Crytek drops Crysis patch support

[Thrik]

To be honest I didn't see any significant signs of Crysis being unfinished or buggy when I played it. What exactly do you mean?

[Inveramsay]

I haven't had time to play the game more than the demo but as a general observation of games that they are still in some problems when released.

[-HP-]

Tell me a single game you know that is perfect, and bug free! :roll:

I'd recommend you play the full thing before risk giving fail statements.

[Thrik]

There have been two Crysis patches already though, you do realise? It's not like they just released it and forgot about it. They have addressed the few issues there were.

[e-freak]

I have made a (more or less) subtile link to Valve before and I could do the same for Blizzard. They even Patch 10 years old games and try to patch them, I don't see why it should cost them less then crytek or any other studio and still they can support theyr products over years. C'mon - selling patches as addons is what they are going for (as it sounds to me) and that's not very cool.

[Jetsetlemming]

This announcement was just a real bad idea, plain and simple. They could've just kept quiet and not released any more patches and continued to work on whatever it is they're working on, and nobody would've said a word unless Crysis is full of game breaking bugs, but they had to specifically announce they won't be supporting it by patches anymore... It makes your paying customers feel slighted. Combined with the announcement that despite selling a mil+ copies, selling amazing for a PC Game, that piracy hurt their sales and they won't be a PC exclusive dev anymore... Crytek's just been weird lately. Uncomfortable.

[Inveramsay]

Again, it was not specifically about crysis, rather a general development. I appreciate that no game will ever be perfect but it is disturbing that they drop support so soon after a game is published regardless of its bug-freeness.

As a matter of fact as soon as I have handed in my essay on Strategies for neural repair I'l take it out for a spin.

[DvS]

Long term post-release support is rare and you should be glad you get it when you do. Free content, whether patches, maps, or whatever, incurs a huge development cost that publishers aren't generally willing to offset - did you see Activision doing anything more than maybe 1 patch to games before they could make a killing on map packs on XBL? Raven's obligation to Q4 ended at the first patch so Activision wouldn't have to pay for it anymore, id's games have had longer support because they can afford to self-fund. Gearbox had to release the Halo Custom Edition that included all sorts of crazy fixes plus the ability to make user-made maps as an unofficial add-on. It's just not feasible for studios to do long-term large-scale stuff for free - as much as I'd suspect many of its employees would want to if they could.

Again, based on the wording, it sounds like more in the form of a sequel or expansion may be on the way. That's a good reason to move on. No need to brand Crytek the devil here.

Patches are not free content, they're bandaids intended to fix a product that's already been sold to possibly millions of people. I don't really expect developers to give stuff like map packs for free, but when it's patches, I feel I've already paid for it.

[Thrik]

Right, but don't forget that Crysis is a pretty stable product that's already had multiple patches. What exactly were people expecting from 1.3 that's worth being annoyed about it? All I can think of is new maps or something, which fit squarely into KFS's example.

I agree with those saying that Crytek shouldn't have said anything, though. I guess they're learning that being transparent doesn't pay off when it comes to gamers, which is why more experienced developers just keep their fans in the dark. So far Crytek have revealed that a huge amount of people pirated their game, and that they're not developing a conventional third patch. Both announcements aren't particularly bad, but have been ripped apart by a lot of people.

Lesson: Shh!

[Jetsetlemming]

There are plenty of things that are good to be vocal about. Whining about your sales and declaring you're no longer supporting your current game aren't good things to be vocal about, however.