Layden speaks up about the afflictions of Driveclub

Driveclub, a next generation, socially connected racing game designed to seize the compassion and soul of car culture was launched about a year ago on PlayStation 4. However due to its glitches, the game is next to unplayable. There were several server issues and coding problems at the release of the game.

A game suffering from anomalies at the launch gives a bad impression and can be very problematic for the makers. Sony Computer Entertainment America’s president and CEO Shawn Layden commented on this issue and gave forth an explanation as to why the problems were impossible to envisage beforehand. In an interview with IGN, Layden discussed how it was hard to foresee the shortcomings of the game.

“In the development cycle, we try to do all things. In the development cycle, we try to test against every possibility. We have a Quality Assurance team and we have a QA plan. You do a beta test, you scope against that. But now, 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 the studio are struggling with that. It’s throwing up things they had not anticipated.” quoted Layden. Layden also stated “I get reports from them every day on the progress that they’re making, and it is going forward. It is going slowly, but, you know, they tried to do the best, newest, greatest thing ever to happen in the driving genre and they hit a hiccup. I prefer people to have the ambition to try that, though. It’s no fun being safe all the time.”

Games that are centered on online playing are clearly difficult to test from Layden’s perspective. Let’s hope that the game makers come up with a solution to model this capacity level more efficiently in the coming future.