Recently a couple of different flawed software products (both games, but that's not central to my point) have made me think about why we as users will accept some flawed software products but not others. Ultimately I believe this comes down to a question of overall utility (in a game context, is it more fun than, say, staring at a wall). This means for software that there needs to be something the software does well for us to look past the flaws.

On the one hand consider Mass Effect. The XBox 360 version I have has numerous flaws, including a notoriously buggy graphics engine, overly long load times and a conversation system where the skip key for the dialog (which you need after your first playthrough) is both undocumented and an option select button that tends to cause you to choose the wrong option. By any reasonable standard this is a game with some serious quality control issues.

And yet I've played far too much of it. I'm prepared to overlook the flaws in the implementation because as an action RPG it's pretty good. Even with the flaws I'm likely to buy the sequel because I enjoyed playing the first one.

In contrast stands Too Human. I purchased this after playing the demo when it turned out I should have considered the reviews. I didn't have particularly high expectations for this game, but even so it failed to deliver. Too Human doesn't really do anything well. It's not entirely clear what kind of game it wants to be and the compromise becomes uninteresting rather quickly. This would be bad enough, but it's the flaws that really put this into the "won't bother finishing" category.

Too Human introduces a new camera system that the developers apparently consider a significant improvement over previous systems. It's not. It may assist in a "cinematic experience" but in terms of actual gameplay it's a hindrance the game could well do without. On multiple occasions I found it impossible to move my character in the direction I wanted to go as the camera angle, and hence direction I needed to move, kept changing whenever I started going where I wanted. As I was in the middle of a large fight at the time, this was highly frustrating. This coupled with some nasty glitches in the combat system itself destroyed the entertainment value of the game.

It is my impression that the Mass Effect team knew their capabilities and didn't overreach. They built a solid action RPG, with technical flaws but on the whole entertaining. The Too Human team seems to have wanted to build everything at once, and in doing so have overreached and fallen short in all areas.

This is where I get vague and self-contradictory. Overreaching isn't always a bad thing. We don't ever advance if we always stay within our bounds. Advancement is generally good, I'm not giving up indoor plumbing any time soon. There are of course some caveats. Is advancement actually what your client needs or wants? Taking technical risks that are of minimal benefit isn't the responsible or professional course. Is the client aware of the technical risk? Clients who have risk sprung on them unexpectedly tend to get annoyed, especially if it's not essential. And most importantly, what are you doing to ensure that you do enough well so that they'll forgive you the flaws?