Since the title’s launch on PS4 last October, which was met with technical issues and online components of the game being reworked and updated, news on the free edition of the game available for PlayStation Plus have still been ongoing, with PlayStation Europe’s Jim Ryan addressing the title’s status, as much as he can at this time.
Speaking in an interview, Ryan spoke on the status of Driveclub and that the free edition that would be made available to PlayStation Plus subscribers is “still being looked at,” though Ryan also mentioned that he “can’t say anything on this stage” more to give official confirmation on the game’s PlayStation Plus release, or when to expect it. Ryan further detailed more on the development of the game and the PlayStation Plus edition, mentioning:
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">“I gotta tell you that everybody in this building and in the development community was absolutely distraught that that was the case.”
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">“I don’t think anybody should labour under the opinion that there was any feeling of insouciance or anybody being relaxed about that being the case. People were working 24/7, and that’s an expression that’s lightly used but people were working 24/7 trying to fix this.”
Ryan also addressed the recent topic of titles seen in an unfit state of release, mentioning the team’s efforts on correcting issues with Driveclub at launch and the ways the team is correcting that in the future, detailing:
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">“But I think one thing that the industry appears to have misjudged in the generational transition – where there’s a lot spoken about moving to a more straightforward PC architecture that should make it easy for developers to come to terms with next gen and all of that – is I think the massively enhanced online ambitions a lot of developers and publishers have identified as one of the opportunists of next gen, appear to have been way more technically challenging than anyone realized.”
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">“And QAing this stuff… a lot of it is load placed on servers, simply due to concurrency. It’s hard. Again, that’s not to excuse publishing something that’s not fit for purpose. In any form of entertainment, in any business… whether it’s a washing machine, whether it’s a book, whether it’s television, whether it’s a video game you shouldn’t put something out until it’s ready.”
http://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/themes/dualshockers2/images/blockquote_icon.gif) 20px 0px no-repeat transparent;">“One would hope, and certainly we’ve learnt an awful lot from the Driveclub experience, that those mistakes, once made, should not be repeated.”
Driveclub is currently available in retail and digitally for PS4, with a free edition through PlayStation Plus still in development.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/02/23/playstation-europes-jim-ryan-addresses-driveclub-on-playstation-plus-free-edition-still-being-looked-at/