Yeah, think it's justifiable, depending on the reasons it's used, of course. o.o I don't even really factor size into it- though of course commiserate with those who have data caps or the like- depending, again, on circumstances. Way I see it, the patch is bullshit only if it's trying to make a Bad (here meaning non-functional, crashy mess with core features missing) 'Decent' or 'Good,' i.e. stable and playable. But if they're trying to make a Good game Better, (better performance, glitch fixes, etc,) then good! Now, the argument here seems to be 'Well, Why Don't They Just Make The Game Perfect On Release?' Because, especially for the big, massive, open-world, inventory-side-activity-quest-extravaganza titles, that's just not going to happen. o.o Eeever. Witcher 3's been getting steadily improved and tweaked with patches for months, and there's STILL room for improvement; there are probably brand new bugs that were created BECAUSE of the patches, that they'll have to track down and fix in future patches. Regardless of how long they keep patching for, they'll probably stop patching before they 'fix everything.'
Of course, the difficulty in 'properly fixing' a game depends on the game itself. You might be able to get a visually simplistic, low-end shooter that literally runs down a single corridor, only has one gun, one enemy type, and a simple alive/dead state with no health bar to run 'Perfectly,' but that's largely because FAR less stuff can go wrong than with a more complex title.
But even in the case of the bad kind of Day One patches, the ones that try to fix a game that is broken without them, the existence of a Day One Patch isn't the problem. =P The problem is an industry that has so carefully planned every minute detail of its 'launch strategy,' from advertising to distribution, the closer you get TO that launch date, the less likely a publisher is to just throw everything away and start the hype train from scratch half a year later. Generally the chances of a delay are better if a game is still many, many months out, but it can be tricky to always say with certainty whether or not the game will be 'ready' by a date that's still eleven months away, because the thing about having things go wrong- which is inherently what a bug is, something going wrong, not according to plan- is it's inherently unpredictable. (There are exceptions, of course. I seriously doubt the Pro Skater 5 people DIDN'T see that shit coming.) And when you're talking about what's actually a good game- with bugs, but still stable, functional, and enjoyable- it's virtually impossible to say, six months in advance, how many bugs will remain when you go gold, because you probably haven't FOUND them yet.
Besides, you guys know that eliminating a Day One patch wouldn't actually make the games release in better quality, right? Even if a developer couldn't release a patch for, say, the first month the game was out, they'd just hold onto the patch for a month (hopefully continuing to improve it in the meantime,) and release it then. =P The only way you might make a dent in SOME of the industry's habit of post-release fixes is if you eliminated patching. All patching. Ever. Made it so the game on launch day is how the game must remain in perpetuity, and developers can't make any tweaks, improvements or fixes once it's on sale. But, y'know, that's a reeeeeaaaally bad idea. o.o
Of course, the difficulty in 'properly fixing' a game depends on the game itself. You might be able to get a visually simplistic, low-end shooter that literally runs down a single corridor, only has one gun, one enemy type, and a simple alive/dead state with no health bar to run 'Perfectly,' but that's largely because FAR less stuff can go wrong than with a more complex title.
But even in the case of the bad kind of Day One patches, the ones that try to fix a game that is broken without them, the existence of a Day One Patch isn't the problem. =P The problem is an industry that has so carefully planned every minute detail of its 'launch strategy,' from advertising to distribution, the closer you get TO that launch date, the less likely a publisher is to just throw everything away and start the hype train from scratch half a year later. Generally the chances of a delay are better if a game is still many, many months out, but it can be tricky to always say with certainty whether or not the game will be 'ready' by a date that's still eleven months away, because the thing about having things go wrong- which is inherently what a bug is, something going wrong, not according to plan- is it's inherently unpredictable. (There are exceptions, of course. I seriously doubt the Pro Skater 5 people DIDN'T see that shit coming.) And when you're talking about what's actually a good game- with bugs, but still stable, functional, and enjoyable- it's virtually impossible to say, six months in advance, how many bugs will remain when you go gold, because you probably haven't FOUND them yet.
Besides, you guys know that eliminating a Day One patch wouldn't actually make the games release in better quality, right? Even if a developer couldn't release a patch for, say, the first month the game was out, they'd just hold onto the patch for a month (hopefully continuing to improve it in the meantime,) and release it then. =P The only way you might make a dent in SOME of the industry's habit of post-release fixes is if you eliminated patching. All patching. Ever. Made it so the game on launch day is how the game must remain in perpetuity, and developers can't make any tweaks, improvements or fixes once it's on sale. But, y'know, that's a reeeeeaaaally bad idea. o.o
