The recent topic of film hot takes has been the news that pulpy Netflix horror show Stranger Things has been retconned in post-release edits, with the directors admitting to tweaking older episodes to keep everything plot-hole free.
An article on British GQ tackled the topic by immediately throwing video games under the bus, as the most egregious users of post-release patches:
“Innovation is so often fuelled by laziness, and now even the biggest gaming studios could afford to be negligent. Day-one patches have become the gaming industry standard; games are typically shipped in working condition but in need of a post-purchase zhuzh.”
It’s not that there aren’t examples of games being released in sub-par conditions, as the cautionary tale of the studio who cried Cyberpunk 2077 could tell you, but it’s certainly a leap to ascribe post-release patches (and innovation?) to laziness.
It’s generally known that developers are overworked, underpaid, and experience a multitude of negative experiences at work, from crunch culture to harassment. Patches are often a symptom of what’s really going on at these companies — mismanagement, rushed deadlines, understaffing, layoffs, mistreatment of part-time and contract workers, upper management refusing to delay the release, and QA testers not having enough time to find every single bug in an 80-hour game.
But don’t take our word for it. Many game developers and writers have weighed in on GQ’s choice of words:
But really, the best part of the whole story is… well, this addition to the end of the article:
Further Reading:
