If TheSims2 is done then why is it coming out so late???

When a game is finished, the next thing that happens is that it goes through 2-3 months of intense testing to make sure that nothing comes up. So, that means that it's finally ready for that testing (aka Beta Testing.) Then comes manufacturing (although at that point they usually say that the game has "gone gold" meaning that the master copy made for duplicating the game has been finished.) That usually takes 2-3 weeks. Then it is shipped by Maxis (which they plan to do on September 17.) Soon after that (depending on shipping schedules, warehouse distribution schedules and store policy) it comes out in the stores.

 

I just happen to know people in the game design and testing business.

I just wish that they used fan testers. But they have a special testing department within the company.

What I've found interesting is that many of the companies use other gaming companies to do their testing. A friend of mine works as a test developer for Microsoft. He can't tell us anything specific about the games, of course, but he says that they get to do a lot of testing for other companies.

Many people think that if you are a tester you just get to play the game however you want to play it like it was yours at home. However, when you are a play tester, you test what they ask you to test. For example, they may ask you to have a certain number of characters on the lot and then have them do a specific sequence of activities one right after another as fast as you can.

And the testing is not done randomly. They are very carefully designed and it takes a lot of education to be able to pick what sort of things to do in a test. My friend has a phd in psychology as well as being a long time game designer. He has to figure out scenerios to run so that it pushes the game to do things that even the person playing for fun would not think to do, but perhaps would do accidently in a way that could bolox up the game. (And even with that, some things may occur in the "wild" that they never thought of! They can't test everything, unfortunately.)

 

Maxis does all of its testing "in house" meaning that they don't farm it out to other companies to test.

Sorry, I don't chat.

 

The big glitches are usually worked out as the game is being developed. A great deal of oops fixing has to happen as it goes along. And one of the things that seems to happen is that if you fix one thing, several more pop up in their place. That's especially true when dealing with a newly developed format (as opposed to one that is merely added to or that is stationery.)

I think that's probably why Sim2 when over. They were so used to being able to crank out the console games and put their EPs together in a set amount of time that they figured "we have X amount of work. That usually takes us Y amount of time, so lets set the release date for Z." Then "Oh, dear. Things still keep crashing, we've got rain occurring inside the houses as well as out, we can't get A, B or C to work. We're going to need more time to get this done!"

I think that the reason they call the final testing "beta" is because the "alpha" testing has been going on all through development.

 

Different companies do their game testing in different ways. Maxis does inhouse game testing. (In other words, they hire their own testers to do the work.) They used volunteer testers for their online products, however.

Microsoft not only tests its own game products, but their testing department tests games for other companies as well. (I guess you'd consider that to be "outsourcing".)

Other companies use game testing companies (like Microsoft) or they have their testing done in house (with temporary testors.)

There's a lot of variation in the field as to how it's done.

 

You make it sound like the reason they postponed it from Spring/First Quarter (as there was *never* a date which was even as close as a month, other than with game vendors and fans), was to add new things. This just isn't true.

They postponed it because the game wasn't anywhere near ready. Even as early as October Luc Barthelet was saying that the game was taking longer than expected and they didn't think they were going to make the Spring release. They were having problems with things like the weather, but the major problems from what people who worked there were saying even as late as March (which they talked about in their interviews) was crashing. Even in April they were talking about how the team was working on removing "bugs" (which must have been pretty bad since they needed half the team to do it!) That's a much bigger problem than a feature like weather which they can just remove.

However, while they were working on that major problem, it allowed them to add some things like more objects (as it gave them time to finish some things like the vanity which they hadn't expected to have out until the first expansion). So, we'll have more things in Sims2 than we would have had if they had worked out the major problems earlier. This is good for us, but it wasn't the reason why they had delayed the game.