It's pretty remarkable as you look back across gaming's past, to think the vast majority of the industry's most influential titles released states that were never altered one bit through patches or DLC add-ons. Final Fantasy VII, Super Metroid, Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina Of Time, the developers behind these games couldn't even consider the possibility of patching in fixes later down the line. Despite some of them still having the occasional graphical hiccup here and there, the general consensus was whatever you pushed out the door and onto shelves better be your best work, or your reputation would be in tatters. These days, publishers like EA, Warner Bros., Ubisoft and Activision push for increasingly tight deadlines for developers to release their games, assumedly for the sake of cashing in faster and more often. They're unaware of the reality of game design (Xbox community head Phil Spencer even noted executives really "should play more games" to get a better understanding of everything), and it's led to an industry where companies are forced to fall back on patching their games to a state that in years gone by, would've been the norm.
