Bait & Switch
OPINION
How many times have you read a preview, saw an ad in a magazine or on TV, read a box cover, and then decided, "This game looks great! I've gotta get this one!" But once you open the game and install it on your PC, you discover there's something drast
(The following qualifies as fine print.)
- Minimum Supported OS Windows 2000/XP [Got that covered.]
- CPU 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD Athlon or faster processor. [Likewise.]
- Memory 512 Mb RAM or more [Got it.]
- NVIDIA GeForce ATI Radeon or equivalent [Got it.]
- DirectX 9.0c compliant [Doesn't everyone have that by now?]
- 128 Mb 3D video card with Hardware Transform and Lighting capability and Pixel Shader support [Got it, but how many other people even know if their PC has this stuff?]
- Sound Card DirectX 9.0 compatible [Got it.]
- Multimedia 4x CD-Rom [Does anybody even make CD-ROM's that go that slow anymore?]
- Windows compatible mouse [Of course.]
- Windows compatible keyboard [Again, of course.]
- Windows compatible USB gamepad with 11 buttons and dual analog sticks (Recommended)[Nope, but, hey, it's only "recommended".]
- 4 Gb free space [Gee, that will only leave me with only 60Gb of space left over.]
So I get the game home and start installing. The Install Wizard kicks in and doesn't say anything about insufficient hardware resources, so I'm thinking everything is going fine. I spend the install time reading the practically microscopic game manual. (There's a digital manual on the disk that is hopefully more comprehensive.) The first thing I note is the reiteration of the System Requirements. Allowing for the ads, credits, and License Agreement, there is a grand total of 8 pages of manual, with each page measuring roughly 3x5. Of those 8 pages, 3 are tables of keyboard shortcuts.
I should have known there was something amiss when I didn't see a single reference about how to use the mouse in the play of the game.
Once the game finished installing, I of course launched the game. The first thing I saw (after the manufacturer, publisher, and developer billboards of course) was a popup panel that declared in sizeable letters that the game is best played using a gamepad with 11 buttons and dual analog sticks, like the gamepads used with an Xbox 360.
Why wasn't that highlighted previously? Like before I purchased the game?
As it turns out, there is absolutely no usage of the mouse - so why even mention it in the System Requirements? And the keyboard commands are anything but intuitive. Even after reviewing the keyboard shortcuts in the miniscule manual, I still couldn't find how to Quit out of the game. The only way I could exit the game was to reboot the PC. And I can assure you that if I can't find the keys to punch in order to exit, the majority of other users would also have difficulty doing so. And a closer scrutiny of the keyboard shortcuts shows some seriously awkward key commands to perform many necessary actions:
J + J - Quick forehand-backhand strikes
K + K - Medium 1-2 forehand-backhand strikes
K + J + J - Knockback
J + K + K - Knockdown
J + K + J - Kick-Stun Combo
K + J + K - Grab Combo
... And the list goes on.
There is no If's about it: this game was designed to be used with a gamepad. So why didn't they just say so?
The answer is "Money". In this case, my money, but it could be yours, or anyone who was hooked by the advertising and then misled by the word "Recommended" (if they even bothered to read all the way to the end of the fine print).
Producing a game is not a cheap thing to do. A lot of money goes into the process before the game company makes even a dime off the game. There's the upfront purchase of the franchise license. (BIG bucks.) Then the salaries of everyone working on the concept development. Then the cost of programming, including the entire extensive graphics layout. Then along about this point, the company has to start shelling out for advertising. (Massively BIG bucks.) Then lots of back-and-forth between designers and playtesters. Followed by lots of back-and-forth between designers and betatesters. Then, finally, the more-or-less finished product goes into production, which involves lots of printing, both of manuals and packaging. (With BIG bucks shelled out for any proprietary artwork purchased from notable outside artists.) And when the game finally ships, there are substantial transportation costs getting the product from the manufacturer to your local store.
All that cash going out, with not one dime coming in. Not even the retailers and distributors have actually given up any cash to the manufacturer; dealers generally get at least 30-day dating, thus giving them time to pay suppliers with the revenue from actual sales instead of paying any selling costs out-of-pocket. The manufacturer, meanwhile, has to wait until YOU part with your money. Is it any wonder that so many manufacturers have started to sell pre-orders long before a game has been anywhere near completion? Or that they rush a game to market before the myriad of bugs have been eradicated?
The loser in all of this is YOU. YOU part with your cash and receive products that are rarely actually finished. YOU become the manufacturer's involuntary betatester. YOU are the one that discovers that the company neglected to mention that a game has some quirks that makes it perform other than you expected. YOU are the one that gets to discover that contrary to the company's advertising campaign, the game is not the greatest development since the invention of the wheel. YOU are the one that has to cope with wading through all of the technical system adjustments necessary for your PC to run adequately without too many Crashes To Display. YOU are the one that must upgrade your system in order for these latest and greatest games to work properly - despite the assurances of the System Requirements that state that the game is capable of being played on your PC as it stands now.
The bottomline is that you are provided information by the manufacturers that lead you to believe that you are buying one thing - a decent game that works, but what you generally receive is something else entirely. In Marketing, this process is referred to as "Bait & Switch". Sadly, we have become so inured by this Marketing tactic that we actually expect games to not live up to our expectations. We actually expect that games will require several patches and updates before it is actually "finished". And as long as we are so complacent as to continue purchasing unfinished games, manufacturers will continue to sell us unfinished games as if it's "Business as usual."
There is only ONE way to get the message to the manufacturers that we won't tolerate such marketing tactics, and that is to boycott their products until such time as they can demonstrate that a game is actually done. No need for patches. No need for updates every month. Done. Complete. Finished. No more Garbage-Out-Money-In. With no money coming in, the garbage producers will have to finish the job or go out of business.
But with most consumers maintaining an "I want it now!" attitude, what are the chances that we might actually persuade a better performance from the game manufacturers? Maybe along about the time that Satan needs to buy a parka.