We have seen PC games released in the past several years that were so buggy that it took months for the developers and publishers to fix the problems via patches. We have also seen games that have been canceled before they are published. However, this week marks the first time we, and many others, can recall a game being canceled after it has been released due to massive amounts of issues.
The game is Ashes Cricket 2013 and earlier this week it was released via Valve"s Steam service by publisher 505 Games. The pro cricket game was immediately slammed by the people who decided to buy and play it for a number of gameplay, visual and other problems. You can see an example of the issues in the video above which shows the cricket players actually running through each other.
Ashes Cricket 2013 was only available on Steam for a brief period before it was pulled from the service. On Thursday, Rock Paper Shotgun got a statement from publisher 505 Games, who put most of the blame on the developer of the game, Australian-based Trickstar. The statement said:
The chosen developer, even with their many years of cricket game development experience, was unable to overcome the unexpected challenges that the chosen game engine threw up, even with multiple extensions to the development schedule.
505 Games offered up their apologies to the game"s licensors, ECB and Cricket Australia, along with fans of cricket games in general. The publisher also promised to refund the money to anyone who bought the game on Steam. However, there"s no word on why the game was released, however briefly, in the first place, considering that 505 Games seems to admit that they knew it was not yet ready to be launched.
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun