I thought I was being a smart consumer by waiting until game developers produced a second patch (or a comprehensive first patch) before buying games but sadly, I’ve been outsmarted by devious game developers.
It shouldn’t be surprising to learn the latest game in Creative Assembly’s Total War series, Rome: Total War, is buggy. It shouldn’t even be surprising it’s buggy after two patches. What is surprising is the developers have no intention of producing another patch because the publisher refuses to pay for the QA required for it. The developers even go so far as to suggest that “non-constructive” requests by gamers for another patch might damage the Total War series.
But wait, it gets even more ludicrous.
There’s going to be an expansion produced for the game and it will apparently include fixes for the original game. So, instead of getting a free third patch, gamers will have to pay for the expansion to get fixes for the original game.
This does not sit well with me.
There’s a petition protesting CA’s various boneheaded moves with 1200-plus signatures thus far (including my own). It may not accomplish much but CA deserve some sort of PR black eye for indulging in this kind of customer-screwing.
(Link obtained from the Qt3 forums.)
