Susan Arendt said:
A Bug By Any Other Name
We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?
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If the focus is on a central narrative, gamebreaking bugs can ruin that. They disrupt the pacing, they force restarts/retreads, they take you out of the setting... a story driven game lives or dies on its ability to pull you into the story and keep you there. Basically, story driven games must, to a degree, be
continuous. And bugs disrupt that continuity.
But
Skyrim doesn't focus on story. Lore? Sure -- but that's in the books, conversations, and other discrete snippets littered throughout the world (not a continuous narrative flow). The focus is on your character, and the ability to build and play him/her in each situation or encounter as you please. In a sense, it's the "modularity" of your personal story that allows bugs not to disrupt quite as much. And
Dead Island, the focus is on the moment-to-moment experience of combat. Once again, discrete events filled with enjoyment.
Maybe it's the difference between a beaded ('modular') necklace and a braided ('contiguous') necklace. If a single bead breaks, you can look at the others until that bead is replaced. If a section of the braided necklace breaks, the whole necklace is useless until it's fixed -- and it's much harder to fix.
The contiguous nature of some games works against them, because it allows even small disruptions to have far-reaching influence over the experience. When it pays off, it pays off big (your
BioShock and your
Mass Effect type stuff), but when it doesn't, it's near-catastropic.
Games like
Skyrim present content that
represents a sprawling world with a continuous, interwoven historical narrative... but it presents the content in pieces, relying on the player to connect the dots. And that player-made "connective tissue" is harder to disrupt, even by fairly major bugs.
Add: I'm
very with you on the
feeling something idea, though. It's something I exploit with my students all the time: If you can't
enjoy the music or the learning today, then
get mad at it, so at least you're really "in it." The greatest sin is to feel
nothing about what you're doing.