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Porting Disaster - TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Porting a program to another system is seldom an easy task. If you had the good fortune to be able to consistently use cross-platform libraries while writing the original program, you might be able to get away without having to do any code rewriting. Otherwise, you're looking at significant rewrites ahead. Multi-Platform development can help avoid this, but if the developers are rushed, the version for the system with which they're least-familiar will likely suffer.

To qualify the program as a Porting Disaster, one or more of the following major points has to be present:

• Game-Breaking Bugs only present in the port in question.
• Poor performance compared to games of similar or greater complexity on the host platform. This point can be subdivided into two areas which may or may not both be present:
  • Inconsistent or perpetually slow frame-rates.
  • Ridiculously long loading times, given the complexity of the program.
• Poor quality visuals, audio, or controls which can't be excused by the host system's technical limitations.
  • Failure to take advantage of the advanced features available on the new hardware, resulting in a port that looks or sounds terrible despite the potential to sound or look just as good being present or an option.
  • Clumsy controls, even if you try to forget the old control layout. For example, imitating pad control badly on a keyboard or touch screen, not supporting mice or customised control setups in a console-to-PC port, trying to cram too many hotkey functions onto controller buttons in a PC-to-console port, or forgetting entirely that a console-to-PC port even has a keyboard at its disposal. This is a common problem with arcade-to-consumer ports, particularly games that use unique cabinets/controls: the controls have to be adapted for players who may not want to spend $500 or whatever on a dedicated controller just for one game, assuming such a controller is even made.
  • A common problem with the graphics in console-to-PC ports is the field of view: A narrow FOV that makes sense for playing on a TV on the other side of the room can and often does cause motion sickness when played on a desktop monitor. (The same reason, in fact, that console gamers are advised to sit a reasonable distance from the TV in the first place.) It's particularly an issue with first-person games.
• Substantial amounts of missing content, such as whole levels, playable characters/vehicles, weapons, and the like. This was frequent with ports to early Nintendo systems, certain things used to get changed around with no overall impact on quality (such as removing crosses or direct mentions of God and Death), but when the change was notable to the casual observer (e.g., "wait, wasn't there a cool hovercraft minigame between these two areas in the original version of this game?"), then it became significant.

Also, keep in mind that "ports" for earlier systems may not be technically considered as ports but rather as conversions. Video game hardware of the late seventies to the mid-nineties tend to differ dramatically from one platform to another, and while that may still hold true with today's consoles, the lack of cross-platform libraries, platform-specific behaviour (the Atari 2600's video hardware was vastly different compared to the ones on the NES and arcade systems) and the generally low-level nature of programming then would account for at least some disasters.

Contrast Polished Port, where a game is greatly improved during the development of a ported version and Arcade-Perfect Port, where a ported arcade game appears identical from source arcade to destination console/computer. Unfortunately those tropes are much less common than this one.

Also related is "consolitis"; a game is designed for both PC and consoles, and suffers in the eyes of PC gamers who are used to the greater capabilities of high-end PCs. This is especially evident in franchises that began as PC games, but later installments expanded their markets; as a result, the sequel will be noticeably less refined gameplay than its predecessor.^note A somewhat similar thing tends to happen with multi-platform games that also get released on Nintendo consoles ever since the Wii was released in 2006, as the Wii and its two successor consoles had/have nowhere near the horsepower of their competitors, which is why Nintendo consoles don't get a lot of these games. Games that get released on all 3 consoles today tend to have significantly worse Metacritic scores for the Switch port, though companies that actually care will work around the Switch's limitations. The same thing can happen when console games get ported to a handheld device, when done right you get something like The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. When done wrong, well, there's a link to an entire page of examples below.

For the movie and animation equivalent of this, see Digital Destruction.

Please only add examples of games that contain game-breaking bugs or are broken to the point of unplayability, not minor glitches or annoyances.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until six months after the ported program is released, to avoid any knee-jerk reactions. However, examples may still be added even if the port was fixed during the six-month period, so long as the port had clear issues on its initial release.

• Disastrous Console Ports
• Disastrous Handheld Ports
• Disastrous Computer Ports
• Disastrous Multiplatform Ports

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