JoWooD sorry for Gothic 3 expansion

By Robert Purchese Published 1 December, 2008

"Unsatisfying game" full of bugs.

JoWooD has publicly apologised for the mountains of bugs in Gothic 3 expansion Forsaken Gods.

Emergency patches have been released on the official website and the publisher plans to use community feedback to bulk out a subsequent update.

"JoWooD Productions would like to present their apologies to the fans for releasing an unsatisfying game," said a statement on German website PC Games (via the JoWooD forum).

"Unfortunately, it wasn't possible for us to release a game that could fully satisfy you, for different reasons.

"The game was released this year because that was what we and the community desired. JoWooD and Trine have worked under a lot of pressure, and to repair some of the mistakes we released the game with a patch, hoping to make it better," added the statement.

Michael Kairat, executive producer at JoWooD, went on to say that fans were presenting the publisher with "the full bill" for the amount of mistakes in the game.

None of this bodes particularly well for Arcania: A Gothic Tale (Gothic 4). JoWooD, however, has promised never to repeat this shambles.

"Together with Spellbound, we will make early beta tests for Arcania: A Gothic Tale, to be sure that past mistakes will not be repeated. JoWooD admits their mistake, and will prevent it from happening again," said Kairat.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 3 years ago

    So far for German "perfectionism".

  • UncleLou #2 3 years ago

    I blame the Indians! :p

    Seriously though. What a way to shit on the fans of the series. First the buggy and unfinished Gothic 3, now this. JoWood will never learn.

  • rowsdower #3 3 years ago

    Honesty with your customers is a rare commodity in the gaming world. They talk the talk, now we have to see if they perambulate the perambulate and get the patches out to fix the myriad issues in a reasonable amount of time.

  • des #4 3 years ago

    lol

  • UncleLou #5 3 years ago

    They talk the talk, now we have to see if they perambulate the perambulate and get the patches out to fix the myriad issues in a reasonable amount of time.


    Fat chance. It was the fans that fixed Gothic 3 (as far as it could be fixed).

  • sneetch #6 3 years ago

    @rowsdower
    "Honesty with your customers is a rare commodity in the gaming world. They talk the talk, now we have to see if they perambulate the perambulate and get the patches out to fix the myriad issues in a reasonable amount of time."

    Their "honesty" doesn't do much for me as it comes after they'd been caught.

    In complex products like a game bugs are likely (damn near inevitable on PC) but it sounds like they just admitted that they knew it was a pile of crap (quality wise), had known it would be a pile of crap for some time and released it anyway and now that the cat is out of the bag and they are 'getting the "bill" from the comunity for [their] mistakes' they try to sop the most vocal members of that community (i.e. their forum members) with this announcement. At the end of the day they still sold a product they knew to be completely bug-ridden. The damage done to their reputation can't really be fixed by an announcement to a bunch of people on a forum.

  • space_ace #7 3 years ago

    gothic and bugs? no way...

  • jaxon58 #8 3 years ago

    "The game was released this year because that was what we and the community desired."

    You really cannot release a game because the community wants it. Gamers always want games NOW! As a publisher, they knew what state it was in and should have held back the release.

  • zuul_ #9 3 years ago

    This from JoWooD??!?

    How deeply surprising!!1!

  • siro #10 3 years ago

    Every single German RPG of the last five or so years has been riddled with bugs to the point of obscurity in the release version...

  • Ainudil #11 3 years ago

    Honestly, as a professional full-time tester, this pains me.

    "Together with Spellbound, we will make early beta tests for Arcania: A Gothic Tale, to be sure that past mistakes will not be repeated."

    Are you effing kidding me? It is way too late to track bugs in beta. Bugs are tracked from day one. When you have a requirement or a design spec.

    I am guessing Spellbound run a V-model developement model. That would expain ALOT. Poor sods.

  • PearOfAnguish #12 3 years ago

    Careful JoWood, if you apologise for one buggy game you'll have to say sorry for your entire catalogue.

    Apparently one of the Forsaken God's bugs involves objects from Gothic 3 that were left in the game but minus the code that actually made them do something, so you can see these things lying around but can't pick them up.

  • UncleLou #13 3 years ago

    Every single German RPG of the last five or so years has been riddled with bugs to the point of obscurity in the release version...


    Well, Drakensang was pretty polished and bug-free, and I must admit I am struggling to think of any other German RPGs in the last few years. :)

  • mkreku #14 3 years ago

    Why would I be worried about Ancaria's fate (developed by Spellbound) because an expansion (by Trine Games) to Gothic 3 (by Piranha Bytes) was buggy? Isn't that like being afraid my Volkswagen Golf will break down because I read in the paper that some Fiat's have rust problems?

    Anyhow, we will still get Risen (by Piranha Bytes) sometime next year so these two other games/expansions are just bonuses, so to speak.

  • Gastrian #15 3 years ago

    Can't really remember having any problems with Spellbound. Didn't crash on my system and run very well.

  • UncleLou #16 3 years ago

    Why would I be worried about Ancaria's fate (developed by Spellbound) because an expansion (by Trine Games) to Gothic 3 (by Piranha Bytes) was buggy?

    Well, the publisher is the same, and they're famous for the sorry state their games get published in. Now I don't work in the games industry, but it was my impression that the publisher is responsible for accompanying the game development, testing, dating, etc., at least for the games that get explicitly developed for them? The Gothic series, The Guild, etc. always had a terrible reputation when it comes to the state of the release version.

  • MrWonderstuff #17 3 years ago

    You pay peanuts you get monkeys.
    Edited by 1 at 01/12/08 @ 16:47

  • Kain201 #18 3 years ago

    Sorry to say, but JoWood is an austrian publisher:

    http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JoWooD_Productions

    FAILED!
    Edited by 1 at 01/12/08 @ 17:16

  • _LarZen_ #19 3 years ago

    JoWooD is a joke!! Gothic 3 was so full of bugs and was utter crap becaus of it, they alsow stopped patching it. Now a expansion...with even more bugs.

    JoWooD can go f themself, im glad I buy most of my games on consolles, crap games like this never pass the quality check on a consolle.

  • Mr_Git #20 3 years ago

    It's nice to see JoWood haven't changed a bit since the last time I was unfortunate enough to buy one of their games.

  • Bumhug360 #21 3 years ago

    I bought a couple of their early games, all of which werre bugged (what was the one where they forgot to localise some of the content and suddenly you would get cut scenes in German, I narrowed it down to 3 games but thinking about it was probably all 3). Then I pirated them for a bit with all intention of buying if the game was any good (saved myself a few quid there). Then I just stopped bothering, some of the ideas they have for games is good and stuff I should enjoy but the end product is so buggy you just cant get any enjoyment out of it at all. How have they not gone bust already?

  • bwort #22 3 years ago

    """"So far for German "perfectionism"""""


    Jowood is a company of Austria not Germany little boy
    Edited by 2 at 01/12/08 @ 21:49

  • daftshadow #23 3 years ago

    @UncleLou

    It's not necessarily the publisher's responsibility to overlook the game's development and etc. It all comes to what's been negotiated in the contract that sets the responsibilities for the parties involved in the process of the game.

    There are many responsibilities that a publisher can have for a game but all may not apply. Publisher can be responsible for marketing and promoting the game. Publisher can be responsible for hosting the game; bandwidth for if it's an online game. Publisher can be responsible for overlooking the development of the game with all the nooks and crannies that goes with it. Publisher can be responsible for funding the game to have it developed. There are many possibilities of what a publisher is responsible for. It all comes down to what's in the contract.

    And for all we can know, we don't know what's in the contract for Gothic 3 expansion. But my assumption is that JoWood probably did have a hand in overlooking the development of the game. With it's track record of bugged ridden games, it's hard to say JoWood did not have a hand in this game.

  • jellyhead #24 3 years ago

    Jo WooD, bless.
    It's really annoying because they've published some good ideas and they could have been great but they always seem to end up releasing flawed gems. Is Gothic 3 worth dipping into now? Have the fan patches fixed it?

  • UncleLou #25 3 years ago

    It's perfectly playable, and it's by no means a terrible game. It's not as good as Gothic 1/2 were, but that's because of different game design decisions now rather than because it would still be buggy. The engine can still look pretty rough, mind - forests, orcs and buildings can look rather wonderful, other stuff (especially in the distance) can look horrid.

  • Bleh #26 3 years ago

    My experience with Jowood is they make a lot of promises but in the end you end up with nothing.
    No thank you, I'm not buying them anymore.

  • craziii #27 2 years ago

    jowood talked about fully when we weren't even partially satisfied?