Sam Kalman

I helped design some of WolfQuest in late 06/early 07. And I can confirm that it is not the same team that created "A Dog's Life". It's being built with the Unity3D engine. Should be a great title when it comes out, and it's great to see it getting coverage on Joystiq.

Greetings. Uproarer here.

"Russell calls for some middle ground to be walked, lest the industry fall into turmoil, but neglects to offer any advice to Sony or Microsoft. Are we to be doomed by bugs and boredom?"

The real issue here is that Sony allowed a bug which prevents the player from finishing the game to be shipped in the retail pressing of Genji. We don't know how exactly this happened, but it's pretty ridiculous. QA in the game industry is not well-respected, and commonly looked down upon. For this reason, it's possible that the testers who found the bug were unable to convince the producer(s) to fix the bug, or they lacked the proper channels of communicating its severity.

This is not a joke of an article to post, it is a real bug that affected many players who paid $760+ dollars for their PS3 and game, and were inconvenienced to the point that they lost all progress leading up to the bug. A little screaming on the part of those affected is a good way to say "hey, something needs to change within your QA department".

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a constructive progression of solid QA methodologies and practices throughout the industry.