Less Reliance on Updates!

[bongplayer]

Konami,

Yes I know we're in the 21st century but not everyone has broadband. Some of us are based in countries/continents where the net is still vintage.

So when I pay 60 bucks for a game, I expect a game that is complete since I cant rely on updates. Last year, "out of the box" the game was completely broken with inconsistent fouls, outdated transfers and various other gameplay issues.

Furthermore, option files for updated versions are not compatible with older versions.
When you sell a product, make sure its complete so you can earn consumer respect along with cold hard cash.

So if ANYONE is really out there reading this, remember, complete the damn product before you sell it, I may be in the 0.1% percentile that doesn't have broadband but that still wont stop you know who from getting my 60 bucks.

 

[liverpoolsco]

Ah man sorry to say this but by the mear fact that you have posted this proves that you acess to the internet. I don't think that you need broadband to download the updates for the game. If you have a PC version of the game then although it will take a long time to get you should be able to download any updates for the game to fix any problems and increase number of teams etc. Now if your talking about PS3 or XBox 360 I am not sure but I am guessing that it might be similar that you could download updates for them. Now if your rich enough to invest in some fancy kit like a PS3 or XBox 360 they are probably banking that you have enough money to afford internet connection. Now broadband connection is really needed for online play more than anything else. Now sure it would be nice to have a totally polished off game straight out the box but sometimes there technical issues that arise that you haven't seen and need to fix so that is why you release a patch! Now I can't see them going backwards and stopping downloadable content. Its certainly what most people want and having an updated rosta come the start of Feb is great compared to going through and doing all the transfers yourself.
Now perhaps an alternative would be for those without a fast enough connection to the internet to make easy to get updates you should be able to e-mail Konami and wherever you are in the world and get a CD with the Update on it so you can install it that way. This only being the case if there is no other option for you. How about that instead?

 

[bongplayer]

Hey Liverpoolsco!

I have a ps3 and although I have a full connection to the net via my PC, I am currently working in Africa where we are "just" about to get broadband but the physical aspect of the work has yet to be done.

Problem I have with Konami is they keep releasing a half arsed game and they rely far too much on patch (i.e: the fouls in PES2009).

Secondly, I have been using this site for the last 3 years for option files, suddenly Konami releases their update patch and those without the update cant use option files containing the updates, so I am lost all together.

Lastly, I emailed Konami asking them if its possible to provide me with a URL for a patch and they cant even do that! I have to access the PSN (which I cant).

Bottom line, just make some effort, Konami has 2 licenses for the Premiership and even the transfer for those were inaccurate. If only they knew how much market share they lost over the last 2 released in my region (Africa/Middle East) they would be shittn bricks

 

[Lugash]

It doesn't matter if your in darkest Peru or London, a game should be finished when you buy it. End of story.

 

[What Lad]

yeah but they're going to persist with this because it means they still have a hand in their game after it has been finished, and also depending on how the market develops, sets the platform for opt-in buying of extra content. i agree a game should be finished when you buy it, but after playing pro 2008 you can clearly see that due to commercial deadlines, the game was completely UNfinished and this is a way of rectifying that on a certain level and maybe getting a bit more profit in the meantime

 

[liverpoolsco]

Hey Liverpoolsco!

I have a ps3 and although I have a full connection to the net via my PC, I am currently working in Africa where we are "just" about to get broadband but the physical aspect of the work has yet to be done.

Problem I have with Konami is they keep releasing a half arsed game and they rely far too much on patch (i.e: the fouls in PES2009).

Secondly, I have been using this site for the last 3 years for option files, suddenly Konami releases their update patch and those without the update cant use option files containing the updates, so I am lost all together.

Lastly, I emailed Konami asking them if its possible to provide me with a URL for a patch and they cant even do that! I have to access the PSN (which I cant).

Bottom line, just make some effort, Konami has 2 licenses for the England League and even the transfer for those were inaccurate. If only they knew how much market share they lost over the last 2 released in my region (Africa/Middle East) they would be shittn bricks

Look, I can see your point but I don't agree with what your asking for. I think that yeah Konami should have everything up to date for the game being released. The transfer windows closes at the start of September and the game is relased in October. That is a very simple thing that should be complete. Now, updating option files like I said I like what they have done in this respect for january transfers. You can alter an updated option file. There are ways round that problem!You just have to know how. I have been using an option file with 1.2 data with the full 1.4 update... it is possible!
Now as far as releasing patches to fix technical issues I think that is great and shows that they actually care about the game and having it correct. Sometimes players and users use the game in other ways that developers don't think of so fixing things is good. I would rather they did that, than not! You would soon see complaints if they didn't do that!
Now as far as how they relase the updates thats for them. I can see it being nice and straightforward to release them on PSN or XBox Live or as a patch to download for PC...
Perhaps having a CD option for those who can't get online would work or a USB stick instead! What do you think?
As for loosing market share? How many people do you genuinely think have PS3 or XBox 360 consoles or PC's that are up to the job in that part of the world? I am not saying there aren't but its not going to be as many as Europe or Asia or North/South America....

yeah but they're going to persist with this because it means they still have a hand in their game after it has been finished, and also depending on how the market develops, sets the platform for opt-in buying of extra content. i agree a game should be finished when you buy it, but after playing pro 2008 you can clearly see that due to commercial deadlines, the game was completely UNfinished and this is a way of rectifying that on a certain level and maybe getting a bit more profit in the meantime

Look I know you have a massive grudge against Konami but you would certainly hear a load of complaints if a technical issue arose after a while and Konami didn't relased anything to fix it. I mean I would rather see that Konami relaesed a small patch to fix problems than just leaving it alone! For the most part its such an easy thing to do, to be able to fix game problems.. As far as the future of Download Content and what it will bring I don't know. If they choose to have things that you can buy thats fine... I mean your not forced to buy things, there optional extras. You won't find FIFA doing any different so why you giving PES a hard time about it?

 

[bongplayer]

Well the PS3/360 is huge here, there a few south africans and middle easterns in these forums, we have gaming tournaments and what not and after last year, FIFA 09 DOMINATED.

Back in the NES/SNES days, developers had no direct consumer access once they released a product. They were forced to create quality or risk sales. These days, things are alot easier (yes software has evolved tenfold and is more complex) but the medium of communication and correction is available and thats great for all of us. We can help Konami make what we want and they can make more money out of us, everyone's happy. BUT, dont abuse that medium, update the transfers, add new teams but dont freakin release crap just because of deadlines and correct it via a patch.

A perfect example is what EA is doing with Madden/FIFA this year: They have been communicating with gamers and developing the product alongside. Lastly, I remember last year, the author of this site (think it was Hitman or something) wrote on his blog stating that EA actually contacted him asking if he would be interested to provide comments for potential improvements and he had actually contemplated on why Konami NEVER did this.

I am not here to bash Konami, rather try and voice my opinion and *HOPING* that someone out there is actually reading this. Wow, I wrote all that on a Sunday?!

 

[What Lad]

Look I know you have a massive grudge against Konami but you would certainly hear a load of complaints if a technical issue arose after a while and Konami didn't relased anything to fix it. I mean I would rather see that Konami relaesed a small patch to fix problems than just leaving it alone! For the most part its such an easy thing to do, to be able to fix game problems.. As far as the future of Download Content and what it will bring I don't know. If they choose to have things that you can buy thats fine... I mean your not forced to buy things, there optional extras. You won't find FIFA doing any different so why you giving PES a hard time about it?

i think i was being quite reasonable? i can see that this is just how business works and konami is acting no different to how any other company would?

HOWEVER they don't NEED to release a new PES every year. if the game is blatantly unfinished and frankly completely unplayable, like PES 2008 was, then instead of asking everyone to still waste £40 on it and a few months later offer a few half-arsed tweaks, they should instead say "hang on a minute, if it wasn't for the fans we wouldn't have got this far in the first place. we owe it to them not to release an unfinished game so that they don't waste their money."
i've been playing this series since day 1 and frankly they do not NEED to make a new one every year. i would rather they took 5 years, actually made a game worth buying, and then i'd shut up

 

[liverpoolsco]

Well the PS3/360 is huge here, there a few south africans and middle easterns in these forums, we have gaming tournaments and what not and after last year, FIFA 09 DOMINATED.

Back in the NES/SNES days, developers had no direct consumer access once they released a product. They were forced to create quality or risk sales. These days, things are alot easier (yes software has evolved tenfold and is more complex) but the medium of communication and correction is available and thats great for all of us. We can help Konami make what we want and they can make more money out of us, everyone's happy. BUT, dont abuse that medium, update the transfers, add new teams but dont freakin release crap just because of deadlines and correct it via a patch.

A perfect example is what EA is doing with Madden/FIFA this year: They have been communicating with gamers and developing the product alongside. Lastly, I remember last year, the author of this site (think it was Hitman or something) wrote on his blog stating that EA actually contacted him asking if he would be interested to provide comments for potential improvements and he had actually contemplated on why Konami NEVER did this.

I am not here to bash Konami, rather try and voice my opinion and *HOPING* that someone out there is actually reading this. Wow, I wrote all that on a Sunday?!

I can see what your saying but I still downloadable content is a really good way to resolve any technical issues. I mean big companies do this with other software where bugs arise. Now I would like to see the small details like transfers all correct when the game is released but there will be some set ups and situations where the testers might not experience the same problems so sorting this with a patch is a good idea in book. I agree that you want a perfect game out of the box and no real missing bits, certainly having half of the champions league and summer transfers all missing from the original game was a dissapointment but as far as Konami missing out on a lot of potential gamers lets just look at the numbers:

These are all either from the EU itself or from the UN so both official and reliable sources for population stats. (all numbers are populations in millions)
Bahrain 0.6
Qatar 0.6
UAE 2.9
Iran 68.9
Iraq 25.1
Saudi Arabia 24.2
Oman 2.8
Yeman 20
Jordan 5.4
Syria 17.8
Egypt 71.9
Lybia 5.5
Tunisia 9.8
Algeria 31
Morocco 30.5
Nigeria 124
Kenya 31.9
South Africa 45
Total Population 393.9 (517.9 with Nigeria included) Now, I am looking at the whole of the middle east here with north africa and the 3 most developed countries in Africa after that. Now as you can see its a lot of people but I would say that the actual percentage of people who are wealthy enough to have a PS3,XBox 360 or PC with high enough specs to play PES is rather small compared to the total population. Now compare this to Europe:
UK 59.9
France 60.1
Spain 41
Portugal 10
Belgium 10.3
Netherlands 16.1
Germany 82.4
Denmark 5.3
Sweden 8.8
Norway 4.5
Finland 5.2
Poland 38.5
Austria 8.1
Italy 57.4
Swizerland 7.1
Czech Republic 10.3
Bulgaria 7.6
Ireland 4
Greece 11.2
(Ukraine 46, Serbia 8, Belarus 9.7, Russia 141, Croatia 4.4, Turkey 70.5)
Total Population 447.8 (586.4 inc. all bracketed countries except Russia,727.4 with Russia)
Now if you have a look at this, the total population of Europe is far higher than the area your looking at plus the amount of people in the population who would be rich enough to have a console or PC able to play the game is far higher. So, you can see that even though there is a big population in your area the gaming population and those who potentially would buy and play PES are in Europe. Simple fact of geography. So agree there should be alternatives for people who can't get the updates via the web but how they go about releasing the updates shouldn't change in my view.

 

[liverpoolsco]

i think i was being quite reasonable? i can see that this is just how business works and konami is acting no different to how any other company would?

HOWEVER they don't NEED to release a new PES every year. if the game is blatantly unfinished and frankly completely unplayable, like PES 2008 was, then instead of asking everyone to still waste £40 on it and a few months later offer a few half-arsed tweaks, they should instead say "hang on a minute, if it wasn't for the fans we wouldn't have got this far in the first place. we owe it to them not to release an unfinished game so that they don't waste their money."
i've been playing this series since day 1 and frankly they do not NEED to make a new one every year. i would rather they took 5 years, actually made a game worth buying, and then i'd shut up

Ok, maybe I was being harsh but you make a point here about releasing the game where you kind of shoot yourself in the foot. Now you say that game is unplayable. Now, thats your opinion. Its not a fact certainly PES 2008 wasn't what I hoped it would be though there were some good improvements from PES 6 but there were also many dissapointing aspects and flaws to the game. Now, in PES 2009 I think that they were able to correct many of these flaws sadly not making the game totally perect but a lot better in my view than 2008 and standing alone in the PES series its a good game. Not a perfect game but a good one. Now, you say that they shouldn't release a game every year, well thats up to Konami what they do, no one is forcing you to buy the game every year! If you don't like it don't buy it! Wait to real some reviews of the game or play the demo so you can see what its like! No one is forcing anyone to go out and buy the game, you always have the choice to say no! So on that point your argument doesn't hold up.

 

[What Lad]

they used to release them whenever they felt justified that they had a new version. now they just slap a deadline of october on each version, and it doesn't matter if all you've got is a pile of shit, they're still going to release it. you're saying this is their right, and i should just not buy it?

i'm sorry, but i've been a loyal fan of this series since the SNES days. i buy pro evo because i trust that i'm going to get the standard of gameplay that i've become accustomed to over the last 15 years or so. that brand loyalty should be rewarded, not taken for granted. when they release an unfinished game for no reason other than because annual releases = more money, that is not good enough. they are letting down the consumer asking us to throw £40 on these unfinished products, and any backlash that results in this is entirely warranted.

yeah online update fixes are an improvement but doesn't take away from the fact that there is no NEED to release one every year, release one every time you finish one makes much more sense. but less money.

 

[liverpoolsco]

Look you really didn't listen to a thing I just said did you? Its your choice mate. No one is forcing you to buy the game. You can choose to skip an edition if you don't want it or like it... Its as simple as that. If you don't like the look of a gmae don't buy it. The developers won't mind. If everyone agreed then the game wouldn't sell at all! See? Perhaps not. Never mind.

 

[What Lad]

of course i listened. i just don't agree. of course it's my choice not to buy shite. but do they market it as unfinished shite? no they don't. they market it as THE SECOND COMING IN FOOTBALL. fuckin tossers. if i had the money for marketing, i could produce loads of adverts full of features and graphics etc, when you actually buy the game, you end up with a white screen that says "LOL"

you're tellin me if you'd spent your money on that, you would be satisfied? "i didn't have to buy it "?

 

[Lugash]

i think i was being quite reasonable? i can see that this is just how business works and konami is acting no different to how any other company would?

HOWEVER they don't NEED to release a new PES every year. if the game is blatantly unfinished and frankly completely unplayable, like PES 2008 was, then instead of asking everyone to still waste £40 on it and a few months later offer a few half-arsed tweaks, they should instead say "hang on a minute, if it wasn't for the fans we wouldn't have got this far in the first place. we owe it to them not to release an unfinished game so that they don't waste their money."
i've been playing this series since day 1 and frankly they do not NEED to make a new one every year. i would rather they took 5 years, actually made a game worth buying, and then i'd shut up

You're rather naive to think a developer would ever do that, especially not a sports game developer. They know daft cunts like us will buy the game most years, unless its truly appalling. To be honest, reading some of the posts on here makes me think some people would buy PES2010 if the only mode of gameplay was to watch Cristiano Ronaldo pissing on the camera, as long as his bell-end was beautifully sculpted and his bootlaces were the right fucking colour.

 

[What Lad]

i know. but i've bought nearly every pes game without question. each version is frustrating at first, but you always come round.

but 2008 was different. 2008 you actually thought "this isn't just a tweak of gameplay to get used to. this is a different beast... this is a... oh god konami oh god WHAT HAVE YOU DONE"

i bought 2009 assuming i was buying an actually finished version of 2008. i was, it's just that it was still awful.

two terrible games in a row, it's different now. they're removing the features i love, they've gutted the gameplay mechanics and left them all hollow. i'll need a lot of convincing to part with cash now. maybe it won't impact sales, but the pro evo brand has lost a lot of respect. i've played FIFA 09, it's still no good. there's just a hole in the videogame football sim universe now. to be honest if i buy anything i think it'll be 2009 on the PS2, to have be a legend mode AND the old gameplay mechanics

 

[Cameron1875]

i kinda of understand the original posters' point. I will use Football manager 2009 as an example.

they released the game in november 2008. BUT the game was no way near good enough to be released. The amount of bugs and problems was unreal. So they release a 9.1 patch soon after. That is alright as there may be some things that go unnoticed and need feedback.

However a 2nd patch was released at the beginning of 2009 to fix other bugs which is a bit of a joke. The transfer window being updated was helpful tho.

Finally a third patch for the first time in fm history was released in march this year. That means that it took them 5 months after the game was released to get it up to scratch. that is not acceptable as we should kind of be buying the completed game on release date. If the game is not ready then dont release it.

For PES we appreciate things like transfer window updates but things like new teams, bugs fixed etc should come with the original game. The game that is released on release date should be near enough the final product and shouldnt need as much tweaking as FM 09 for example

 

[What Lad]

publishers will never agree, but the way to build your brand reputation is not through marketing, or through hollow advertising. it's through happy players and word of mouth. if pro evo is advertised to death, it means nothing. if pro evo has a reputation in the community of being the best football game, it means everything.

the way to build this sort of reputation is to treat the fans with respect. yes, you are going to get more profits by duping people into buying a game a year even if they aren't getting what they pay for. but your reputation is going to be damaged and you are going to lose out on the custom of every person that unhappy player manages to convince. long term market strategy is flying in the face of konami's public conduct.

although konami is no exception, the commercial world in all industries is set up to maximise short term profit while neglecting to see the benefits of building long term good relationships with consumers.

 

[Lugash]

publishers will never agree, but the way to build your brand reputation is not through marketing, or through hollow advertising. it's through happy players and word of mouth. if pro evo is advertised to death, it means nothing. if pro evo has a reputation in the community of being the best football game, it means everything.

I would say that advertising works on first time buyers, kids and adults buying for kids, all of whom are prime Christmas targets. And guess when PES/FIFA normaly come out...

 

[What Lad]

yeah, but it'll work once, twice at most unless you're selling a product worth buying.

they can get everyone to buy 1 edition of the series, be horrified, and steer clear in future... or they can get people hooked on a series they know is quality. the only reason the majority of us even bought 2008 and 2009 is because of the strong reputation of great games they've made previously and the series reputation. they've dropped two stinkers now, i don't think they can afford a third but it looks like its on the way.