5 Greedy Decisions That Changed Gaming For The Worse

At the beginning of December, 2020, anticipation within the gaming community was reaching a fever-pitch. The reason behind it was the release of Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red’s eagerly awaited dystopian RPG was meant to give gamers an experience they would never forget. In the end it did do that, just not in the way everyone wanted. Instead, the game became widely criticized and infamous as an example of a major developer releasing an unfinished game. Cyberpunk 2077 was so fraught with bugs and glitches, it topped more meme charts than game charts. Sadly this has more or less become the norm for the industry, with big companies deciding that finishing a game is no longer important as long as they meet company release deadlines.

Now it is certainly true that making a modern video game is very hard, with demands for breathtaking graphics, immersive storylines, expansive world building, etc. making it increasingly difficult to create a finished product that satisfies everyone. There is no denying however that the rush to get games out on the market before they are complete is very much a profit-driven one.

The factors leading into this current state can also be traced back to the transition between physical to online media. When games were exclusive to physical media such as cartridges, floppies, and later CDs, there was no way for companies to fix a game after it had been released. With games now being primarily distributed via digital means, things have changed. In 1997, following the release of the iconic Diablo, Blizzard also launched Battle.net, facilitating automatic patching of their games after their release. The era of the Day 1 patch, where games needed fixes immediately upon launch, was ushered in by Ultimae XI: Ascension in 1999. Subsequently, the emergence of Xbox Live and later PlayStation Plus, expanded this practice to consoles too.. With the emergence of Xbox Live and later PlayStation Plus, this was expanded to consoles too.

Still, it was not like the invention of patches itself lead to the practice of games being released unfinished. Up till the 2000s, fixing games through patches was heavily disincentivized for consoles. Xbox had a fee of $40,000 for companies needing to patch a game. This changed as opposition began to mount for such a hefty financial penalty, especially among independent developers who simply could not afford it. Eventually such fees were abolished, paving the way for what we see today. Now with the option to fix games long after they are released, coupled with no penalties for doing so, companies are more than happy to push out a game riddled with bugs as long as it keeps the bottom line where investors want it.