So earlier this week "Dead Island" hit the streets. It has gotten mixed reviews, and even some reviewers saying it just doesn't feel finished and that Techland will be doing quite a bit of patching over the next few weeks. I haven't played it myself yet. So I can't validate those issues. However, the first bit of news surrounding the game's release was what happened to Steam customer's on release day.
So what happened? Well apparently the version of the game released to Steam for customer's was not the full, final release of the game's code. Instead it was a buggy dev release that would crash on startup. If you were able to get it to load up, players found they were able to make their characters fly around, access areas that shouldn't normally be accessed (like certain ledges or rooftops), and clipping through objects and walls, and character/npc animations are incredibly wrong.
This however was caught pretty quickly and the correct retail version was made available on Steam and patched accordingly righting the wrong that was done. So no big deal right?
Well a day or two later, we get the headlines about a 'Feminist Whore' unlockable skill for one of the female characters. Techland was quick to apologize for the issue and that it was a bug from a developer that was never removed prior to release and it would be remedied. So yes, that is a rather insensitive thing to have pop up in a final release of a game. But whether it was one prankster on the dev team or an internal joke. Who cares? Patch it and go on with life.
But a little advice from a non-programmer to Techland. If it were me, I'd patch it quickly and while I'm at it make the code team put in some extra time to make sure there are no more "slip ups" in the code. And if there are patch those ASAP before someone blows it way out of proportion. After all, we know the media will make or break a product or service. So you'll only be doing yourself a favor.
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