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Rockstar Admits GTA Remasters 'Did Not Meet Our Own Standards of Quality' (arstechnica.com) 25

Rockstar has issued an apology for the "unexpected technical issues" that marred the release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition last week and led to the quick removal of the PC version from Rockstar's online store. From a report: Last week, Rockstar said that the PC version of the game was being taken down "as we remove files unintentionally included in these versions." That led to reports that the package included copies of original soundtrack songs that had not been re-licensed for the new release. Other reports suggested that the original package accidentally included uncompiled source code and revealed some interesting programmer comments, including references to the infamous "hot coffee" scene that caused the game so much controversy back in 2005. Today, though, the developer admitted in a blog post that "the updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect."

We noted some of the remaster's many issues in our initial impressions, which recommended that you skip the bundle for now. Since then, players have chronicled countless bugs and questionable "remastering" decisions. Those range from disturbing textures to eye-searing rainfall to hilariously broken cutscenes to car-inflating wiggles to odd-looking character models and plain old typos that weren't in the original game.

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Rockstar Admits GTA Remasters 'Did Not Meet Our Own Standards of Quality'

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  • We're sooowwwyyyy (Score:4, Informative)

    by Pierre Pants ( 6554598 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @04:41PM (#62003067)
    but we won't give you your money back if you played it for more than two hours.
  • How does this happen? They're basically printing money with their ancient game but couldn't postpone this enough to make sure everything works properly?

    • by xlsior ( 524145 )

      How does this happen? They're basically printing money with their ancient game but couldn't postpone this enough to make sure everything works properly?

      And miss out on a quarterly bonus for finishing under time and under budget?
      The only "games" the suits in charge of these kinds of companies play themselves involve the stock market, not the computer games their company produces.

    • by allcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @06:35PM (#62003541)

      It's the same thing with the Warcraft 3 remaster. Complete shitshow. I'm not sure why it happens, but it could be that from the very conception to remaster an old classic, the narrative in the company is "lets make easy money by reselling this old, classic of ours". They set their B-team on it, quality controls and testing are de-emphasized (it was already shipped before, right?) and the outcome is somehow worse than just playing the original. There's already such a pattern with botched remasters of old classics, it can't be coincidence.

      • by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        The Warcraft 3 remaster wasn't remotely as bad as this. It failed to live up to what they had promised, but it wasn't nearly as fundamentally broken as this one.

      • It's not a B-team. Rather this "remastered" bullshit is largely not given to a team at all. Someone writes a modern graphics engine, someone else codes a translation tool, someone runs the old textures through an AI upscaling algorithm, and then they press the green "Go" button on their money printing machine.

        Those people who say these games are a "re-write" don't seem to understand how little of it is being written at all.

  • I guess Rockstar's employees were too busy objectifying women to test their work properly. Sad.
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @05:18PM (#62003237)

    So you'll give people their money back for the faulty product, right?

    What was funny about that, why are you laughing?

  • If it wasn't for the fact that they were mods that they took down and that already did a remastered better than theirs. I'm not a huge GTA fan but right now my heart goes out for anyone who is. Still on the plus side with how good the sales were they'll probably eventually fix it all and we may even get a version of GTA IV for the PC that doesn't bring a Ryzen 5800x + GTX 3080ti to its knees. That port was playable but it was always frustrating if you were a PC gamer and expected 1080p 60 FPS.
  • by ac22 ( 7754550 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @05:40PM (#62003339)

    The link in the summary should go to Rockstar's apology, but doesn't.

    Here is the link to Rockstar's apology:

    https://www.rockstargames.com/... [rockstargames.com]

  • by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @06:25PM (#62003495)
    than the original, that tells us a lot on how the investment in programming skills has declined. The only things the "definitive edition" does better than the original are basically rendering features that came with the Unreal Engine - not authored by those paid for the "remake".
  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday November 20, 2021 @05:36AM (#62004513)

    The standard you walk by or deliver is the standard you accept.

    The only way that it didn't meet your standards is if you changed your standards after release, and I somehow think you didn't do that until you got the negative press.

    • Yeah. It also shows everyone what their current "standards" really are. If I had stocks, I'd sell them as soon as possible.
    • that, or mgmt/QA is so inept it slipped by;
      yours is much more likely though.

      then again, their implementation of euphoria physics after gtaIV points to ineptitude again.
  • High prices.

    We still need to charge $60 for a game that we barely developed. I'm not saying this is illegal and that Rockstar should go to prison. But they are shameless.

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