I'm perfectly fine with Day One patches. The old saying "The perfect is the enemy of the good" certainly can apply here. Games continue to receive patches years after release, so if you wait to have "everything" fixed, games just won't release. Every time you fix one thing, you risk breaking another. How many times have we seen one part of a game get fixed, only to break another part of a game that always worked suddenly develop a new issue?
Given the lead time for actual release, I would gladly take a Day One patch, knowing that if they made a change the night before release, I can still play on release day. If they patched it on-disc, that would be a couple of months delay. And in that couple of months, another patch would be developed, pushing the game back further.
I find it hard to justify comparing game releases now to game releases of years gone by. In cartridge-based consoles, most (not all) games were console-exclusive. Atari/Intellivision/Coleco, aside from a handful of mainstays, had completely different libraries. Same with SMS/NES, Genesis/SNES, and on down the line.
Today, you have a lot more crossover between XB1, PS4, and PC. Designing for multiple platforms, especially the infinite variability of PCs, already creates a difficult environment to manage.
That's a lot of words to say that I have no issue with the idea of the Day One patch. If it takes an hour to download and install a patch, so be it. I'm still playing it today, rather than getting the same version of the game two months later.
Given the lead time for actual release, I would gladly take a Day One patch, knowing that if they made a change the night before release, I can still play on release day. If they patched it on-disc, that would be a couple of months delay. And in that couple of months, another patch would be developed, pushing the game back further.
I find it hard to justify comparing game releases now to game releases of years gone by. In cartridge-based consoles, most (not all) games were console-exclusive. Atari/Intellivision/Coleco, aside from a handful of mainstays, had completely different libraries. Same with SMS/NES, Genesis/SNES, and on down the line.
Today, you have a lot more crossover between XB1, PS4, and PC. Designing for multiple platforms, especially the infinite variability of PCs, already creates a difficult environment to manage.
That's a lot of words to say that I have no issue with the idea of the Day One patch. If it takes an hour to download and install a patch, so be it. I'm still playing it today, rather than getting the same version of the game two months later.