It's done when it's done

A Freeplay story at Gamespot was discussing the fact that movies have schedules that they have to make, but games don't stick to the schedules that they set, if they set any. The game developers state that "It's done when it's done". And he was complaining about this.

This really irritated me.

This game reviewer doesn't have a clue what it takes to write software, much less video games. Some of the games I've seen that set schedules, and stick to them, are the crappiest ones you'll ever play. Bugs galore! Now, I'm not stating that if you don't have a schedule you'll not have bugs, but hopefully, it will be a better game with fewer bugs.

This writer talked about how movies are more complex than games, and if they can keep schedules, the so can games.

One thing I see wrong with this view is the ticket price. If you go to a theater to see a movie, you'll spend around $8 plus snacks. If you go an buy a game, you'll spend between $50-70 for the game plus snacks.

If it sucks, you area out a whole lot more than $8. And gamers will let others know how bad it is, and you're sales will slump... bad. No DVD release, toys or anything else to try to get a second wind and to make some of your money back.

Now, I will give PC games a slight break. They have the ability to create patches for problems, but that isn't an option of the console games.