i love big version releases
Today, I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses: I’m thinking about how exciting new software releases were for me in the past.
Even though there were often years in between, the progress felt monumental, like things were moving fast and the developers wrapped a neat little bow around the thousands of new features and designs they brewed over years. It was exciting to get it - felt like the future. So speedy. So shiny. So much to explore and figure out. You’d get what felt like a good overhaul1 building on top of a solid foundation and worth investing in. Like a clean canvas, a dedicated era both for you as the user and for the company brand. Just remember back to what your life was like during Windows XP! Things like this can mark a definitive period in your life and spark trends and nostalgia - if done well.
But now, more and more software is moving to a live service model. Progress seems to move at a snails pace. The overall look and feel of software (and to be honest, also hardware design) morphs so slowly, you cannot tell the difference. I guess the only way you will is if you look back in 5-10 years.
The only substantial thing they added is found and explored within minutes and that’s it. Easy to do, since it was advertised front and center everywhere. There’s not much excitement, but some dread - will it brick my device? Will it corrupt my save file? Are my files compatible? Am I constantly getting my mods broken? Is it introducing new bugs? What basic function is neglected now in favor of the new shiny thing?
There’s no signature style, no memorable design you’ll associate with that brand, that work, that time of your life, that could one day evoke nostalgia. No eras. It’s all just the same. Flat. Characterless. Oh well, maybe it will be remembered for that. For how things gradually changed without anyone noticing, without evoking any feeling, without deepening the brand. Kind of how I looked at Samsungs new design today, looked at my iPhone’s control center, and sighed.
Live service with its constant little updates has made troubleshooting and searching how to do something hell. I used to be able to google a version and issue (think: Photoshop CS6 lasso) and find what I need. But since things get switched around in live service without a version name to reference well, you’ll have an internet full of outdated information showing up in searches. Where’s this setting? Well, sure as hell not where the user forum said a year ago. And sorry for early access games catching a stray bullet here, but this goes for them too and is awful.
This live service nuisance means we have even less control of when to update and for what. Now we’re railroaded into even more subscriptions or add-ons or expansions instead of staying on a reliable, basically complete, standalone version with a one-time purchase. People with older hardware are forced to upgrade to keep up and keep running it, instead of staying at the version their hardware can handle. If they cannot afford a subscription anymore, they lose access. Those are real economic barriers that weren’t there or as high before for a lot of basic software! And as a cherry on top, there likely won’t be a product outliving a company this way, since there won’t be a version to survive on and keep when they call it quits or go under.
All that - so UI elements are designed in an uninspired way and shifted from left to right and back with no improvement? Other things remain largely unaddressed or unchanged while the concerns and criticisms people have seem to go nowhere? All while there’s more connectivity needed, more data collection on how you use the product, less privacy? While normalizing a culture of shipping an unstable product with missing features because “it’ll all get fixed along the way”?
That’s why I will miss big version releases with their fanfare and all; why I am sad to hear that Windows and Office365 are switching to a live service model (even though I don’t use it aside from work), that Sims 5 will never come and Sims 4 as well as Project Rene will just be updated and added on to, just to name two examples on top of my mind. It sets a bad precedent with surely more and more companies and products to follow that trend. Now we’re fed continuous slop. Sigh.
Published 30 Nov, 2024
Was it ever truly? Probably not, but at least it seemed so from a user perspective.↩