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<TITLE>GPMega - Industry Section - 10 Things Gamers Need to Know About Game Development</TITLE>
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This Article Is Taken From <A HREF="http://www.perplexed.com/GPMega/">The Game Programming MegaSite</A>, A Definitive Resource For Game Developers!
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<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><font color="#FFFB00">1</font><font color="#FFF700">0</font><font color="#FFF300"> </font><font color="#FFEF00">T</font><font color="#FFEB00">h</font><font color="#FFE700">i</font><font color="#FFE300">n</font><font color="#FFDF00">g</font><font color="#FFDB00">s</font><font color="#FFD700"> </font><font color="#FFD300">G</font><font color="#FFCF00">a</font><font color="#FFCB00">m</font><font color="#FFC700">e</font><font color="#FFC300">r</font><font color="#FFBF00">s</font><font color="#FFBB00"> </font><font color="#FFB700">N</font><font color="#FFB300">e</font><font color="#FFAF00">e</font><font color="#FFAB00">d</font><font color="#FFA700"> </font><font color="#FFA300">t</font><font color="#FF9F00">o</font><font color="#FF9B00"> </font><font color="#FF9700">K</font><font color="#FF9300">n</font><font color="#FF8F00">o</font><font color="#FF8B00">w</font><font color="#FF8700"> </font><font color="#FF8300">A</font><font color="#FF7F00">b</font><font color="#FF7B00">o</font><font color="#FF7700">u</font><font color="#FF7300">t</font><font color="#FF6F00"> </font><font color="#FF6B00">G</font><font color="#FF6700">a</font><font color="#FF6300">m</font><font color="#FF5F00">e</font><font color="#FF5B00"> </font><font color="#FF5700">D</font><font color="#FF5300">e</font><font color="#FF4F00">v</font><font color="#FF4B00">e</font><font color="#FF4700">l</font><font color="#FF4300">o</font><font color="#FF3F00">p</font><font color="#FF3B00">m</font><font color="#FF3700">e</font><font color="#FF3300">n</font><font color="#FF2F00">t</font><BR><FONT SIZE=-2>By: <a href="mailto:ghowland@lupinegames.com">Geoff Howland</a></FONT></H3>
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<P>Visit <a href="http://www.lupinegames.com/">Lupine Games</a>!
<H3><FONT COLOR=YELLOW><I>1 - There is no such thing as bug-free software.</I></FONT></H3>
<p>All software has bugs.
<p>This just can't be denied. After a certain point of complexity, which is not
all-that complex, it is virtually impossible to create bug-free software. Using
proper software engineering methods helps in this, but there are so many different
combinations of things that can be done in most software that even extensive
testing cannot eliminate all the bugs and the product has to ship.
<p>On top of the fact that all software will have bugs, there is the factor of
the cost of development and testing. After a certain point a piece of software
will stop gaining any momentum and testing and small fixes will take all of
the staff's time. However, the more time that is spent doing this, the more
expensive the process becomes.
<p>While thorough testing is definitely a necessity, testing to the point of absolute
assurance that there are close to no bugs would often escalate a budget through
the roof. You would end up with the video game equivalent of Kevin Costner's
<i>Water World</i> with every video game, and most likely would end up with
Water World's financial results as well. (For those not aware of this, Water
World is a movie that cost several hundred million dollars to make and was a
box office flop.)
<p>Professional programs that have been around for years, such as Autocad 13 and
3D Studio MAX still have MANY bugs in them which can cause the software to crash
regularly if you are working in an area where there is a bug. These programs
are considered to be among the best of what the professional modeling software
world has to offer, so it goes to show you that even with substantial testing
over a long period of time, software will still have bugs in it.
<p>I am not defending the right for games to have bugs and I am definitely against
games being published when they are to the point where you cannot play them
because of bugs. These type of bugs can be referred to a critical bugs. Critical
bugs are not to be expected. Anything that destroys data on your computer, keeps
you from playing the game, or regularly/often crashes all computers that try
to play is have critical bugs and there is very little excuse for letting any
of these through.
<p>Non-critical bugs consist of things like hardware compatibility, small glitches
in the game and extremely rare combinations.
<p>Hardware compatibility is one of the most difficult problems to overcome, which
is why the majority of bugs in games are caused by hardware compatibility. To
an extent, game developers should own a variety of different machines and hardware
to test their game on. But there are literally thousands of combinations, merely
testing them all would cost tremendous amounts of money which would not only
have to be passed on to the gamer but would take away from other development
money. Not the mention the cost of the hardware themselves, as they would probably
not be able to get all of it on loan/trial from different manufacturers. As
a gamer, you just have to accept the fact that you may have hardware that the
game company was unable to test for, and you may have to get a patch to the
game after you purchase it.
<p>Small glitches in the game and extremely rare combinations are also incredibly
hard to test all cases. Small things may easily go unnoticed even after thousands
of man hours of testing, because games today have quite a lot going on. Rare
combinations are equally or harder to find often as games are also increasing
in size, so the ability to actually go everywhere and do everything is becoming
almost impossible, simply because the size and diversity of different actions
and game combinations. Expect there to be some minor glitches and problems when
you do a rare combination or moves or put the game in a state which is normally
hard to test (ie. Doing something totally unplanned for by the game developer).
<p>For more information on this check out <a href="http://www.bugnet.com/">http://www.bugnet.com/</a>
which has tons information on bug fixes and bugs in software in general. If
you think only games are bad this will be an interesting place for you to visit.
They also in the past have given out awards for bug-free software, but decided
NOT to give out one to anyone this year, I think that speaks volumes about the
way software is going in general. It may not be good, but it's also not isolated
to games, so keep that in mind.
<p><font color="#33FFFF" size="2">[NOTE: Lupine Games has a strict policy on testing
on as many systems and configuration types as possible and testing our games
to the fullest of our ability. I am in no way saying that you should expect
buggy software from us as we strive to make it as hassle free and fun filled
as possible. Furthermore, I want to make a final note clarifying that you should
<i>not</i> expect critical bugs (or show stoppers) in your games, but that small,
rare hard to test "glitch" type bugs will simply be impossible to
test in all circumstances, although the way this should work is that you will
just normally never see them, because they are rare.]</font>
<H3><FONT COLOR=YELLOW><I>2 - Game software is not like regular software.</I></FONT></H3>
<p>Game software differs from other software in several respects which are very
important to take into consideration.
<p>Game software is almost always totally new, so each time it is created you
will see a totally new set of problems. Other software usually is identical
to the last version, with fixes, additions and updates placed on top of it.
This usually lends to more stable and progressive builds of the products. The
"sequel" of a word processor can most often fix a lot of the first
versions bugs because the program is doing the same thing, and is essentially
the same program. Any features added to the program are almost always on top
of the old features instead of replacing them.
<p>Game software on the other hand is almost always totally rewritten. While games
may use "engines" to make development time faster, as some things
stay consistent, these engines still need to be upgraded to keep up with the
latest technology. This means that the engine code still has to be rewritten
and this introduces completely new bugs again. Instead of having a solid base
of code from the first game, and then being able to fix whatever bugs were in
the first version and add new features to the second version, a game must rewrite
everything or else it will not perform fast enough, use little enough memory
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