Maybe you have heard of the new Pokémon game release, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. The game seems like any other in the franchise, but it has been trending on the internet for the numerous glitches and bugs.
I, like many others, caved and bought the game, and I actually enjoy playing it! Story wise, the game seems perfectly fine. When it comes to the gameplay, however, things start to go wrong. Players experience glitches that make them fall through the ground, get stuck in rocks, or see models stretching all over the place. And not to mention, some of the textures look unfinished…
Glitch Issue
While the glitches provide some comedic moments, they are not supposed to be there at all. Keep in mind that Pokémon Scarlet/Violet is a completely released game. You pay €60,- so you can enjoy the game. For such a price, you would expect quality, would you not?
Unfortunately, Pokémon is not the only game that has been released unfinished at best and unplayable at worst. The truth is that there are a number of games that had an awful release. A recent example is Overwatch 2. While the game is free-to-play, the launch was terrible. Players experienced long queue times due to DDoS attacks on the servers, and were kicked out of games among other things.
Another example of a big title game that had an awful launch is Cyberpunk 2077. This game was highly anticipated and disappointed players with the enormous amount of bugs and glitches. Some players even got a refund because the game was virtually unplayable for them. Like with Pokémon, the game is sold for €60,- which makes it understandable why players wanted their money back.
Fixed the Bug, not the Issue
While the games I mentioned might have fixed their issues to a degree, the glitches are not the only problem. Even though such issues can be fixed, there should not be a need to fix so many bugs. The release of a game should indicate the end of the development phase. Plus, I at least think that the launch of a game also implies that it has been debugged and play tested, which does not seem to be the case when games are (borderline) unplayable at release.
To circle back to Pokémon, there are plenty of people willing to overlook the game breaking issues. Although I understand the feeling of affection and nostalgia towards a franchise, but I do think that acknowledging problems does not mean you hate the game.
Criticism can motivate the developer to do better, and it is not like the developer behind Pokémon, Game Freak, lacks the resources. I think that game developers for such big names should not shy away of extending the development period. Since these big franchises usually have a loyal fanbase, the developers should put more trust in them and believe they will show up for the release of the game, even if it is pushed back a couple months.
My Final Thoughts
I find it a little surprising that such big names in the game industry release games unfinished. Although, I think the reason they can get away with it is because they have such big names and therefore enough fans willing to pay up. Take for example a small indie team making a game. Their game will not cause any reaction if it is released full of bugs.
So, the product of game development companies that have a big name should be held to the same standard as any other game developers, at least in the sense of functionality. That sounds like a pretty low bar, but I think I have proven that that bar is not reached by everyone.
If you’re interested in the issues with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
References
Beta Brawler’s video showing the variety of glitches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mbv4b7yLgE
GamesBeat’s article about the launch of Overwatch 2: https://venturebeat.com/games/overwatch-2-has-rocky-launch-amid-technical-issues/
The New York Times’ article about the launch of Cyberpunk 2077: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/style/cyberpunk-2077-video-game-disaster.html
Extra video by Repaduski on Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG5df1b70Yw
Thanks for writing this! Not owning a Switch myself, I really enjoy watching gameplays of this release and I can say that the bugs, glitches and 2fps gameplay are… a sight to behold to say the least. But we have to understand Gamefreak, being a small company with such a limited budget must be really hard lol
/s
I’m weirdly happy that I’m not alone in suffering the glitches in pokemon violet/scarlet… I tried to look up some reasons they failed so hard this time but didn’t go in-depth, so I appreciate you writing this. I read that the studio structure is different in America/Europe, and Japan. The former ones have more specific job divisions, which is probably why Game Freaks didn’t have much effort to deal with the open world (which is relatively new to them). Hopefully, they can fix it asap in updates. BTW, I’m so disappointed with how Quaxly evolved and so impressed about Sprigatito’s. I already bought the platoon festival t-shirt for water type(because I’m team water and fan of Quaxly) but I ordered the grass type one bc Sprigatito is so cute><
I ^later^ ordered
My BF was also so hyped when the game came out. I haven’t heard from him about the glitches yet. But I find this very interesting since Pokémon is such a big brand. The were probably way to hasty with releasing the game. I think they wanted to keep the release date purely to give the fans something. It’s a bit upsetting that they did that.
Nice post! I’m definitely on the side that says Game Freak needs to step up on the game development front. These glitches aren’t really excusable for the highest grossing franchise in the world. I’ve heard some people make the interesting point about the Switch itself being the issue due to hardware limitations. But, while the Switch, in 2022, is surely an underpowered system, Game Freak should’ve taken this into account as the Switch was the only console they were developing for. So the only two real possible reasons were time constraints (which is a whole other can of worms) and Game Freak genuinely not caring anymore (which does not seem as likely).