Wait, why was this killed off the front page? There's been discussion about SimCity before.

You have to wonder if there is any QA being done on SimCity. I haven't played it, but it sounds like the original release was buggy almost to the point of unplayable, and now it hasn't gotten any better. Is there no one there who's telling them the product sucks and they need to fix it? Or are they just getting so pressured to release that they don't care if it doesn't work?

QA for video games is a much different beast than QA for software development.

Penny Arcade does a web comic about video game QA, along with tales from the workplace such as this: http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/let-slip-the-dogs-of-war

They probably have a QA.

If the code is bad, it's probable they need to do more than just fixes but large overhauls. A difficult decision when you have customers saying "please fix the game I bought" and have a PR scandal to handle.

A possible course of action would probably to apologize, acknowledge the problems and do a gesture, such as getting rid of the DRM, to appease customers.

Then you'll probably one year to fix most of the problems, call that an extension pack and offer it free of charge for anyone who bought the game before a certain date...

Meanwhile have another team to extinguish as many fires as possible...

I don't normally post jokes on HN, but this is just too spot on: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/18

Also, it's funny how this sort of thing has been going on for a very long time.

Windows 98, Rockman EXE and Tribes 2, thanks for the nostalgia trip.

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