When what you feared comes true

Those of us who have been playing computer games long enough became all too familiar with companies selling us broken games that they fixed later, or in some cases never really fixed at all.

You'd buy a game, get it home, and then find it was such a crash ridden and bug ridden mess that it was nearly unplayable. The company that sold you a broken game knew it was broken, they just didn't care, they had your money and so they take the attitude that they can just "Fix It" later.

And by "Fix It" I mean "Finish".

When consoles began their inevitable march toward online ability we looked forward to playing consoles with an unlimited number of people across the world instead of just playing them with a few local friends but online capability has brought with it the twisted game developer idea that a game can be released then patched later.

Now, this is not to say any game developer who patches a game after it's released is up to no good. Most companies want to release products that are stable and function correctly and sometimes in spite of their best efforts a title can go to market with a serious flaw. Patches that improve a game, fix issues QA missed, or just clean up little annoying issues are always welcome.

On the other hand we've already seen games that came to market obviously broken and in need of months and months of more development/testing... But hey, a patch is released later so it's fine now right?

No it isn't.

Situations will crop up in which a patch will never be released for one reason or another. The most common of these situations is that a game was rushed to market because the company or group that was making it was about to go bust and they hope a quick infusion of cash from sales will keep them going for awhile... Except it doesn't happen and they close up shop, leaving a broken game on the market.

What's sad is that people predicted this. In all of the screaming excitement about consoles going online there were a few quiet voices bemoaning the forthcoming "Release it now and fix it Later" games, and our fears are coming true.