Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light finally gets PS3 co-op

Crystal Dynamics hasannounced via Twitterthat the PS3 version of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light has finally received co-op play via a downloadable patch. The feature was hyped before the game was released, but was sidelined when it wasn'tfinished on time.

Guardian of Light was a critical part of Microsoft's Summer of Arcade promotion, so even though it wasn't complete, it was released at full price. Crystal Dynamics promised to introduce co-op mode via a 360 patch by the time the PS3 version came out in September.

Thatdidn't happen, andin a press release about the PS3 version, the publisher changed its marketing messageto exclude co-op hype, mentioning only that it would be added at a later date with a patch. The Xbox 360 version finally got its patch last month, but until today, the PS3 version was not addressed.

Finally, today, Crystal Dynamics posted this message on Twitter: "PS3 online co-op title update is now live! Huzzah!"

The ordeal has made it apparent how different game publishing is today. In previous generations, there was no room for error, butonline connectivity nowhas developers and publishersviewing games as evolving products.Release-day bugs in games like CoD: Black Ops and Fallout: New Vegas are being patched after the fact, and entire features, like Guardian of Light's co-op mode, are being retroactively included (the PC version, by the way, is still unpatched).

What do you think - has the ability to patch games caused them to suffer at launch? Or is it preferable for games to be released on time with the understanding that they'll be patched?

[Source:Twitter - Crystal Dynamics]

Nov 22, 2010