New games buggier than old games?

[Ketsuban]

Spun off from Extra Credits: Piracy [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.258307-Extra-Credits-Piracy]...

Speaking of buggy software, I'm wondering if you guys can do an episode on why modern games seem to have way more annoying bugs than he earlier gen consoles?

I wouldn't say they are. If anything they're less buggy, because greater networkedness and the rise of firmware means companies can release hotpatches to fix bugs which previously would have required a new cartridge to be mastered and shipped to vendors. (This does mean they can get away with a policy of "release first, patch later", but I don't know to what extent that's just pessimism on our parts.)

I'll use an example I'm familiar with: Sonic the Hedgehog 2, for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. There's three bugs worthy of mention in the very first version of the game: one cosmetic, two crippling. The cosmetic bug is in the credits; someone's name is spelled "Tohmas" instead of "Thomas". The two crippling bugs are
1) the game will be wedged in an unplayable state if you collect all seven Chaos Emeralds, and then double jump so the second jump takes you over the goalpost at the end of an act;
2) if you land on a Rexon enemy in Hill Top Zone in the right way the game will lock up completely.
Both require a system reset, which loses all progress since this is before the days of trivial game saves - on the Megadrive, all games which want to implement a save function require extra hardware on the cartridge to store the save data.

Fortunately the very first mask release wasn't too widespread - most people know of the second version which fixes the cosmetic bug and the double-jump bug. The Rexon bug remains present in the game [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buRLsXWH5g] regardless of which version you have.

 

[No_Remainders]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

 

[Woodsey]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

New Vegas is the extreme, considering the engine it used and the people who developed it.

OT: Not really. I imagine bugs were just more accepted way back when, especially when considering how fucked you were if you had anything major (terrible download speeds, lack of internet, etc.), you just needed to get on with it.

 

[Squilookle]

Of course they're more buggy, for several reasons:

1- they try to do more: these days more than ever each game has to have some kind of 'killer feature' to it, which puts the emphasis on the game more often on innovation at the expense of having what you've already got running smoothly.

2- Graphics are being pushed more than ever as a cheap eye-candy way to get quick sales, and by focusing so much on how things look, less effort is going in to how things work.

3- In the old days, you released a game, and that was it. Nowadays you can release some half-assed half finished game and fix it later with patches. Or sometimes they don't even bother to do that.

4- with more focus on so-called 'realism', it becomes all the more obvious when a game doesn't quite get there. glitches far more often end up as proper bugs, rather than the fun kind of glitches that older games had which could easily be explained with a bit of imagination.

 

[Evil Tim]

I wouldn't say they are. If anything they're less buggy, because greater networkedness and the rise of firmware means companies can release hotpatches to fix bugs which previously would have required a new cartridge to be mastered and shipped to vendors.

Games these days are routinely released with zero-day patches; in other words, they know the release code has bugs in it and don't even correct them before shipping it. This would be impossible to do ten years ago.

Both the examples you give are very, very specific; nothing of the order of broken pathfinding and memory leaks (Supreme Commander), quests that don't work or complete themselves (the first two STALKER games), getting a missile launcher I can't reload or discard jammed in my inventory on almost every level (Crysis 2)...

 

[Googenstien]

Yes on the most part, the reason why is pressures to get the game out. Then the use patching later as an excuse to fix/improve on the go. So the reason why can be attributed to less time to develop games.

 

[Valagetti]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

Also its Obsidian, its what they do. Look at Knights of the Old Rebpublic II

 

[Arachon]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

I'd say no, look at Fallout 2.

 

[Ketsuban]

Games these days are routinely released with zero-day patches; in other words, they know the release code has bugs in it and don't even correct them before shipping it. This would be impossible to do ten years ago.

Would it? The only reason you know they know about the bugs but won't fix them before shipping is because of the existence of the zero-day patch. They could have known about the bugs I mentioned in the OP, but chosen not to fix them. Sonic 2sday was just as high-priority an event as any release date is today, when you factor in the differing size of the industry in 1992 versus today.

I'd contend the fact they made the zero-day patch is evidence they DO want to fix them, but were prevented from doing so because they had a release date to hew to and weren't given any leeway.

Your point about bugs in newer games being more serious is well-made, though, since my examples are a little contrived (although both quite easy to accidentally trigger in normal gameplay). I can provide other examples of bugs in Sonic games which might be more comparable, like rolling off the end of the level [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNm9Ah4Gl4] in Labyrinth Zone, or how going too fast [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEBS2piYUVM#t=0m19s] leads to an unavoidable death in Green Hill Zone (that's actually a bug, not an intended behaviour, since it has to do with how the screen boundaries are moved in that segment of the level), but they're probably pretty minor by modern standards.

 

[No_Remainders]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

I'd say no, look at Fallout 2.

At least Fallout 2 didn't systematically reset your reputation.

It worked, NV didn't.

 

[efeat]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

Also its Obsidian, its what they do. Look at Knights of the Old Rebpublic II

While KOTOR 2 had a myriad of problems, I can't blame Obsidian too much for that one. LucasArts gave them less than a year to make the whole game. With only ~10 months to developer a sequel to one of the best RPGs ever, Obsidian was pretty much set up for failure from the start =/

...But they have no excuses for New Vegas.

 

[erztez]

While KOTOR 2 had a myriad of problems, I can't blame Obsidian too much for that one. LucasArts gave them less than a year to make the whole game. With only ~10 months to developer a sequel to one of the best RPGs ever, Obsidian was pretty much set up for failure from the start =/

...But they have no excuses for New Vegas.

Actually, they do.
One word.
Gamebryo...

 

[LadyMint]

Of course they're more buggy, for several reasons:

1- they try to do more: these days more than ever each game has to have some kind of 'killer feature' to it, which puts the emphasis on the game more often on innovation at the expense of having what you've already got running smoothly.

2- Graphics are being pushed more than ever as a cheap eye-candy way to get quick sales, and by focusing so much on how things look, less effort is going in to how things work.

3- In the old days, you released a game, and that was it. Nowadays you can release some half-assed half finished game and fix it later with patches. Or sometimes they don't even bother to do that.

4- with more focus on so-called 'realism', it becomes all the more obvious when a game doesn't quite get there. glitches far more often end up as proper bugs, rather than the fun kind of glitches that older games had which could easily be explained with a bit of imagination.

All this, and if we talk about PC games, the PC is a customizeable console and chances are most people have a different one from the person next to them. Everyone and their mother will swear up and down that their computer should be able to play a certain game, but we still have to hope that the game designers have done enough programming to meet as many PC configuration scenarios as possible.

So yeah, I think there are more glitches in games today, but I think you have to expect that with how advanced some games are by comparison.

 

[erztez]

]

All this, and if we talk about PC games, the PC is a customizeable console and chances are most people have a different one from the person next to them. Everyone and their mother will swear up and down that their computer should be able to play a certain game, but we still have to hope that the game designers have done enough programming to meet as many PC configuration scenarios as possible.

So yeah, I think there are more glitches in games today, but I think you have to expect that with how advanced some games are by comparison.

You mean consoles are standardized PCs, right? RIGHT?!

 

[Irridium]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

Also its Obsidian, its what they do. Look at Knights of the Old Rebpublic II

Thats because Lucasarts cut off a year of development time so they could release it during the holidays and fulfill their "one Star Wars game a year" quota.

OT: I'd say they're generally more buggy. There are some that are still pretty bug-free(Halo: Reach. The game hasn't gotten, or needed, a patch since it launched 7 months ago), but for the most part games need a patch a few weeks after launch. Which is a very bad thing.

And damn, 7 months without the need for a patch? Damn, thats unheard of these days. Unless its a Nintendo game.

 

[manythings]

I think its something like for every ten lines of code in any form of programme there is at least one bug. Increase the number of things that happen at any given time and then there will be bugs caused byt interactions between programmes. Now think about everything that happens in a game at any given time and the huger amount of coding that goes into the gigs and gigs that make up games nowadays and you can see that it's surprising when there are relatively few bugs nowadays.

It's still the same difference between a modern car and one from the 50's.

 

[drosalion]

Theres alot less pressure nowdays to get games perfect on release, thanks to the internet, updates, patches, DLC, etc.

Think back 5-10-15 years ago when u had a game release on like an N64 cartridge. If there was a bug or glitch that was game-breaking then that was it, the entire game was ruined and there was no way to fix it. Now even consoles are connected to the internet and can download patches or extra content if need be.

 

[LadyMint]

]

All this, and if we talk about PC games, the PC is a customizeable console and chances are most people have a different one from the person next to them. Everyone and their mother will swear up and down that their computer should be able to play a certain game, but we still have to hope that the game designers have done enough programming to meet as many PC configuration scenarios as possible.

So yeah, I think there are more glitches in games today, but I think you have to expect that with how advanced some games are by comparison.

You mean consoles are standardized PCs, right? RIGHT?!

Yes, yes, forgive the wording. XD I play so many games on my own PC that I sometimes think of it as a gaming console and nothing else.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Considering the increased complexity in programming a videogame, it's probably more likely to produce bugs.

If I were to tell a programmer in the 80's that I have a hat simulator taking up several gigs of memory, their brains would melt.

 

[Avatar Roku]

They are a lot of the time, at least on release, see Fallout: New Vegas

It's because of the fact that they can just throw out updates after a month or two and everything will be better.

Also its Obsidian, its what they do. Look at Knights of the Old Rebpublic II

While KOTOR 2 had a myriad of problems, I can't blame Obsidian too much for that one. LucasArts gave them less than a year to make the whole game. With only ~10 months to developer a sequel to one of the best RPGs ever, Obsidian was pretty much set up for failure from the start =/

...But they have no excuses for New Vegas.

It wasn't even that they were only given a year, it was that they were originally given more time, then that time was suddenly cut, hence the hanging plot threads like the HK Factory.