In this instance, when games were released without bugs of a game ending nature, everything was as polished as pixels could be, and when gamers bought their game, went home, and played it for months on end?

Sadly, so do I.

Do you complain when companies release games today that are plagued with bugs, lacking that finished product sheen that we grew up on?

Even more sadly, so do I.

Everyone, myself included, blames the developer for “not testing” properly, and it typically follows a short winded rant about how “back in the day” games weren’t released until they were completed, and tested and absolutely perfect. Yeah. I miss those days too, but there are some major factors that no one seems to consider.

The hardware world has changed, since “back in the day”, and even among the connoisseur of hardware, the chances of completely different rigs doing identical things in a completely different way is, well. It’s astronomical compared to our childhood (I really think ‘boyhood’ read better, but it’d be pretty sexist) days. Consoles were simpler, too. There was no “fix it later” mentality, because the QA labs could – Reasonably – test the majority of potential configurations the software would encounter, without breaking the bank, or delaying the game by several months. Sure, it’s arguable that with shorter games (How many, recently, have been more than five or six hours of gameplay?) that there is reasonable chance that the game could be tested on a larger hardware pool, but the amount of man hours and time to test every last permutation of hardware and settings just makes that unfeasible.

So, then, when a ridiculously buggy game comes out, who’s in the right to rant? Do we expect the developer to publish a list of hardware, settings, and combinations thereof?

No, that would be utterly absurd, and (much like the ToS, EULA and what have you, would never get read) a complete waste of time. They publish the minimum and recommended specifications to run their game, which is typically what has been tested. Unsurprisingly, there’s no suggestion of what you’ll get in terms of performance on that hardware, because there are so many ways of doing the same thing, and so many variations of installed and running apps.

People expect consoles to be bug free, primarily because all consoles are running the same hardware, and at least similar software (Some people may not be as up to date as others, owing to lack of internet connections or slightly more homebrew reasons), but chances are still slim that a “perfect game” is going to exist on a console anymore. The focus has become multiplayer, especially with consoles, and the rise of the internet has done nothing but fuel that shift in focus. The difficulty of compiling software that talks correctly to other versions of itself on any internet connection is so immense that most people reading this wouldn’t ever want to try it, or even be able to comprehend the amount of effort that goes into getting the game to communicate efficiently, even if the communication protocols are standard across a platform.

I get sick of bugs, just like anyone, but in my grizzled old age I’ve come to accept that they are part of life, now, and it’s not entirely anyone’s fault. I consider myself a gamer, and I consider myself a hardware enthusiast, and yet I am no more entitled to rant about a lack of functionality of feature X, Y, or Z because I know what I can run on my box.

Yes, bugs suck, yes I’d like them not to exist, but no, that’s not going to happen anymore, short of the perfect programming language that compensates for every variable that could exist. In short, that is never going to happen.

Bugs are something that aren’t going to go away, and as much as they annoy us, we are going to have to get used to it and stop giving developers such a hard time over it. They hate bug hunting as much as we hate bugs. Report it, by all means, but don’t head off to the nearest forum to mouth off and insult the developer, that will not make them work any faster or harder – And if they read it, it’d probably decrease their willingness to do the good job you expect them to, for the pittance you’ve given them at any rate.

Chill out and get used to them.