Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword is out. Unfortunately, I’m traveling and was unable to get it yet. But a quick swing by Civfanatics shows that there of course has already been an initial patch to the game, because the shipped version was buggy and terrible.
I know Firaxis is not the first (or last) developer to do this. I know that it’s a common practice. But it pisses me off that the internet age has led to such a terrible degradation in the quality of PC game QA. On the one hand, it is great that software developers can add content through patching. It’s nice that they can fix bugs that sneak through. But shipping what’s basically unplayable crap, knowing full well you can, and will patch it, is sloppy and inexcusable. → Read the rest