Fable 2: It’s Simple Math, Post-Release Glitches are Inevitable
Posted on 27 October 2008 by Erik
I usually don’t do opinion pieces as it can lead a writer down a dark road, but something has to be said about this noise surrounding Fable 2 and the backlash it’s bared for containing post-launch glitches.
To have your game effected or ruined is frustrating and more often than not, may feel inexcusable; but it’s better than not having video games at all — that would be the case if developers were simply told to “create a glitch free game.”
So let’s do the math for a typical testing process in terms of hours:
Since Fable 2 was a large game it would have a large team of testers. An average team for a standard title is about 30, so let’s say 60 testers worked on Lionhead’s sequel for 1 year — keeping in mind that these are all (educated) estimations.
If each tester puts in a year (we’ll go with 40 hours a week for 50 weeks to account for holidays, sick days etc.) of work on the game he’ll have put in 2000 hours. Multiply that by 60 and you have a grand total of 120,000 hours for glitches to be found, recorded and fixed.
Since it’s too early for Fable 2 to officially release sales numbers I think VG Chartz Tracking of the game will work for our data. By their numbers–which only accounts for Xbox Live subscribers–59,976 users have played Fable 2 as of October 22nd, the day after the game’s release. If each player clocks 2 hours into the game the total comes out to 119,952 hours.
So in less than 48 hours of Fable 2’s release, the game has seen as many hours as it did in a year of testing. Even if it’s the same 2 hours, that’s exactly the point, almost 60,000 people have performed a cursory sweep on the first 2 hours of the game. Of course the number of glitches found will be higher, it doesn’t matter if someone is working on the game or if they buy it for leisure, the hours played are being accounted for.
It’s easy to focus on what’s wrong with the game, what people don’t think about is all the wrong being removed during the testing process to make a title as good as it presents itself to be.
I’d never discourage someone from voicing a complaint about running into a glitch as I’m sure most of us have our fair share of horror stories. Just don’t take for granted the fact that the game is there for you to rip on in the first place.
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Tags | Fable 2, Glitches, Lionhead, Microsoft, Post-Release
November 8th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
The testing team consisted of 10 playtesters who did QA for about 3 months. People are pissed because there are multiple, obvious, easily found game breaking glitches and Lionhead did NOT do its due diligence.
For example in my first playthough I encountered about 6 annoying bugs, 3 graphical glitches, and one game breaker (of which there are 3 known on the MAIN quest path).
They released a beta game into production, and it’s insulting when they then say “too bad, we already got ur monayz. btw Fable III in ‘10!!!”
November 5th, 2008 at 9:42 am
you need a life get over the glitches and just play the game its awesome its fun and entertaining get over it!!!!!
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 am
dude have you not played this game? it glitches in the first 10 minutes. tons of people can’t even start the first quest. you’re saying 60 people playing 120,000 hours all missed it? we’re saying they knew and rushed it out anyway coz it would have cost too much to delay, reprogram, remarket