Why are new games buggy, but old games aren't?

[DiscoGhost]

Those games were bugged, badly, but spreading the information and news about them was also a lot harder.

Also the variability of content within each game that could go wrong was much lower as well.

i agree. think of mario 64 and ocarina of time. both have huge game breaking glitches that no1 didnt find until after release. (stair but hop and deku tree warp to ganon)

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Watching any speedrunner will make you retract that statement.

speed runners are very entertaining to me. how on earth do people find glitches and stuff like that is beyond me.

[Orkwuzhere]

NOTE: This is not a complain or a whining post at all I'm just wondering about the different eras of video games.


Hey everyone, I have been thinking about this for a very long time.

Why in the old days of video games (SNES and Sega Genesis era) it was a very very rare thing to have a certain game bugged?

By saying bugged I mean completely unplayable. Is it because back then there was no such thing as adding a fix patch online to fix it? and when it really happens it will be a disaster because there was no such thing as fixing patch online download and stuff. So the developers are way way more careful about releasing their game very fast? or they did have bugs but because we were back then so young and naive when it comes to video games so we are not able to notice it? or isn't because back then video games didn't have online component?

Nowadays it's rare to have a video game that is 100% perfect not buggy. So developers usually release fixing patches online to fix the issues.

Discuss and thanks for reading. I hope I made my point clear. :P

There is no such thing as a bug-free game. Even old NES and Genesis games have bugs people found years later.

Yes, I know I've been beaten to this 5 pages ago.

[MetroStratics]

I remember having to constantly blow on my old cartridges to get them to work.
Games now-a-days don't fail to start up, they just fail to not suck.
Mostly because we are too critical and impatient for them to come out in a pristine state.

[Orkwuzhere]

I remember having to constantly blow on my old cartridges to get them to work.
Games now-a-days don't fail to start up, they just fail to not suck.
Mostly because we are too critical and impatient for them to come out in a pristine state.

Remember how we waited 11+ years for Duke Nukem? Remember how it turned out to be a piece of shit?

People will wait for the game if it's going to be playable and fun. Blame publishers and guys like Bobby Kotick for making developers rush their games.

[Mysterymask]

FF6 has less crazy bugs than usual, but they are still quite insane:

Don't stress it dude

Less Crazy bugs?

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Sketch_Bug

^ that can completely erase all of your saves and crash the game simply for a misclick....in fact on that same site click on the bugs and glitches category and just see how many FF6 has compared to the rest (A lot of which can probably be attributed to 6 and 7 being more popular the the others but who's counting)

[Kuntantee]

The single and the important reason is current games are way way more complex. The most complex 2D games are isometric games and technically, they are not hard to implement. In old games, there is no physics, no modern illumination techniques, shaders were new technology or didn't exist back then so no shaders too. Game systems (technically) and usage of network were trivial (like no reconnection, on-the-fly server switch). AIs were also very trivial compared to its current status. Today, we can download game assets while playing it, awesome! Going from 2D to 3D brings immense level of complexity. We used to develop 2D games back in university for fun. We have never tried 3D games because unless you have commercial aims, developing a 3D game for fun is not fun and requires bigger teams.

I would like to give an example. 1.5 - 2 years ago when I was playing GW2, people were complaining about clunkiness of game's controls (complaints were mostly on turning right or left was a bit slow and animations are clunky) and then most proceed and claimed how GW2 developer suck compared to WoW which has the most naive and trivial implementation of 3D physics (not saying its a bad thing tho). Fluid control is directly correlated the physical system implemented in game. Physics and Animations on GW2 are way way more realistic compared to WoW. Can you suddenly turn back to left, right or behind suddenly in real life? No. You see, the more game approaches to reality, the more we will feel clunky because that's how real life is, clunky controls. What I am trying to say is that the more complex and realistic games come with a price.

Finally, other than corporate greed on unfinished buggy product, there is also programmer factor. Programming is a hard craft to learn (yes not science, not art, its a craft) and most universities are failing on that. Chance of a programmer graduated from university being shit is highly likely and that's not because students are dumb but more of traditional approach to programming courses. Just like any other craft, the earlier you start, the better you become. It's because programming is all about determination and most importantly experience. Many influential and prominent programmers started programming in early ages (9-13). You can find many articles / discussions among programmers society that how current state of programmers are failing to meet expectation etc. There is a big sub-programmer problem in the world.

So these are two reasons why current games are more buggy from my perspective. While programmer factor, I think, has very little impact relative to complexity reasons, it is still important in a more "meta" sense.