Kotaku: The Master Chief Collection Is What Happens When A Studio Doesn’t Give Up On A Game

[Ryan.]

How dare people be happy that a game got fixed and improved years later instead of just being abandoned. It makes me sick!

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But it's expected from them!

 

[Mechanized]

It's really admirable that they've stuck to it for so long. Of course if they let it slide their reputation would be dirt. So it's like, did they really have a choice? Lol

 

[wwm0nkey]

It's really admirable that they've stuck to it for so long. Of course if they let it slide their reputation would be dirt. So it's like, did they really have a choice? Lol

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Well they for sure don't have to keep on adding content to it, but they are.

 

[JayWood2010]

I dont see how anyone can celebrate MSC after it was released in the state that it was.

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Lol some of you all act like people shouldn't enjoy something because it launched with issues.

What does being spiteful get you? It's like the kid in the playground who refuses to play with everybody else while they're having fun because something that happened in the past. Good thing many people arent this way and are enjoying it now because it is a good collection that was highly anticipated by many.

To be clear, nobody is praising the launch of mcc, but rather what it has become, and it's perfectly ok if people are happy with the state it is in now.

 

[Trup1aya]

It never should have languished in the first place. These are features and quality of life improvements that probably should have been added to the game after release anyway. Things like the Xbox One X patch, 4k, and HDR support are only relevant to a fraction of MCC owners. Not everyone owns an X or a 4k tv. Me, for example.

It's also kind of a standard practice for developers these days to continuously support their games. Monster Hunter World, Hitman, and Rocket League have all gotten continuous support -- and these are just the games that I follow. I know there are even better examples. As 1 of only 2 games on the Xbox One in Microsoft's most important franchise, we should expect this current level of support from the self-proclaimed "stewards of Halo".



Another point that I should have thought of earlier:

1. The MCC was supposed to be a rekindling of the Halo glory days for my group of little Halo friends. By 2014, most of our group had drifted apart -- getting full time jobs, starting families -- and most of us weren't playing video games together in any sort of regular capacity. In the Halo 2 days, it was Halo literally every night for weeks at a time. The MCC destroyed any potential for us to even slightly relive those days, as most of them had given up on the game even before I did. It was more than just a broken game.

A betrayal is a good way to put it.

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I mean, yeah, it shouldnt have languished... But it did. We can't change the past.

And yes, these are typical QoL improvements... But it isn't typical for dead games to get these sorts of QoL improvements 4 years later and be revitalized. That's the point of this discussion.

I get where you are coming from. I got the band back together for MCC, convincing several friends to get back into gaming via xbox. It was devastating. There's nothing anyone can do about that now. I can, however, appreciate that what they've resurrected a dead game with unexpected features and improvements.

 

[Rogue Agent]

I guess I just have trouble empathizing with the mindset to exclusively focus on the past instead of the present. And it's not because it's Microsoft, I would and do feel the same way about Nintendo, Sony, Valve, EA, Epic, Activision, or any other company in gaming.

To those of you in this thread who are focusing on the mistakes of the past instead of celebrating where things are now - what would you propose? What can Microsoft do differently now which would ever allow you to forgive those past mistakes? What is left for Microsoft to do with The Master Chief Collection which would enable you to enter a conversation about the game and not bring up "but it took years to fix it"?

Is there anything that Microsoft could do to fix things with you? Or is it forever tarnished for you, and you'll just complain forever from here on out no matter what happens going forward?


To me it's like Blizzard with Diablo 3, fixing it years after it came out with patches and expansions. Or Nintendo with the Wii U, which didn't really get "fixed" until the Switch. Or EA with Battlefront 2, taking a long time to change how progression works. Or any number of countless other problematic releases which were fixed over time and eventually became great.

I choose to celebrate when studios have the ability to fix things, instead of dwelling on the past.

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Excellent post. I think this the kind of attitude to have.

 

[Deleted member 9100]

To me it's like Blizzard with Diablo 3, fixing it years after it came out with patches and expansions. Or Nintendo with the Wii U, which didn't really get "fixed" until the Switch. Or EA with Battlefront 2, taking a long time to change how progression works. Or any number of countless other problematic releases which were fixed over time and eventually became great.

I choose to celebrate when studios have the ability to fix things, instead of dwelling on the past.

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None of those situations above are comparable. In the above situations, the company put out a disappointing game, not a game that was fundamentally broken. And they slowly improved the game with a series of gameplay tweaks. The developers also worked constantly on those games (or behind the scenes on the switch) to improve them. 343 stopped working on MCC and left it in a broken state for years.

For the MCC, it wasn't that the game wasn't good and 343 fixed it with a series of gameplay tweaks over the years. A huge part of the draw of the game, the online multiplayer, was broken.

A better comparison would be if the online issues that affected Diablo 3 on day one continued. And blizzard didn't fix them for 4 years while giving the excuse "the technology isn't there yet" and "it always worked for us in testing". Or if Nintendo launched the Switch and a huge draw of the system, the portability, didn't work without major issues and wasnt fixed for 4 years.

343 released a game where the key draw for most people was broken. They tried to fix it for a few months, then gave up and abandoned it for years. In the meantime, they released a brand new game, halo 5, while mcc was still broken.

For me and many others, they've completely lost us as customers/fans and there's nothing they can do to get us back. We don't owe anything to a 1st party studio for the flagship game series for Microsoft, the most valuable company in the world in 2018, for fixing an issue after 4 years that never should have been there in the 1st place.

 

[Odesu]

None of those situations above are comparable. In the above situations, the company put out a disappointing game, not a game that was fundamentally broken. And they slowly improved the game with a series of gameplay tweaks. The developers also worked constantly on those games (or behind the scenes on the switch) to improve them. 343 stopped working on MCC and left it in a broken state for years.

For the MCC, it wasn't that the game wasn't good and 343 fixed it with a series of gameplay tweaks over the years. A huge part of the draw of the game, the online multiplayer, was broken.

A better comparison would be if the online issues that affected Diablo 3 on day one continued. And blizzard didn't fix them for 4 years while giving the excuse "the technology isn't there yet" and "it always worked for us in testing". Or if Nintendo launched the Switch and a huge draw of the system, the portability, didn't work without major issues and wasnt fixed for 4 years.

343 released a game where the key draw for most people was broken. They tried to fix it for a few months, then gave up and abandoned it for years. In the meantime, they released a brand new game, halo 5, while mcc was still broken.

For me and many others, they've completely lost us as customers/fans and there's nothing they can do to get us back.

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This whole framing as if 343 just said "eh, fuck it, not gonna bother" is silly. They were extremely open about where the problems were coming from and what they had to do to fix them. The only reason they were able to go back to the project, according to them, is because Xbox Live's structures changed significantly, allowing them to build up a separate development team only for the MCC, basically re-developing large parts of the Multiplayer infrastructure. Stinkles got into incredible detail here: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...xt/32dd5e4a-1001-4aae-b51b-22c091e8d21a/posts

Framing this as 343 just sitting it out, deciding not to bother is just being ignorant of the actual situation.

Here's a small part, for anyone who doesn't want to click on the link (which you should):

The fixes and patches we'd applied were pretty delicate and we ended up in a precarious situation where there was no way to make more fixes without potentially breaking something else or making things worse. We weren't happy with that situation, but we were stuck between a rock and a hard place – most users were (by this time) able to play properly and find matches, and further tinkering might put that at risk. At that time we decided the right thing to do for the total player base was to stop. That was hard to do, especially knowing there were still some customers impacted more seriously than players who were merely inconvenienced.
But that didn't stop us being concerned about it anymore. On the contrary, in some ways leaving it was worse. I mention this not to garner sympathy, we deserve none, but to answer folks who've continued to ask, "Why don't you guys care?"
We do. Everyone here puts their heart and soul and sweat and tears into building our games. I can tell you without hesitation that I have never heard someone here dismiss or ignore or belittle complaints. We always take them to heart. It's the internet of course, so sometimes folks take it too far, with threats or other inappropriate reactions, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand the anger or disappointment those came from.
So over the months we discussed and investigated other fixes. The platform itself has made some truly evolutionary improvements to its underlying technology, and recent fundamental changes mean that we might have the opportunity to make some fixes without risking everything else.
It may sound simplistic, but MCC was essentially six pretty different game engines strapped together and interlinked with highly complex and highly delicate new systems. With Xbox One X on the horizon, it was obvious that we could simultaneously update the game to take advantage of the new hardware for folks that have it and use that as an opportunity to finally rearchitect and update some of the foundational issues and networking/matchmaking methods.
And to be clear, these solutions were simply not possible until quite recently. The platform team has made numerous improvements over the last year or so, and we've internally done a bunch of research, and so our timing has been reliant on a number of systems and solutions converging rather than one single element. But these weren't easy fixes we were simply sitting on. That's honestly not a thing, even. I also understand that silence can be frustrating. You have complaints or questions, and we try to answer them as best we can, but sometimes bad information is worse.

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[B.C.]

None of those situations above are comparable. In the above situations, the company put out a disappointing game, not a game that was fundamentally broken. And they slowly improved the game with a series of gameplay tweaks. The developers also worked constantly on those games (or behind the scenes on the switch) to improve them. 343 stopped working on MCC and left it in a broken state for years.

For the MCC, it wasn't that the game wasn't good and 343 fixed it with a series of gameplay tweaks over the years. A huge part of the draw of the game, the online multiplayer, was broken.

A better comparison would be if the online issues that affected Diablo 3 on day one continued. And blizzard didn't fix them for 4 years while giving the excuse "the technology isn't there yet" and "it always worked for us in testing". Or if Nintendo launched the Switch and a huge draw of the system, the portability, didn't work without major issues and wasnt fixed for 4 years.

343 released a game where the key draw for most people was broken. They tried to fix it for a few months, then gave up and abandoned it for years. In the meantime, they released a brand new game, halo 5, while mcc was still broken.

For me and many others, they've completely lost us as customers/fans and there's nothing they can do to get us back. We don't owe anything to a 1st party studio for the flagship game series for Microsoft, the most valuable company in the world in 2018, for fixing an issue after 4 years that never should have been there in the 1st place.

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That's fucking cray cray as hell. This is video games. You arent supposed to hold grudges against video games or the developers. You sound as bitter as someone who actually went through a real tragedy in life due to someone causing them some injustice that you've never fully healed from.

That's...........insane., AF, No offense. If I ever take video games that personally, I'm done with them all together.

 

[Ge0force]

I guess I just have trouble empathizing with the mindset to exclusively focus on the past instead of the present. And it's not because it's Microsoft, I would and do feel the same way about Nintendo, Sony, Valve, EA, Epic, Activision, or any other company in gaming.

To those of you in this thread who are focusing on the mistakes of the past instead of celebrating where things are now - what would you propose? What can Microsoft do differently now which would ever allow you to forgive those past mistakes? What is left for Microsoft to do with The Master Chief Collection which would enable you to enter a conversation about the game and not bring up "but it took years to fix it"?

Is there anything that Microsoft could do to fix things with you? Or is it forever tarnished for you, and you'll just complain forever from here on out no matter what happens going forward?

To me it's like Blizzard with Diablo 3, fixing it years after it came out with patches and expansions. Or Nintendo with the Wii U, which didn't really get "fixed" until the Switch. Or EA with Battlefront 2, taking a long time to change how progression works. Or any number of countless other problematic releases which were fixed over time and eventually became great.

I choose to celebrate when studios have the ability to fix things, instead of dwelling on the past.

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When I spend €70 on a brand new AAA game, I want it to be without significant bugs/jank and having enough content to justify paying the price on the day of release. You see, the ONLY reason I buy a game on day one at full price is because I want to play NOW. I don't want to wait months (or in this case even years) for a game to become worth it. I could have bought the game much later at a heavily discounted price if that was the plan.

So to answer your question: what Microsoft could do to fix things is releasing games in a finished state and with enough content to justify the the day one purchase at full price. And that's not dwelling on the past, since Sea of Thieves, Recore, State of Decay 2 and AoE DE were released years after MCC.

 

[XR.]

So here's an Xbox employee coming to tell us that it doesn't matter if Microsoft releases games in a crappy or unfinished state, as long as they fix it afterwards? I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with this.

When I spend €70 on a brand new AAA game, I want it to be without significant bugs/jank and having enough content to justify paying the price on the day of release. Because the reason I buy a game on day one at full price is because I want to play NOW. I don't want to wait months (or in this case even years) for a game to become worth it. I could have bought the game much later at a heavily discounted price if that was the plan.

So to answer your question: what Microsoft could do to fix things is releasing games in a finished state and with enough content to justify the the day one purchase at full price. And that's not dwelling on the past, since Sea of Thieves, Recore, State of Decay 2 and AoE DE were released years after MCC.

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So your main point of contention is to "simply do right from the beginning"?

I don't think it's realistic in all scenarios; bad launches and mistakes are inevitable. They will happen at some point and no one will be happy about it, but if a studio manage to turn it around and eventually makes a good game out of it, I think it's a commendable effort that deserves recognition.

 

[Ge0force]

So your main point of contention is to "simply do right from the beginning"?

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Yes and no. No one expects games (or any other software) to be 100% perfect. But the games I mentioned (and others like Fallout 76) had very obvious issues and/or where released in an unfinished state, comparable to some of the Early Access games I've played. Anyone could see that these games don't have the quality that the majority of people expect, so I don't think it's acceptable to release them in that state anyway. At least Early Access games are labeled and priced accordingly.

 

[Icky Thump]

Another point that I should have thought of earlier:

1. The MCC was supposed to be a rekindling of the Halo glory days for my group of little Halo friends. By 2014, most of our group had drifted apart -- getting full time jobs, starting families -- and most of us weren't playing video games together in any sort of regular capacity. In the Halo 2 days, it was Halo literally every night for weeks at a time. The MCC destroyed any potential for us to even slightly relive those days, as most of them had given up on the game even before I did. It was more than just a broken game.

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*Wipes away tears* I'm not crying. You're crying...... (I get it. I totally feel the same.) Good news is though! It's time to call up the group.....

 

[Odesu]

Yes and no. No one expects games (or any other software) to be 100% perfect. But the games I mentioned (and others like Fallout 76) had very obvious issues and/or where released in an unfinished state, comparable to some of the Early Access games I've played. Anyone could see that these games don't have the quality that the majority of people expect, so I don't think it's acceptable to release them in that state anyway. At least Early Access games are labeled and priced accordingly.

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You might want to read the link I posted. That's very simply not what happened here.

 

[JayWood2010]

You might want to read the link I posted. That's very simply not what happened here.

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Youre wasting your time with him. Just a heads up.

 

[Ge0force]

You might want to read the link I posted. That's very simply not what happened here.

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I just did. Being a developer myself, I have nothing but respect for what 343 did with MCC for the past 4 years (and for MS allowing them to do so).

But this doesn't change the fact that the game was released in an unacceptable state. It was obviously the best 343 could do at that time, but as a paying customer, the reason why a broken product is being sold as a finished product doesn't really matter.

Perhaps they should have focused on the campaigns first and add the multiplayer later when the most significant issues were solved?

 

[wwm0nkey]

I just did. Being a developer myself, I have nothing but respect for what 343 did with MCC for the past 4 years (and for MS allowing them to do so).

But this doesn't change the fact that the game was released in an unacceptable state. It was obviously the best 343 could do at that time, but as a paying customer, the reason why a broken product is being sold as a finished product doesn't really matter.

Perhaps they should have focused on the campaigns first and add the multiplayer later when the most significant issues were solved?

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From what I have heard from people that are familiar with the subject, 343 was subject to some Don Mattrick era shenanigans and forced to use beta XDKs for the release so for me not all the blame goes on 343. Seems MS really wanted MCC to be the test for those (though that is just my thoughts on that)

 

[Ge0force]

From what I have heard from people that are familiar with the subject, 343 was subject to some Don Mattrick era shenanigans and forced to use beta XDKs for the release so for me not all the blame goes on 343. Seems MS really wanted MCC to be the test for those (though that is just my thoughts on that)

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Agreed, I don't really "blame" 343 for what happened, especially not the developers. They must have gone through a development hell and I feel for them.

Only the person who decided that the broken parts should be released anyway is at fault here. But that's easy for me to say, since it's not MY money that has been invested in the development.

 

[SpartyCrunch]

When I spend €70 on a brand new AAA game, I want it to be without significant bugs/jank and having enough content to justify paying the price on the day of release. You see, the ONLY reason I buy a game on day one at full price is because I want to play NOW. I don't want to wait months (or in this case even years) for a game to become worth it. I could have bought the game much later at a heavily discounted price if that was the plan.

So to answer your question: what Microsoft could do to fix things is releasing games in a finished state and with enough content to justify the the day one purchase at full price. And that's not dwelling on the past, since Sea of Thieves, Recore, State of Decay 2 and AoE DE were released years after MCC.

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I don't think anything I wrote disagrees with what you replied to me with.

I'm not talking about the past. And I'm not talking about other games. I'm talking about MCC, and I obviously acknowledge that it was a shame to release the MCC in the state it was - the studio itself said as much.

The only thing I'm saying here is that I just don't really understand people who still attack 343 today, over the state of MCC at launch. I know they burned a lot of people - they know they burned a lot of people - and they've since profusely apologized countless times and made good on those apologies so they're not just empty words.

But here, today, in January of 2019, my question for those who continue to bring up the past still remains:

What is left for Microsoft to do with The Master Chief Collection which would enable you to enter a conversation about the game and not bring up "but it took years to fix it"?

Is there anything that Microsoft could do to fix things with you? Or is it forever tarnished for you, and you'll just complain forever from here on out no matter what happens going forward?

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And if some people answer "there's nothing they can ever do", that sucks, but those people shouldn't pretend otherwise like anything Microsoft will ever do will make them happy.

 

[Deleted member 9100]

That's fucking cray cray as hell. This is video games. You arent supposed to hold grudges against video games or the developers. You sound as bitter as someone who actually went through a real tragedy in life due to someone causing them some injustice that you've never fully healed from.

That's...........insane., AF, No offense. If I ever take video games that personally, I'm done with them all together.

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I don't wish for anything bad to happen to 343 industries such as for them to close or anything, they've just lost me as a customer due to the way they handled things.

Why is this insane? If you order from a restaurant a few times and they always get your order wrong, won't you stop ordering from that restaurant? If you reserve a car from a rental company, then you show up and they've lost your reservation, won't you use a different car rental company next time? If you go to a store and they are rude every time you go, won't you go to a different store next time?

Why is this situation any different? They put out a product that was broken at launch and didn't fix it in a reasonable time frame (4 years isn't reasonable for me). It's fine if you're ok with that, but thats enough to lose me as a customer. I don't think that's acceptable behavior, and I'll vote with my wallet to show that by not giving them any money going forward.

 

[Mzo]

Cool. Cool cool cool c-cool c-c-cool cool cool.

But how about they just put out a game when it's ready?

 

[Lothars]

Why is this situation any different? They put out a product that was broken at launch and didn't fix it in a reasonable time frame (4 years isn't reasonable for me). It's fine if you're ok with that, but thats enough to lose me as a customer. I don't think that's acceptable behavior, and I'll vote with my wallet to show that by not giving them any money going forward.

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I think that's the best way to handle it just don't support them again.

And if some people answer "there's nothing they can ever do", that sucks, but those people shouldn't pretend otherwise like anything Microsoft will ever do will make them happy.

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Microsoft has basically killed the halo franchise with how they handled the MCC collection since it came out and they almost killed it for me with 5 and how bad they made it. So maybe infinite will be better but there's very little proof of that right now and until it's released, it's hard to say. At least they fixed MCC but do you think 343 deserve the benefit of the doubt going forward with halo? I sure don't.

 

[Ge0force]

I don't think anything I wrote disagrees with what you replied to me with.

I'm not talking about the past. And I'm not talking about other games. I'm talking about MCC, and I obviously acknowledge that it was a shame to release the MCC in the state it was - the studio itself said as much.

The only thing I'm saying here is that I just don't really understand people who still attack 343 today, over the state of MCC at launch. I know they burned a lot of people - they know they burned a lot of people - and they've since profusely apologized countless times and made good on those apologies so they're not just empty words.

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I completely agree with all of this. It seems I misunderstood your initial post, my apologies.

Another thing: my point was that a developer doesn't deserve praise for fixing a game that released in a broken state. But after reading the explanation that SilentRob linked to, I do have to admit that 343 does deserve praise for their technical achievement with MCC.