How did this myth get started?

[chadachada123]

The reason, OP, is that games didn't get patched in the old days except on PC (and even then, for a choice few set of games).

If a game was broken at launch, it stayed broken. And Nintendo wouldn't allow that. They had to do extensive bug testing first instead of shipping first and then patching later. Were there still bugs? Absolutely, but they were rarely immediately obvious for well-made games, unlike, say, Bethesda games today.

This is especially true for game-breaking glitches.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Older games did have glitches. Hell, Daggerfall had to be patched twice before it would even run on most systems, from what I've read.

 

[Shocksplicer]

Actually this is completely true. Older games did not have any glitches at all.
Back then they were called "Features".

 

[Sean Steele]

Pick up any NES game that isn't one of those long time beloved classics and chances are you have an unplayable piece of crap.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I have no idea. I've been gaming since the mid-80's and I'm well aware that older games were full of glitches and bugs and what not. What irritates me about gaming today is the corporate mentality that pervades the industry and the whiny self-centered unreleasable dipshittery that pervades my fellow gamers.

 

[Fijiman]

I seriously doubt that there are more than a very small handful of games that have almost no glitches or bugs. However, the chances of any game not having some sort of bug for at least a few people are almost zero.

If I think about it long enough I could probably think of several bugs/glitches/weird occurrence that I've seen in several games over the years, but the only one I can think of that's pre-2000 is the item dup glitch in the Pokemon games.

 

[esperandote]

Lets say bugs can't be patched right now. How would they stand agaisnt old games? Wich group would have more unplayable games?

Edit: I'm talking about games from half decent developers up.

 

[Risingblade]

People today seem to forget that games today are also a shit load more complex then they were back then. Of course there are going to bugs It's unavoidable.

 

[SeeIn2D]

What do you mean? Old games were 100% glitch free. Like Super Metroid. And Pokemon RBG. And Tribes. And pfffttahahahahaha

I see what you did there! Because all of those games have massive amounts of glitches! I made a smart!

But yeah I think it's because of that fact that back in the day games had a lot less hardware to go wrong so there weren't that many small glitches, but when the games did go wrong they REALLY went wrong. Nowadays there are very few game breaking glitches barring massive games like TES and Fallout, but there are a lot more little glitches like the human animal hybrids in Red Dead Redemption or the break dances corpses in any FPS. Also it's definitely nostalgia. No one wants to remember the games they loved as kids as buggy and terribly flawed.

 

[rob_simple]

People today seem to forget that games today are also a shit load more complex then they were back then. Of course there are going to bugs It's unavoidable.

There is definitely an element of truth in this; you can't expect a space shuttle to operate as smoothly as a bicycle.

I do still think that this generation has saw some of the most buggy games since the early days of gaming though; my main problem is freezing. I remember the days of blowing on the cartridge and putting it back in again, and this was probably a more regular occurrence than I remember, but it diminished as time went on (I genuinely don't remember doing it with the N64) and once we made the jump to discs the problem was still there but not as prevalent unless you had a dodgy disc.

Cut to today, and almost every other game I play will crash at least once in a playthrough; and I've tested this across two seperate 360's and PS3's before anyone suggests it's my one dodgy console. I remember I was suffering from constant crashes in Skyrim until someone on here suggested I delete a few of the saves I'd been, well, saving and lo and behold the problem was (mostly) solved. But my problem is this: If multiple saves are known to cause this problem then limit the number you can have.

And speaking of Skyrim, it's also a wonderful example of another problem today I know people have already mentioned: patches. Some, not all, developers are rushing products out to meet deadlines with the knowledge that they can fix it later. They are using us as unpaid testers, and are in fact charging anywhere from £40 and upward for the privilege.