Escapist Editorials: A Bug By Any Other Name

[Bostur]

I think I'm very forgiving about bugs. As long as they aren't game breaking and I enjoy the game, bugs doesn't matter. Sometimes strong community support can even make game breaking bugs bearable by hacking save games or other technical fixes. I guess it comes with the territory of playing ancient games on unsupported platforms.

I'm much less forgiving about design flaws. Skyrim is not particularly buggy, and I never noticed any bugs in AP, but both are haunted by some quite severe design issues.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

I think the reason some people love games in spite of, or because of, the glitches depends on what the glitch does.

If even one glitch makes a game unplayable at any point with no means of avoiding or easily fixing it, then gamers would rightly feel like the game is a waste. I don't know about the gaming community as a whole, but I would HATE to have to backtrack through an hour of work to find one missed passageway or one botched conversation or worse... Starting the whole game over again and hopefully finding everything the next time around.

Glitches that don't halt or erase progress can be more tolerable if they aren't too distracting or can be easily fixed. Faces randomly going into screwy expressions? That's hilarious from time to time and doesn't usually crash the game right away, but it can fall into the BAD category if it can't be fixed quickly and easily without having to use a previous save file.

 

[Estocavio]

I have not had one single bug in Skyrim.

Ontopic though, it depends on the bug.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Very subjective, and sometimes not.

I loved Alpha Protocol. I bought it in a bargain bin and went in expecting it to be terrible after all the reviews people had given it and it was probably one of my games of the year. Granted it doesn't have much replay value for me, but it was still absolutely fantastic while I was playing it.

I think I tend to be quite forgiving of bugs, because I played a lot of terribly broken games back in the old PS1 days. While everyone else was chilling with Metal Gear Solid and Crash Bandicoot I was playing Bugs Bunny Lost in Time or the old and broken Spiderman game. I grew up thinking that bugs were the norm for games, rather than the exception, so when I started playing games where there were so few bugs that you could sometimes get all the way from beginning to end without experiencing a single glitch it was like heaven on earth.

Also, I sometimes think I get very lucky with most of my games, because I haven't experienced even a tenth of the issues some gamers talk about. Like Tomb Raider: Underworld. No one would stop going on about how the buggy camera made it impossible to control her, or how certain enemies got glitched into walls, or certain puzzles didn't work because the right key didn't spawn. I never got any of that, I got a game that I have been able to replay ten times at least, and not once have I experienced a glitch. Of course, some of this might also be to the above. I'm used to games where the camera every so often just goes wacky, and I'm able to counter a lot faster than some of my gaming friends.

I watched one of my friends playing Mass Effect once, and the camera did some sort of skewed thing where you couldn't actually see the left side of the screen, but you could still see the HUD and the aiming reticule. I've had that glitch, and I compensated with two shots, whereas he ended up getting killed by some low level mercenaries because he just couldn't deal with it.

 

[bjj hero]

A Bug By Any Other Name

We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?

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Could those 2 pages have been summarised as fanboyism? I love Bethesda so terrible bugs and glitches can be ignored?

I enjoy a good RPG but Ill wait for the GOTY edition of skyrim hoping the bugs will be ironed out.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

A Bug By Any Other Name

We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?

Read Full Article

That's a very good question, one I've wanted to a lot of people writing for this site more than once.
I don't think you actually answered that question in the article.

As far as I've been able to tell, critics are just willing to give some developers way more slack than others for no real reason. From where I'm standing, the bugs in Skyrim and Dead Island were much less forgivable than the one's in Alpha Protocol, which tried a lot more new things than either of those games, or something like Drakan, which didn't have anywhere near the same amount of resources or publicity behind it.

Honestly, I don't think this article really does anything beyond asking the initial question. I think it's the first one of your articles I've seen that didn't bring any kind of meaningful argument to the table.

 

[Susan Arendt]

A Bug By Any Other Name

We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?

Read Full Article

That's a very good question, one I've wanted to a lot of people writing for this site more than once.
I don't think you actually answered that question in the article.

As far as I've been able to tell, critics are just willing to give some developers way more slack than others for no real reason. From where I'm standing, the bugs in Skyrim and Dead Island were much less forgivable than the one's in Alpha Protocol, which tried a lot more new things than either of those games, or something like Drakan, which didn't have anywhere near the same amount of resources or publicity behind it.

Honestly, I don't think this article really does anything beyond asking the initial question. I think it's the first one of your articles I've seen that didn't bring any kind of meaningful argument to the table.

I'm not talking about critics. I'm talking about regular, ordinary players. Why do we, as an audience, let some games slide, but crucify others? Based on the discussion that's arisen, it seems like there was some meaningful discussion to be had.

 

[RJ 17]

I think the main reason we forgive some bugs while getting pissed off at others depends entirely on just how big the bug is. Peronslly I've had very few bugs while playing Skyrim (though I have seen the Giant Space Launch as seen in the video linked at the end of the article...I about died from laughing cause the guy who got launched was an orc chief who thought himself a bad-ass but who was really quite worthless to his clan). The bugs that I've had mainly consist of wrag-doll dragon corpses (fully flesh-and-scale dragons, not skeletons) just faling from the sky and flopping onto the ground when I fast-travel into a city. Another one was when entering a home, apparently all the objects loaded in before any of the furniture, so all my plats, books, food and what-not were all over the floor. Also every now and then when I fast-travel to the world there'll just be a dead horse laying beside me.

But in general I've encountered no bugs that actually ruin the gameplay for me other than the rare game freeze every now and then. As such I'm able to happily play Skyrim and declare it the best game I've played literally in years. Conversely, however, I can see how players on the PS3 must be pulling their hair out and saying the game sucks. Backwards-flying dragons, resistances not working, and the imfamous "you've been playing for too long so here comes a tsunami of lag". Were I playing it on the PS3, I'd probably think very differently about Skyrim than I do now.

So it's not entirely about just liking the game so much that you give it a pass. A game can be absolutely amazing but if it's bugs are just so overwhelmingly bad that you can't even play it then it's really like being in an abusive relationship...you love the game but every time you meet you end up having to tell people you got the black eye by falling down the stairs and not from headbutting a doorknob in frustration.

 

[Falseprophet]

I loved Alpha Protocol. I bought it in a bargain bin and went in expecting it to be terrible after all the reviews people had given it and it was probably one of my games of the year. Granted it doesn't have much replay value for me, but it was still absolutely fantastic while I was playing it.

This is closest to how I felt about AP. The only serious bug I had was when my PS3 crashed at the end of one of the Rome missions, and apparently corrupted my save file. Luckily, I always use multiple save files so I just had to go back to an earlier one. I had to replay the mission, but only lost an hour or so of gameplay because of it.

Really didn't care for the boss fights and never got the hang of most of the gadgets, but the conversation and RPing were great.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I've seen you guys use this picture on like 3 different articles.

Skyrim is a big game, can we please get anything other than that mammoth picture uploaded?

Ok, fair enough. We just really like the mammoths here in the office, but we'll be mindful of that in future.

 

[deathbydeath]

Honestly? Brand loyalty.

The Elder Scrolls is a long running series, with an established fanbase. It doesn't matter, therefore, that every game since Morrowind has had huge amounts of game-breaking bugs. People want to play the newest TES game, and will happily ignore even the most obnoxious of bugs if it means they get their latest Skyrim fix. You can see it even on this website- unless they're getting negatively affected themselves, many Skyrim players simply don't care about the broken PS3 release.

Compare this to something like Alpha Protocol- being an original game, no-one really knows what to expect when they first play, so they approach it with a far more suspicious mindset. A playthrough of Skyrim can have dragons flying backwards and quest items disappear from the player's inventory, and they won't mind too much, but if the protaganist does so much as move funny while he's crouching, and all of a sudden that same player is willing to call foul bloody murder.

It's simple psychology: the familiar versus the stranger. Game franchises we're familiar with, we're more willing to forgive for their flaws, for the same reason we can easily forgive a close friend for a faux pas they may make. Whereas untried games and franchises are new, unfamiliar territory for us, and any mistake they make is the same as having some stranger walk up and sneeze in your face.

It's part of the reason why the industry is so geared towards sequels and reboots. Gamers simply have different standards for existing games than they do new games, and that includes bugs. No publisher wants to release a new property if there's even the slightest chance gamers will tear it to pieces over some glitch in the final level, not when they can release another installment of Gears Of God Of Battlewarfare 6, and gamers will happily accept any glitches as part of the experience.

this is so bloody true, and yet i'll hold up alpha protocol as a model of what game devs should strive for, because the model is so drastically different than the norm. it manages to be both linear and usually offers multiple styles of play (something deus ex didn't do), while maintaining a very memorable sense of style that is both spy-esque and completely insane (both in terms of gameplay and story) and yet feels consistent.

compare this to a medieval fantasy sandbox that is the fifth installment in a series that has been constantly receiving awards with a massive budget, and it's no wonder that people are almost completely indifferent to massive bugs

additional note: and people claim that sky rim defies game industry trends. that makes me larf.

 

[Dastardly]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with your point however. It doesn't matter how 'loose' a game's narrative is or how open its world, gamers will often have their view of a game coloured by certain loyalties. For instance, compare Fallout 3 to Fallout: New Vegas.

Oh, they definitely will approach it differently. I'm just saying it's two separate issues. Brand loyalty is one issue, and the forgiveness of bugs is another. There's overlap, to be sure, but there are other reasons for the latter than only the former. Also, brand loyalty can work against a game as much as for it (how much uproar was there against Fallout 3 because it was so different from the first games?)

(Aside: To me, the reason Fallout 3 and New Vegas were so differently received was the change in environment. New Vegas was bigger, and it had more to do... but it didn't feel the same. Simple reason? The Mojave is already a "Wasteland."

When we were in DC, we had to see familiar landmarks laid waste. Ruins of treasured monuments, signs that life had once thrived here. We were in survival mode, but in the presence of constant reminders that it used to be better. That made it feel more like a Fallout game. Moving things out to the Mojave undermined that. There were far, far fewer "ruins" to encounter. It was a deserted wasteland... just like before the fictional war.)

I may well be wrong. But when you look at how much of gaming is driven by this tribalistic Us vs Them mentality, ranging from the console wars to which shooters people prefer, I can't help but think that the same sort of tribalistic mindset affects how people react to bugs.

Yep. I'm simply offering an alternate explanation, accounting for why this phenomenon occurs even among people who don't have the brand loyalty. It's no doubt a combination of several reasons.

 

[veloper]

You know, having just replayed Alpha Protocol only a week or two ago I didn't find it buggy at all. Horribly broken in several fundamental ways and with some terrible design decisions and atrocious balancing issues, but not actually buggy. In fact I don't think I experienced a single genuine bug my entire playthrough. The game crashed on me once, but that was it.

There's a difference between frustrating and stupid but nevertheless deliberate choices on the developers part and bugs.

Same AP experience here. The problem was the gameplay, not bugs.
Maybe the xbox360 version was buggy and Susan played that.

 

[seraphy]

I feel it is more of brand loyalty or something.

People often say how bugged New Vegas was, yet Fallout 3 was just as bugged when it was released. But people regularly ignore that little nitpick to bash at Obsidian and New Vegas.

And well when compared to Skyrim both Fallout 3 and New Vegas were both super stable.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Considering the PS3 version of Skyrim becomes damn near unplayable, no, I won't give a game, even one I love, a pass.

All games have glitches, all games, to varying degrees of harm or amusement.

Sometimes they get adopted as "features" (Red Dead Redemption's "Donkey Woman"), but then other games get 9s and 10s and they're barely functioning.

I mean, have you SEEN how long the list of known bugs and glitches is for New Vegas?
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_bugs

Such is the case with Skyrim. Granted, Skyrim SHOULD be a game I love. I want to love it more than I do. I love many parts of it. But the damn game does not WORK after a certain point.

An unplayable game is a worthless game and it hurts to say that Skyrim, for me, is a worthless game I cannot play.

My opinion is no game, no matter the size, no matter the hype, no matter the budget, should get a "pass" from critics because they're okay with the glitches. No game that crashes so frequently and is so poor technically should receive universal acclaim, perfect 10s, and recommendations that everyone should buy it and support these business practices.

I can't ethically go through it... and as a game developer myself, I'm going to dedicate as long as I possibly can on testing the game to ensure I don't release a product as broken as Skyrim to my paying customers.

Everything here times over 9000.

Bethesda needs to stop throwing parades and hyping their products as God's gift to gaming because both Oblivion AND Skyrim, on both my separate stationary gaming computers, are buggy as fuck.

 

[Yosarian2]

I am generally willing to forgive bugs, even serious bugs, if the game is still just that good. Best example I can think of is Master of Orion II; that game was incredibly buggy, you had to remember to save every turn because the odds were so high later in the game that the game would crash on your next turn and you would have to go back to your save file. But despite that, the game itself was so good that it was worth playing anyway; it's been 16 years since it was released, and no one else has managed to make a 4x space game anywhere near as good. Only turn-based strategy game I've ever seen that I think is as good as MOO2 was CivIV, and that was 10 years later.

Basically, in order to be forgiven a very buggy game, you have to pretty much blow the fans away and do something really spectacular.

 

[Susan Arendt]

You know, having just replayed Alpha Protocol only a week or two ago I didn't find it buggy at all. Horribly broken in several fundamental ways and with some terrible design decisions and atrocious balancing issues, but not actually buggy. In fact I don't think I experienced a single genuine bug my entire playthrough. The game crashed on me once, but that was it.

There's a difference between frustrating and stupid but nevertheless deliberate choices on the developers part and bugs.

Same AP experience here. The problem was the gameplay, not bugs.
Maybe the xbox360 version was buggy and Susan played that.

Nope, PS3 version. From what I'm told, the other versions aren't really buggy at all, just that one.

 

[rod_hynes]

Nope, PS3 version. From what I'm told, the other versions aren't really buggy at all, just that one.

I think that's the problem. For the most part, us gamers are not coders or even if we are, how many of us worked on the games we are complaining about. How many problems are things we have 'heard' about, or have been 'from what i'm told' kinds of problems. Even if you experienced a problem in a game doesn't mean that you game is broke. Maybe you didn't fulfill all the requirements of the quest-line. Just because your having a problem doesn't mean the game doesn't work.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

A Bug By Any Other Name

We forgive some buggy games while shunning others. Why?

Read Full Article

That's a very good question, one I've wanted to a lot of people writing for this site more than once.
I don't think you actually answered that question in the article.

As far as I've been able to tell, critics are just willing to give some developers way more slack than others for no real reason. From where I'm standing, the bugs in Skyrim and Dead Island were much less forgivable than the one's in Alpha Protocol, which tried a lot more new things than either of those games, or something like Drakan, which didn't have anywhere near the same amount of resources or publicity behind it.

Honestly, I don't think this article really does anything beyond asking the initial question. I think it's the first one of your articles I've seen that didn't bring any kind of meaningful argument to the table.

I'm not talking about critics. I'm talking about regular, ordinary players. Why do we, as an audience, let some games slide, but crucify others? Based on the discussion that's arisen, it seems like there was some meaningful discussion to be had.

As I said, it's an interesting question that merits discussion.
I just don't think the article answers it so much as dances around it.

Also, I would say that critical and general opinion seems to be unified on this issue.
No one will call out Bethesda for releasing games full of bugs every single time, even though they've been making the same style of game for long enough now that they really should have learned to avoid these problems at least a little, while smaller, less hyped games will get ripped apart for their glitches regardless of how many innovative or risky things they try to do.