Nearly two months after it launched on October 7, DriveClub from Evolution Studios is still undergoing problems with its servers, resulting in a delay to the PlayStation Plus Edition and Companion App.
When MCV spoke with PlayStation Europe President Jim Ryan recently to celebrate the PlayStation 4’s first birthday, they asked him about both DriveClub and SingStar’s technical issues at launch.
After first apologizing to anyone who suffered from the issues, he added that “they shouldn’t happen,” but “in a world that’s becoming more and more technically complicated, it’s getting harder to deliver stuff.” He then said, “That’s not an excuse, because you shouldn’t really launch a game before it’s ready. And clearly we’ve made mistakes and we apologize for that.”
Ryan continued:
Has it dampened our momentum? No. Has it damaged our reputation? I don’t think so. People understand that mistakes do get made so as long as you apologize and make them right. That’s the main thing.
When you spend £50/£60 on a game you’re entitled to expect that it works. If we or anyone else in the industry makes mistakes you should fess up to it and then put it right as soon as possible.
In terms of making it right, Sony gave every owner of DriveClub the November 2014 DLC for free and extended the Season Pass by one month.
Ryan’s apology for all the problems in DriveClub comes just a couple weeks after Sony Computer Entertainment America President Shawn Layden said, “In a connected world, you can’t effectively test in your house or in your beta group what it means to have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 users hit your service. And the guys [at Evolution] are struggling with that.”
Meanwhile, according to Videogamer, Challenges went live in DriveClub yesterday.
Do you think offering up the November DLC for free put things right with DriveClub?
[Source: MCV via Videogamer]
