The botched launch of Xbox exclusive CrossfireX has been a real shame this month, with the multiplayer portion receiving some pretty poor first impressions, and the single-player campaign not releasing on time with Xbox Game Pass due to a day one glitch (that still hasn't been fixed at the time of writing).
In response, developer Smilegate has already promised various improvements, and the game's Executive Producer took to the web over the weekend to issue a personal apology, stating that "it felt like we’ve betrayed the trust of our players." Here's a bit of what Sooro Boo had to say:
"It’s clear that we have inadvertently disappointed many of our players and fans that have stuck with us for a long time. You mean everything to us and I felt that you deserved more than just a simple patch note, which is why I wanted to take this opportunity to personally apologize for the current state of the game..."
"There will always be bugs and various issues when it comes to video games, but we felt that CrossfireX’s current issues had to do more with the core fundamentals of the game and that it felt like we’ve betrayed the trust of our players. There is simply no excuse for this, which is why I wanted to make a personal apology and explain exactly what the issues are and how we plan to overcome them."
Boo picked out three key improvements that are in the works at present for CrossfireX's multiplayer, which are controller sensitivity issues (expected to be fixed in February), balance improvements for the "Boogieman" (again expected to be fixed in February) and an ADS issue with the CAR-4 (fixed in the next expedited patch).
Last week, Smilegate also promised that more customisable aim settings are on the way in March, along with a fix for sliding issues — plus, the team is "working to add more maps to both the 'Classic' and 'Modern' multiplayer modes."
It's been a rough start for CrossfireX without a doubt, but hopefully it can turn things around in the coming months.
What are your thoughts on the Executive Producer's statement? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments 13
If it’s in a poor state - then don’t release it and the expect everything to be fine.
Developers need more time to fix these issues if it’s not acceptable
I'm always baffled by these messages.. why apologize and act surprised a clearly broken game is broken AFTER YOU RELEASE IT. Nobody else pushed it out the door for you (by this I don't mean individual, I mean company), own it. Don't beg for sympathy you clearly didn't have for your user-base a week ago.
This is why timed exclusives are becoming a waste for companies. Too many games release in a terrible state. Is it a win for xbox to have exclusivity for the period where the developer scrambles to fix a broken a game?
I think studios are now finding there are limits to what gamers will tolerate.
We all know (these days) that games will have some minor issues at launch and expect the devs to address them reasonably promptly.
But, increasingly, games have been released in very bad states, with the studios hoping the players will suck it up until they fix them.
I think Crossfire X and the latest Battlefield have shown gamers have reached their limit in tolerating shoddy releases... We would honestly rather wait and get a game that is in a playable state.
I know the studios rush the releases to get revenue in the door... But that is a short term strategy and they will lose goodwill, lose reputation and lose future sales, doing untold long term damage.
Whilst I'm not a fan of MS or PS buying up studios, at least they might exert some sort of quality control over their releases.
Can we get out of this era of "release a product asap"?
This mentality of dropping a product whenever just to apologize it is bad is getting terribly old.
Developers aren't being held accountable. And when you do try to, their fanboy come out of the woodworks. It is tiresome.
Unfortunately it looks like nothing aside from the platform holder setting penalties for releasing shovel ware on their platform. But this'll never happen.
Im not impressed by the apology. As an executive producer he knew exactly what they were charging players for. They knew exactly that it was s*** and decided to release it anyhow. This speaks volumes for the company (not the individual).
People need to cut this guy some slack,most likely he was tied to a timeline and he couldn't buy more time to polish his game,as is the case with most games these days sadly...at least he acknowledged the problems and I'm sure he's team is hard at work to fix'em.(a rare thing among devs these days who rather bury theyr heads in the sand and hope the problems are gonna magically solve themself while they already started working on some other game)
GaaS video game publishing in 2022:
Hype game for 4-8 years.
Get game to playable beta.
Ship it.
Let it fester on the internet a few days until it's a meme.
Profusely apologize for disappointing people.
Remind players they're really important special snowflakes
Promise to make it right.
Release a patch to fix the most glaring early access bugs.
Announce how great launch sales were.
Hype new project.
@InterceptorAlpha Yeah, but then who will hold 343 accountable? Or Game Freak for that matter....
I was watching a review on YouTube and the Boogieman powerup seems crazy OP. What the heck were the devs thinking?!
I miss the days when they made sure everything was great before they released it. Back in the era before we had online patching this never would have happened. It's like while I love the concept of patches, I hate how lazy it has made developers.
@Cikajovazmaj
Couldn't have said it better myself. They have to be accountable for the state of the game. It is not like they had no idea on the state of the game.
A bunch of bean counters did a risk management exercise and won over the technical people who knew the game state. Fire the bean counters, apologize for the unacceptable state, and fix it right quickly.
@Cikajovazmaj That was exactly what I was going to say. What do these messages mean? Haven't they played the game during the years it was in development? Why are they so grieving, suddenly?
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