Back in the early days of gaming, developers had to make sure they got everything right before a game was released to the public. Online patches didn’t exist yet, so there was no safety net for a game to be fixed after release. Once gaming machines started to go online, firmware updates became a reality, which was great in theory because games could now be improved over time. Unfortunately, this also enabled companies to cut corners and ship unfinished, or even unplayable, games. In the end, this practice only hurts the consumer, since the game publishers already have their money up front. These 10 titles are all examples of the current reality of a market filled with games that launch in broken states.
10. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the best open world RPGs ever made, with a gigantic, highly-detailed fantasy world for players to explore. Unfortunately, the sheer magnitude of game projects like Skyrim generally result in some significant bugs and glitches, and Skyrim had some big ones. The most significant was a bug on the PlayStation 3 version that made the game lag and become practically unplayable after a certain number of hours. Unfortunately, when Bethesda went to patch the game, a whole new bug was introduced in the form of hilarious, but frustrating backwards-flying dragons, which had to then be fixed with another patch. While Bethesda made great strides in addressing the game’s problems, it’s hard to escape the feeling that they were more concerned with getting the game out in time for its 11/11/11 release date then making sure everything ran as smoothly as possible.