Hey everyone!

I've enjoyed being a part of this community and contributing my thoughts and support since Skyrim's launch. I recently published an editorial on Vivid Gamer discussing the rise of patches and how they might be changing the landscape of gaming in a negative way. Skyrim is a big focus of mine.

I would greatly appreciate your readership, alongside any comments and feedback If you enjoy the article, please share with your friends and fellow gamers by any means you like.

http://vividgamer.com/2011/12/31/has-the-internet-ruined-gaming/

Cheers!

I agree 100% I liked the old days better when games got released 100% complete because they didn't have the option to patch it later.

Read all of it. I completely agree, man. I miss the days of putting a game in and it WORKS. I STILL, to this day, play Metal Gear Solid. It IS my favorite game of all time (shoot, the whole series is). I was definitely NOT expecting this from Bethesda, all these issues. Things that I worked SO hard for in SKyrim just VANISHED today. Thankfully I got them back, but things like that are inexcusable. The developers for Skyrim even said themselves that Skyrim was the second time they had a TES title on the PS3 and said it would be better (issue wise) than Oblivion. Oblivion didn't have a frame-rate problem (for me), I never ran into any broken Quests, and I only recall 2 patches for Oblivion.

I never had framerate troubles with Oblivion either. It boggles my mind that they never patched the Vampire Cure issue, but my GOTY edition was about a hundred times more stable and polished than Skyrim.

I'm glad you enjoyed the article!

The sad thing is, while the atricle may be true, there's nothing we can do to stop devs. from continuing on as they are now.

Sure thing, man, it was well written. I used to live near Minneapolis. Love the city, shoot the whole state.


I disagree. I think that this issue can be boiled down ALL the way to the point of economics. If game developers continue to make great games, but with major software issues, then their reputations and thus SALES will eventually dry up as game players won't want to buy broken games anymore.

Eventually is the key word.

Fallout 3 had similar problems akin with skyrim, and that was...what, four years ago? Hate to say it mate, but Bethesda's reputation and sales are stronger than ever.

They should just release the completely finished product out when it is done. I feel like a punk when I buy a game for $60 and then the goty edition of it comes out and its only $20 with all the dlc.

The article itself is well written compared to your peers, do I agree with the headline or would be drawn to it...probably not.

Also if you accept feedback, be mindful of the number of questions you pose in an article and anything that can be construed as libel. (can you prove ps3 ppl are waiting on a patch to make the game playable - this implies an absolute unplayability which is not the case for a number of gamers).

Some may argue it is not playable, that is not the point of this comment, just saying companies have deep pockets and you can be easily marginalised if you are not careful with what you print.

A simple mitigation would be to add some PS3, this is not disputable or easily thrown out.

Yeah he can prove that people are waiting for a patch because most of them are on these forums saying so I swear you only make posts to try and start flame wars with people.

What...he can prove some ppl, he cannot prove all, did you miss what I said, and who is trying to start a flame war he asked for feedback, maybe you should stop flaming.

THIS!


Great article btw. I agree wholeheartedly and I hope bethesda reads it.

It's sad, I know, and yeah I feel that the old days of gaming (N64, PS1 and PS2), it was problem-free. I remember every game I put in my console, it just works! It's not like that now anymore.

A simple way to avoid the problems is to stick with exclusives. Another good thing about this is that it will save you loads of money. In this culture of day-one patches and unfinished games, as a result of this, I buy games less, focusing more on exclusives like Uncharted 3. I'm now looking for quality, not quantity to fill my shelves up.

Right on

Thank you for your comments, akkadian. I appreciate them.

I'm mindful that not every PS3 user is experiencing these issues (and frankly, inconsistency is part of the problem. Consistent problems = some missed code. Inconsistent = bad engine or problems all-around). I did ask for feedback and I appreciate yours. I'll be the first to admit a bit of exaggeration with that line in particular.

Thankfully, there's a big difference between "PS3 players" and "every PS3 player".

I'm concidered an "older" gamer I guess. (31 in 3 weeks) I read your article and it got me to thinking as well. I remember the days where one or two huge bugs in a game was big news. It lowered the overall score, people knew about it and bashed it. A game company would be scared sh**less to get that reputation back then.

Can you imagine how I feel being this is only the second game from this company I have ever purchased. (DooM) This was not a good impression to make.

It's exactly as you wrote. Totally relying on patches. I tell people that if any tester had simply played the game from begin to end, they would have found at least half the bugs in the released game.
And of course the bug testing system is supposed to be alot more complicated than that. So how the heck did they miss all these bugs??

^ Your signature...it's..it's just...brilliant...

Absolutely. The reliance on patches is fueled by the Internet's allowance of them. It's exactly as you said, on an even bigger scale. Co-founder of Naughty Dog Andy Gavin tweeted me and confirmed that it would have cost Naughty Dog and Sony millions of dollars if Crash Bandicoot had shipped with a serious bug.

It's just plain lazy. Patches are an inherently good thing - they fix what needs fixing, but they should not exist in the first place. Especially for a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.

Seriously. There is no multiplayer option in Skyrim, yet a functional game is dependent on being connected to the Internet.

Great artical man well done. Only one thing I'm puzzled with, I bought Skyrim a two weeks ago and never had a major problem with it. Sure there where some slow downs in some areas but I never had anything major happend . Except for one case I had a horse and I was getting attack and when I went to get off the game did glitched and my horse vanish (I was near Riverside when I lost my horse)....later I found the poor thing dead near the moutainside where you talk to the Greybeards. It was sad but funny...I'd like know how it got all the way up there .

Pretty good read, and I agree with a lot of it, but wow, that had a few unexpected spoilers.

I apologize for those - I tried to avoid anything too recent, though Portal 2 may have been an offender.

We have a three month rule at work. Anything made or shown before that is fair game to talk about lol. But this isn't work....

And thx Reflexmatrix. What's funny is this game made it very easy to think of that signature lol.

Very good article. I agree with it 100%. I've been playing video games for 30 years (my god, has it really been that long?) and I've also noticed this trend. I used get as many as 20 games per year. Now, it's quite rare for me to get any new games at all because they are so often released in an unfinished state. This trend of relying on patches to fix problems that shouldn't even be in the game is unacceptable. There is simply no excuse for such laziness.

You know what maybe bothers me the most about this whole mess? If a developer like Obsidian releases a game that is for many people nearly unplayable on release day people on this forum tear them to pieces, but when Bethesda does it people make little of it, claiming it is just a very vocal minority looking for an excuse to start a flamewar. Bloody apologists.