[Source Gaming] Are Updates a Bad Thing?

I want you to consider my perspective to be not one of a creator, but of a player that understands the situation comprehensively. I personally am extremely grateful for these updates. I’m very thankful for the various companies that put in the effort to do this.

Of course, it would be best if perfection was attained by the release date. However, that’s only possible if you completely understand both the final product and how it’s made, like creating a plastic model by strictly following the given instructions. This simply isn’t possible.

In the 494th iteration of Masahiro Sakurai's bi-weekly Famitsu Column, Thinking about the Video Games, Sakurai discusses his thoughts on video game updates. His viewpoints can be boiled down to four topics: Modern games are extremely complex, creators can't play the completed product, the "testing power" of players is very high, and patches are a voluntary service.

• Modern games are extremely complex

Previously, I’ve described modern games as “being similar to the human body.” They have an extremely complicated design and very complex mechanisms. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they are 100 times—no, 1,000 times more complicated than games of the past. And this massive amount of data is subject to the variance and fluctuation that digital information is susceptible to. Making sure that everything works properly is a miracle in and of itself.

For the full translated column check out the post on Source Gaming. The post was translated by soma and @Masked Man (仮面の男) within an hour of being available.

PushDustIn thinks updates are great, but shouldn't excuse developers from releasing half finished games. You can send him your favorite ice cream flavor on Twitter.

 

Three characters not having been buffed yet, doesn't mean that one can simply ignore what the team has done so far.

But that's irrelevant. For me personally, I think that Mewtwo needs buffs. I don't care about the other characters, that's not what I play Smash for. I play Smash 4 Mewtwo. So whatever happens to Yoshi, or Pit, or Pikachu, or Palutena, I don't care. That's neither what I, nor @Saikyoshi were talking about, therefor, what's it to me.

That would be like if you had a starving sibling, and were begging your uncaring parent to feed them, then your friend said that they were in fact caring because they fed your Dog.

 

If Nintendo does the mod well enough, people may not even know that it's "Brawl", therefor, allowing them the same amount of sales that Smash 4 (or at least it's Wii U half) had, especially since, after all, Smash 4 technically is a Brawl mod. As for the newer version, it could still have casual-supportive features, however, the core gameplay would be more competitive than casual, with the remedy being to use items (for beginners). That way, everyone wins, plus, Nintendo would get more money, since, a casual neither has the patience nor the dedication for add-on content (a new thing Nintendo is trying), but competitive players do.

(The New Smash 4 would be Wii U exclusive)

So, let's just say things go like this
--
Normal Smash 4
3DS: 40.00 x 7,370,000 = $294,800,000
Wii U: 60.00 x 4,000,300 = $240,018,000
Combined: $534,818,000
(Hypothetical Terminal Numbers) DLC: $870,000
Overall Sales: $535,688,000

Hypothetical Modded Brawl/New Smash 4 (fake numbers)
Modded Brawl: 50.00 x 8,120,000 = $406,000,000
New Smash 4: 60.00 x 5,760,000 = $345,600,000
Combined: $751,600,000
(Hypothetical Terminal Numbers) DLC: $1,245,000
Overall Sales: $752,845,000
---
Explanations
Modded Brawl: The modded Brawl sales were given the numbers they were because, one has to realize that the Smash Bros. series is still popular, and most people would love to have a touched up Brawl, not to mention if it was covered up well enough, it could appear new. This, combined with the fact that the game could be played either through Wii mode, or a Wii U format, could help to further increase it's sales, though, to be fair, I didn't make them quite as high as Brawl due to the obvious fact of it being a rehash.

New Smash 4: Some may wonder why this game gets more sales than the Wii U version did, and that's simply because you have less options... yup, I said it. Think about it; why spend $60.00 for a wire-bound game for an unpopular console, when you can instead opt for a cheaper, portable version of the same game, complete with Smash Run? the very existence of Smash 3DS is actually taking away from Smash 4's sales (or at least income) as a whole, because the 3DS makes the Wii U version unnecessary, considering that you can simply get a cheaper, portable version for a console that you already have, which, again, is ultimately why the New Smash 4 would make more money than the current Smash 4; due to the fact that it would require many to get Wii U's, since that would be the only option, the hard-fact money that the New Smash 4 makes would also be accompanied by indirect-boost from the Wii U's, therefor not only benefiting Sakurai, but Nintendo as a whole too.

And even if, even if, the sales between the two were exactly the same, the DLC alone for the hypothetical half would still make it outperform the casual version, and that, is why that "5%" is infinitely more important that the other 95%.

You are forgetting one very, very important detail. Video games cost money to make. Smash in particular costs a lot of money to make. Even if we assume Nintendo makes a cheap cash grab modding Brawl they'd still need to spend money on things like marketing and distribution. Furthermore you can't "cover up" a games data in this day and age. People would instantly datamine it and the Internet would have a field day. Also, no one would buy it at all. Brawl is a Wii game, it looks bad there's no way around it. Everyone would look at it with their own two eyes, say "I am not spending $50 dollars on this" and move on with their lives.

Also you are wrong saying casual players do not buy DLC, in fact it's probable they buy more as they do not care if a character is good or not and will buy cosmetics and non legal stages. And Smash is a series that is continually played by casual players, as with most "party games".

Also, sales of one game would directly harm the other, as people would see little reason to buy another smash game after they already had. You need to consider the development expenses involved and the fact that there are not enough competitive players to recoup those investments.

The thing is that in my opinion you have things right but backwards. If Nintendo really wanted to cater to the competitive community they'd license PM (a modded version of Brawl) as an official Nintendo product and then go on making smash 4 for the vast majority of the people who play the game.

 

If Nintendo does the mod well enough, people may not even know that it's "Brawl", therefor, allowing them the same amount of sales that Smash 4 (or at least it's Wii U half) had, especially since, after all, Smash 4 technically is a Brawl mod. As for the newer version, it could still have casual-supportive features, however, the core gameplay would be more competitive than casual, with the remedy being to use items (for beginners). That way, everyone wins, plus, Nintendo would get more money, since, a casual neither has the patience nor the dedication for add-on content (a new thing Nintendo is trying), but competitive players do.

(The New Smash 4 would be Wii U exclusive)

So, let's just say things go like this
--
Normal Smash 4
3DS: 40.00 x 7,370,000 = $294,800,000
Wii U: 60.00 x 4,000,300 = $240,018,000
Combined: $534,818,000
(Hypothetical Terminal Numbers) DLC: $870,000
Overall Sales: $535,688,000

Hypothetical Modded Brawl/New Smash 4 (fake numbers)
Modded Brawl: 50.00 x 8,120,000 = $406,000,000
New Smash 4: 60.00 x 5,760,000 = $345,600,000
Combined: $751,600,000
(Hypothetical Terminal Numbers) DLC: $1,245,000
Overall Sales: $752,845,000
---
Explanations
Modded Brawl: The modded Brawl sales were given the numbers they were because, one has to realize that the Smash Bros. series is still popular, and most people would love to have a touched up Brawl, not to mention if it was covered up well enough, it could appear new. This, combined with the fact that the game could be played either through Wii mode, or a Wii U format, could help to further increase it's sales, though, to be fair, I didn't make them quite as high as Brawl due to the obvious fact of it being a rehash.

New Smash 4: Some may wonder why this game gets more sales than the Wii U version did, and that's simply because you have less options... yup, I said it. Think about it; why spend $60.00 for a wire-bound game for an unpopular console, when you can instead opt for a cheaper, portable version of the same game, complete with Smash Run? the very existence of Smash 3DS is actually taking away from Smash 4's sales (or at least income) as a whole, because the 3DS makes the Wii U version unnecessary, considering that you can simply get a cheaper, portable version for a console that you already have, which, again, is ultimately why the New Smash 4 would make more money than the current Smash 4; due to the fact that it would require many to get Wii U's, since that would be the only option, the hard-fact money that the New Smash 4 makes would also be accompanied by indirect-boost from the Wii U's, therefor not only benefiting Sakurai, but Nintendo as a whole too.

And even if, even if, the sales between the two were exactly the same, the DLC alone for the hypothetical half would still make it outperform the casual version, and that, is why that "5%" is infinitely more important that the other 95%.

lol Smash 4 is a Brawl mod? This is news to me.... Bravo Nintendo, easily the highest quality "mod" in gaming history.

 

As identical as it is to Brawl, it might as well be (hence the "technically")

 

As identical as it is to Brawl, it might as well be (hence the "technically")

Yeaaaah....... not really lol. Also, no arguments or points to back up your statement, just a meme picture.... Your extremely low level of intelligence is showing.

 

If Smash 4 is a Brawl mod, isn't Brawl a Melee mod due to how similar the gameplay is?

 

Brawl and Melee aren't very much alike at all.
Face it, kids, your game sucks. Smash 4 is a bad game

 

This entire discussion is unnecessary: it's perfectly possible for SSB4 to be balanced for both casual AND competitive players, and either Sakurai or the folks at Namco have been doing this already... (or at least slowly moving toward it).

How do you buff a character in competitive play without doing so in casual play? Easy: you give them hidden tricks that casual players aren't going to take advantage of.

The most notable example of this would be DK's ding-dong, something that allows competitive players to use DK very, VERY effectively while giving casual players absolutely no change whatsoever.

They can take this a step further by doing things like making some moves guaranteed combos into other moves, or giving certain characters reliable shield-break trap situations. Again, casual players wouldn't be able to take advantage of any of this.

Updates are the best thing that ever happened to this game. We're so much faster at figuring out which characters get the most mileage off of things like grabs and exploiting the hell out of them (aka Diddy) that I don't think we needed to wait for a metagame to "develop" before we knew that that nonsense was OP. If not for updates, we'd currently be looking forward to spending the next 5 years watching Diddy Uair himself in tournaments.

 

Yeaaaah....... not really lol. Also, no arguments or points to back up your statement, just a meme picture.... Your extremely low level of intelligence is showing.

It gets embarrassing to see him argue at all.

 

This entire discussion is unnecessary: it's perfectly possible for SSB4 to be balanced for both casual AND competitive players, and either Sakurai or the folks at Namco have been doing this already... (or at least slowly moving toward it).

How do you buff a character in competitive play without doing so in casual play? Easy: you give them hidden tricks that casual players aren't going to take advantage of.

The most notable example of this would be DK's ding-dong, something that allows competitive players to use DK very, VERY effectively while giving casual players absolutely no change whatsoever.

They can take this a step further by doing things like making some moves guaranteed combos into other moves, or giving certain characters reliable shield-break trap situations. Again, casual players wouldn't be able to take advantage of any of this.

Updates are the best thing that ever happened to this game. We're so much faster at figuring out which characters get the most mileage off of things like grabs and exploiting the hell out of them (aka Diddy) that I don't think we needed to wait for a metagame to "develop" before we knew that that nonsense was OP. If not for updates, we'd currently be looking forward to spending the next 5 years watching Diddy Uair himself in tournaments.

I think that's why there have been seemingly obvious buffs that haven't been made yet because the Smash team has to get a little creative with their balancing. For example, Falco laser autocancel pls Sakurai is something I've heard a few times. But dear lord could you imagine what for glory would turn into with that?

Also I think there's a lot of stuff that was done in the past regarding balancing the game for multiple play styles that can't be gotten away with anymore in the era of online play. L-canceling and wavedashing being the primary examples. Back in 2001 the only way someone would know about them was if they ran into someone who already knew about them or miraculously discovered them on their own. But today with the internet being as ubiquitous as it is and people playing with others outside of their circle of interaction people would be certainly be running into people using these techniques against them.

 

Also I think there's a lot of stuff that was done in the past regarding balancing the game for multiple play styles that can't be gotten away with anymore in the era of online play. L-canceling and wavedashing being the primary examples. Back in 2001 the only way someone would know about them was if they ran into someone who already knew about them or miraculously discovered them on their own. But today with the internet being as ubiquitous as it is and people playing with others outside of their circle of interaction people would be certainly be running into people using these techniques against them.

Yeah, when I think of casuals, I think of groups of friends/family members who are probably sitting around a WiiU together, just messing around and having fun with items on.

If we're talking about a person playing 1v1 online with no items, I don't really consider them casual at that point, and if they want to do better in FG, it's up to them to research how to get the most out of the characters.

 

Except this is a video game with the target audience being young children. As somebody who has attended tournaments for over 10 years, I've hated the idea that this game has became an e-sport. We're such a small percentage of the people who play smash, we are not entitled to make big decisions for the game itself.

I understand you're salty about it because you don't win tournaments, but people like Armada and Zero who have both made nearly 100k this year off smash melee and smash 4 respectively are probably pretty happy about the whole e-sport thing.

And no, competitive players love smash thousands of times more than casuals do. We care more about the game, and we give the game tons of exposure via streaming events. That love that we have means our opinions are more well researched and are healthier for the game play as a whole.

FYI, I was playing brawl with my casual smash playing friend this weekend, and he kept complaining about how slow it is compared to melee. This is a guy who didn't know you could use the c-stick for smash attacks until yesterday, or that jigglypuffs rest move actually could hurt someone. What sakurai did with the newer smash games is not necessarily a good thing for casual players.

Casual players pick it up, fiddle around with it for fun, and turn it off. Competitive players play the game for tens of thousands of hours, and truly keep the game alive.

, but you need to stop acting like this game was meant to be played competitively. Its your fault you decided to play it instead of another fighting game or a real sport.

Wow I don't even want to respond to this, but I will. Smash IS meant to be played competitively. That's why advanced techniques are hidden within the game. That's why you can turn the items off. That's why "tournament mode" was a thing. How dense can you be?

Hell, because of me, and the meme I created (fox only / no items / final destination) For Glory now exists as a game mode. I was just joking about that stuff back in 07 and now it's an actual game mode. Lmao.

You can scream smash isn't competitive until you're blue in the face but I think that people making a pretty decent living off of melee / smash 4 are going to disagree with you... all the way to the bank

 

It gets embarrassing to see him argue at all.

And I get a trolling warning for it, lolol good job mods

 

Except this is a video game with the target audience being young children. As somebody who has attended tournaments for over 10 years, I've hated the idea that this game has became an e-sport. We're such a small percentage of the people who play smash, we are not entitled to make big decisions for the game itself.

With the addition of an online 1v1 mode, the smash team effectively DID take on the responsibility of ensuring as much 1v1 balance as possible.

And really, SSB4 can be BOTH competitive AND a party game at the same time.

Characters can (and do) have little tricks that the devs left for competitive players to find (the ding-dong, Bowser's jab 1> grab followup, Fox's Dair to Usmash, etc., etc...) but when items are turned on, all bets are effectively off.

I see a lot of arguing in this thread over something that really isn't an actual issue. Plus, SSB4 could stand to be more balanced, sure, but it's still EASILY the most balanced of the series and I hope they keep balancing it as time goes on.

Also, I believe Sakurai IS looking at tournament results, but mostly in Japan.

Again, one of the reasons I love SSB so much is because it can be both a competitive game AND a party game, depending upon how you set it up.

This is like arguing if Rick Moranis is a musician or an actor, when he's definitely both (and very good at both as well).

 

This entire discussion is unnecessary: it's perfectly possible for SSB4 to be balanced for both casual AND competitive players, and either Sakurai or the folks at Namco have been doing this already... (or at least slowly moving toward it).

How do you buff a character in competitive play without doing so in casual play? Easy: you give them hidden tricks that casual players aren't going to take advantage of.

The most notable example of this would be DK's ding-dong, something that allows competitive players to use DK very, VERY effectively while giving casual players absolutely no change whatsoever.

They can take this a step further by doing things like making some moves guaranteed combos into other moves, or giving certain characters reliable shield-break trap situations. Again, casual players wouldn't be able to take advantage of any of this.

Updates are the best thing that ever happened to this game. We're so much faster at figuring out which characters get the most mileage off of things like grabs and exploiting the hell out of them (aka Diddy) that I don't think we needed to wait for a metagame to "develop" before we knew that that nonsense was OP. If not for updates, we'd currently be looking forward to spending the next 5 years watching Diddy Uair himself in tournaments.

This needs more attentions and likes. As long as there's a definitive end of updates, the keep the game relatively balanced and includes new content to keep both casuals and competitive players excited.

As identical as it is to Brawl, it might as well be (hence the "technically")

Posting memes to further demonstrate that you "won" a debate or argument does actually the opposite. Do you think people in debate clubs, debate shows, and politicians post memes to signify they won? Also, that's a horrible use of the god that is Morgan Freemen.

 

Brawl and Melee aren't very much alike at all.
Face it, kids, your game sucks. Smash 4 is a bad game

When you try to start a flame war.

 

When you try to start a flame war.

Clearly an amateur. Ya gotta be more subtle than that.

 

Clearly an amateur. Ya gotta be more subtle than that.

Indeed indeed.

 

In my opinion, it depends on who gets nerfed or buffed, for example, if Sheik got buffed and Wario got nerfed, then the update is bad, but if Sheik were nerfed and, say, Luigi got buffed, then the update is good.

Basically:
OP Character(s) getting buffed = Bad
OP Character(s) getting nerfed = Good

Low tier character(s) getting nerfed = Bad
Low tier character(s) getting buffed = Good

 

In my opinion, it depends on who gets nerfed or buffed, for example, if Sheik got buffed and Wario got nerfed, then the update is bad, but if Sheik were nerfed and, say, Luigi got buffed, then the update is good.

Basically:
OP Character(s) getting buffed = Bad
OP Character(s) getting nerfed = Good

Low tier character(s) getting nerfed = Bad
Low tier character(s) getting buffed = Good

Luigi doesn't need any more buffs...

 

Luigi doesn't need any more buffs...

Fam, Luigi was an example.