Online Games Always Shit the Bed, But Why?

GTA Online's recent bungled launch has me wondering: why do online games always stumble out of the gate?

On October 1, GTA Online launched--two weeks after the game, mind you--and nothing worked. Oh sure, some players could create their character and play the game. For most, however, it was like having a dump truck pour garbage all over you. Issues ranging from characters not being saved to the beginning tutorial mission not loading up--both of which I personally suffered from--and even now, after the servers are somewhat stable and it’s all patched up, there are reports of characters being deleted and cash disappearing, among other things.

Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto, aren't alone in the kerfuffle: nearly every game in recent memory that has an online mode has been in shambles on release day. Two games spring to mind immediately: Diablo III and SimCity.

Both were a right mess on their respective launches.

Diablo III was first released in May of 2012 for the PC, and had an online requirement--meaning, you had to be online in order to play the game, even on your own. That alone ruffled the feathers of would-be buyers (not enough to stop it from selling millions, mind you) but on top of that, the game suffered from numerous server issues and error codes, all of which were indecipherable to the average human being.

SimCity, too, was the recipient of ire--twice--when it launched on PC earlier this year, and then again on the Mac a couple of months ago. The Mac launch suffered from technical issues, not server issues, but the PC launch was woefully unprepared to meet demand. Just last week Maxis, the developer of SimCity, said they were considering adding an offline mode to the much maligned game.

Here's what I don't get: these companies know how many pre-orders they get for a game. So why are they consistently caught with their pants down? It's not like it's a surprise or anything.

Blizzard knew that pre-orders for Diablo III reached over two million, so why did the servers keel over and die? You'd think they'd prepare for two million simultaneous connections (plus a few hundred thousand more for people who bought without pre-ordering) on launch day. But no. They didn't.

And why does every company do this? You can practically write the press release for this sort of thing by now: "We're overwhelmed by the response to Game X," it would read, "and we're working around the clock to bring the servers back online."

Does nobody test these things? They must. There's no way they don't. And I understand that a controlled test with a few studios isn't the same as launching to the majority of players around the world, but come on. You can't tell me these companies couldn't have seen this coming.

I'd love to live in a world where a massive, hyped up online game gets released... and nothing happens. Everything goes smoothly. After all these faffed-up launches, you'd think that someone would have the common sense to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Here's hoping that someday, they will.