SI show other software houses how its done

I've just been looking at the GTA 4 PC forum and it seems the release of that game has been met with similar hostility as FM2009. However, GTA players have no idea when the patch will be released whereas we knew on day 1. Even with the bugs, FM was still playable out of the box, GTA isnt unless you have a monster of a PC.

Its all to easy to criticise but there are no Rockstar employees on the GTA forum helping out disgruntled customers. Although the release of FM was not as smooth as SI would have liked at least they were on here helping out.

I've copied the post below directly, the expletives have been censored, the wording is not mine

Rockstar's release of this game is completely indefensible. I have a brand new system (2.5Ghz Core2, 2x512MB 8800GTX SLI, 4 GB dual channel high speed ram, high speed hard drive, etc.) which can run Crysis, WiC, FO3, ANYTHING on maxed out graphics and even some AA/AF. Oh sure, I can maintain a high framerate in GTAIV. Sure. With a resolution of 1024x768 and settings at low, medium, and low draw/detail distances. And the shadows are glitchy. Did I mention it took hours of updating, tweaking, and googling to get the game to run at all? But everyone had to do that. On the bright side, I can max out traffic density with little or no performance hit, seeing dozens of cars onscreen in NYC is really cool and a big step over previous GTA games.

But anyway, Rockstar went to INSANE lengths to prevent piracy on this. SecuROM. Not letting reviewers have copies. Alright, those are fine, the company has a right and a responsibility to its shareholders to protect its interests. But what gets me is the lack of any testing. No beta testing means (theoretically) no leaks. It also means that the company would have no idea how the game would run on normal people's systems (if you can call someone with even the bullsh*t minimum specs a "normal" computer owner). What's the kicker? My friends had illegal copies of this game even before it came out. Clearly R* was not successful in preventing piracy, despite its elimination of the beta testing, which completely f*ckED the technical performance of the game.

The company released a shoddy and defective product. In any other industry, we'd be allowed to return it for a full refund, or at least a store credit (although I certainly won't be buying any more Rockstar products for a while--despite the fact that I own every GTA since 1 and consider the games masterpieces). The company has hung its original constituency out to dry with this release. We share a little bit of the blame by bitching so much about the long delay for the PC port, and for the delay from November to December. This game was clearly rushed. Rockatar probably should have stepped up and said, "look guys, if we release it too early, it's going to be an unplayable piece of sh*t" and not given in to our pressure. Unfortunately, unplayable piece of sh*t is what we got.

It seems to me that Rockstar is dangerously close to false advertising with this one. If they can bring up JUST ONE example of someone who is able to run (with a consistent 40-60 FPS) the PC version at the graphics settings that led to the screenshots on the box and online, I will gladly shut up and concede defeat. By someone, I mean someone not associated with the company in any way, and someone who is NOT a hardcore tweaker/geeker. Until then, I think i'm more than reasonable in making a few requests:

1. We need a patch. Soon. Rockstar needs to tell us when we can expect that to happen. The patch needs to significantly increase performance. SLI support would be good, too, as that would help a LOT of players out there. It's not uncommon for companies to get a patch out in the days following the release of a game, usually because they knew beforehand there were problems. I'd be curious to see how long it takes R* to get a patch out--the sooner it is, the better for us, but a patch release in the next few days would indicate that Rockstar knew of the problems and released the game anyway, because patch work had already begun.

2. Rockstar needs to apologize publically. Seriously. Without its original PC fanbase, they would not have had the income to develop console GTAs. They really f*cked us over on this one, and everyone who bought this seems pretty ****ed off. I mean, they don't have to, but it would go a long way towards making the community feel better about this debacle.

3. As a show of good faith (and because they certainly have the money), I believe Rockstar should allow people who cannot run the game (whose systems meet the requirements) to return the game (promptly) for a full refund. They should be more worried about damage control than piracy at this point, anyway. The game's already available on file sharing services (I checked), although potential downloaders probably know by now that the game probably won't work for them anyway.

Who's with me?

it makes me happy to no other people are miserable especially when im not

it makes me happy to no other people are miserable especially when im not

are you french?

It's a shame. But to be fair those who have waited this long for the PC version of GTA are fools. It was well worth buying an xbox for

are you french?

No lol as British as they come my friend

p.s GTA 4 was **** poor for the xbox i traded it in after having it a week

Its all about how much money they can make and NOT customer satisfaction. As you can tell by the amount of help available from the game publishers/writers. I am appauled by the help available by SI for this game. Any attempts to get a decent answer from them i am diverted to a thread made (and answered) by amatuer players. I made the mistake of buying this FM09 and Farcry 2 on thier respective release dates and decided to wait for the CUSTOMER reviews of PC version of GTA IV.

Sooooo glad i did.....

I don't understand how system requirements can go up so much for PC games when the graphics look almost exactly the same as they did 3 years ago. Anyone else share my view or any I biased/dellusional?

Did you go on the Rock* forums and complain about FM?

Did you go on the Rock* forums and complain about FM?

Its a perfectly legitimate comparison, if you read my post properly you'll see that its not me complaining about GTA. I was merely pointing out that SI's customer care is better than most , if not all other games developers and that problems that SI experienced are being experienced by others too

I don't understand how system requirements can go up so much for PC games when the graphics look almost exactly the same as they did 3 years ago. Anyone else share my view or any I biased/dellusional?

Compare CS with BF2, or BF2 with Crysis, PES3/4 with PES2009, or Early WoW shots to Lord of the Rings Online.

If you're talking about FM specifically then its never been a graphics based game anyway.

It might be a legitimate comparison, but did we need a huge post from someone there complaining about a game that's got nothing to do with SI or Sega? Just saying "GTA4 is pretty flawed too" is enough. If indeed it needed that.

You'd struggle to say SIs customer care is better than all developers though. MAMEdev give more feedback and fix stuff quicker and they are freeware SquareEnix talk less but deliver everytime.

It might be a legitimate comparison, but did we need a huge post from someone there complaining about a game that's got nothing to do with SI or Sega? Just saying "GTA4 is pretty flawed too" is enough. If indeed it needed that.

You'd struggle to say SIs customer care is better than all developers though. MAMEdev give more feedback and fix stuff quicker and they are freeware SquareEnix talk less but deliver everytime.

In my experience Turbine are very good for Lord of the Rings:Online, both with patches, free updates and forum interaction.

djwilko I said 3 years ago, CS came out like 10 years ago

I was thinking more along the lines of comparing Farcry, Doom 3, Gran Theft Auto Vice City, World of Warcraft to current games.

It might be a legitimate comparison, but did we need a huge post from someone there complaining about a game that's got nothing to do with SI or Sega? Just saying "GTA4 is pretty flawed too" is enough. If indeed it needed that.

You'd struggle to say SIs customer care is better than all developers though. MAMEdev give more feedback and fix stuff quicker and they are freeware SquareEnix talk less but deliver everytime.

I take your point about the length of it, it does go on a bit but it covers so many points that were being moaned about on here recently. The copy protection, the apparent lack of beta testing, the demand for a patch, the demand for an apology, etc. If I had just said GTA was flawed, I'd probably still get flamed as that would have less relevance than posting it in context. Each to their own I suppose. :-)

This should prove to the moaners how good the SI customer support is.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

To be honest this shows just how much of a mess the gaming industry is in at the moment.

If SI's launch can be considered "good" just because we knew when the patch was coming out to fix all the blindingly obvious bugs (or at least, fix some of them) and just because they actually did something to help people who had problems activating because of their poor choice of activation procedure, you know something is badly wrong.