It’s hard to make video games. We’ve reported as much countless times on this website, often with details that reveal crunch conditions that still didn’t prevent the buggy game from happening. Video games must still work after they are released. Ideally, this should be under more favorable working conditions. This seems like an easy request. I don’t even mind if the game itself turns out to be bad. Games, even those that aren’t good, have to work.
Yet this year we’ve seen countless big games, like Pokemon Violet/Scarlet, FIFA, Overwatch 2, Gotham Knights, Saint’s RowMore ships arrive in terrible, poor states. Many of these games eventually fix their bugs and performance issues with updates and patches. Companies will need to ensure that games work when they launch if they want to charge higher prices for them, which is what they are doing now with the introduction of the next generation. Speaking of that…