer be able to receive ESRB ratings - which would effectively games completely out of retail. Publishers won't risk that.

There are several problems with the core idea. To give a game a rating, you would have to be thorough. Many bugs are hardware based. Some things that can cause a bug include:

64 bit processor vs. vanilla processor (two options)
ATI vs Nvidia (two options)
Model of video card (probably twenty options just in the last few generations)
Mobo chipset (call it a half-dozen mainstream options)
Sound card (Perhaps three options)

That is five categories, 33 possible pieces of hardware, and literally hundreds of machines. Even if you didn't test every combination, you would have to run through the game at least six or seven times to have used a good portion of the hardware options.

Once you did all that, you'd have to decide what qualifies as a bug.

There is a reason why most big companies' QA testing consists of a whole room full of people playing one game all day, every day for weeks.

It is a good thought, but it just isn't practical.

[Eel Snave]

Maybe there should be a watchdog group that does it themselves. LIKE...OO!

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNN!

[Nephrinn]

Because they don't. The ESRB doesn't play a single game, ever. The game developer provides a short movie 'clip' of what they consider to be 'typical' gameplay for their game. The ESRB watches it and bases their rating on that sample.

If a game publisher were to try and pull the wool over the ESRB's eyes by sending in inaccurate footage, the ESRB would eventually find out about it ('watchdog' groups), and that company would no longer be able to receive ESRB ratings - which would effectively games completely out of retail. Publishers won't risk that.

Ahh, yes you are right. I think I do remember seeing something about how the ESRB rates games on tv awhile back. My mistake.

There are several problems with the core idea. To give a game a rating, you would have to be thorough. Many bugs are hardware based. Some things that can cause a bug include:

I wasn't referring to the hardware related bugs and can understand that it's just not feasible to test every combination out there(that's what the system specs on the box is for afterall). I do think however, games should be at least put through a little more testing before being put on the market so that they play properly(ie, in RCT3, peeps don't even queue up for rides, how could they miss this bug?). The QA testing you refer to might as well either be non-existant or the people who do test these games aren't doing their job correctly.

I think it would be much like the people who review games, Gamespot, IGN, Gamespy, ect, instead of the fun value, it would be something like the "bug" value(some of which factor in the amount of bugs in the game into the fun value). Is that really impractical to do? And furthermore, I do think it would really help the PC gaming industry immensely by:
A) More sales for the less bugridden games
B) More quality games for us the consumer

So, in effect, it would reward the developers/publishers who release a less buggy game, and punish those who don't. I know I wouldn't purchase a game that had a big fat red "WARNING GAME CONTAINS BUGS" label.

Console games don't have this problem, so why should PC games(again, referring to software related bugs)? In the future, when the next generation consoles are released with full internet capability, will we start seeing buggy console games just because they can get away with releasing patches later? I'm not so sure this is a good trend to follow.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

[Windows95]

I’ve always found that most sites and mags are good about mentioning any major gameplay bugs that will affect your gameplay experience. Gamespot has (or at least used to have) a box under the score that would list the stability of the game. They’d also mention in the copy about any major bugs and if you’re going to need a patch to play the game.

Computer Gaming World magazine always used to review games right out of the box and wouldn’t use a patch even if it was available. This resulted in a lot of good but initially buggy games getting terrible reviews. People had pretty mixed opinions on this. For me it’s a good thing since I don’t have easy high speed access to download patches. Imho a developer has no grounds to cry foul over a low review from CGW when they knowingly release an unplayable game and expect us to patch it, even if the game is a masterpiece.

[Jeff V]

Console games don't have this problem, so why should PC games(again, referring to software related bugs)?

Blackhawk just told you why! Console games are written for a single platform that does not change over years. There are easily millions of PC permutations just from the new equipment coming out in a single year! Sometimes, the game itself isn't even the problem - it is properly written but hardware drivers are the source of problems (one of the reasons why ATI and nVidia update their drivers many times per year). And consoles also don't have dozens of different background process to contend with - they are single-tasking machines.

I've had games unplayable for me that most people have no trouble with, and I've been problem-free on games others have deemed unplayable.

[Nephrinn]

Blackhawk just told you why! Console games are written for a single platform that does not change over years. There are easily millions of PC permutations just from the new equipment coming out in a single year! Sometimes, the game itself isn't even the problem - it is properly written but hardware drivers are the source of problems (one of the reasons why ATI and nVidia update their drivers many times per year). And consoles also don't have dozens of different background process to contend with - they are single-tasking machines.

I wasn't referring to hardware compatiability(notice the parathenses). We all know this is a problem with PC games, it will probably always be a problem. I'm questioning the lousy gameplay related bugs that have no corrulation to what hardware you're playing it on. Hareware bugs give you BSOD's and crash the game, software bugs simply impact how the gameplay plays(or doesn't play), this is what I have an issue with. Simply, companies putting out games in a lousy state where some parts of the game are broken or missing.