First off I have nothing against Skyrim itself. I haven't played the game not because I have some angst or venom against it. It's just not really my kind of game. If someone gave it to me and I had nothing else to do I'd probably enjoy a good few hours with it.
Here's the real issue I have: Skyrim, like many of the recent games released by its publisher, came out buggy and the publisher knows it. The last 3 Bethesda games that were released (Brink, Rage and Skyrim) have all come out with varying levels of bugs that all require patching very shortly after release.
I understand that nowadays all games come out with a few bugs and patches are to be expected, but Bethesda is known to be a greater offender in this department than most publishers.
Brink had _major_ issues on release and day 1 patches. Rage had quite a few problems (especially with OpenGL drivers) and has been through various patches too. Now Skyrim has spawned a bunch of issues and a patch forthcoming. I've read of various crashes to desktop, various flying critters (that shouldn't be flying), the entire floor dropping away in a city killing the player and all NPCs as they plummet to their doom, etc...
Even the fallout franchise has suffered from all sorts of bugs under Bethesda's wing. Remember the ingame cinematics on youtube where the one character's head does an exorcist style spin while he's sitting there talking to you?
The other issue with almost every one of these games is the lack of a proper interface for PCs. There is nothing wrong with porting a console game to PC if you put in the little bit of extra work to make the interface work with a keyboard and mouse. Apparently you browse your inventory in Skyrim using the WASD keys? And you can't use the mouse? That shows some serious lack of care and polish.
And here's the thing, I don't blame any of the developers for what's happened here. They're having to balance their passion for making something they believe in with the allowances and deadlines that their publisher is dictating. And then their publisher expects them to sprint like crazy, pulling mad crunch time to fix all the bugs when it's the rush to market that has resulted in so many bugs in the game.
None of these games have been bad games but they've all suffered from what seems to be a rush to market and a lack of quality control. Bethesda aren't the only culprits here but they are one of the most prominent offenders. Bethesda would rather rake in our cash early than allow the developers an extra month to polish up the game. They'd rather use the public as their quasi-beta testers than put the game through rigorous quality assurance to iron out as many bugs as possible. Somehow I feel like I'm getting fleeced every time I give them money.
And this brings me to why I hate the success of Skyrim (and Fallout, etc). Bethesda are shifting millions of copies and making planetloads of money and noone is stopping for a moment to say "Hey, Bethesda. I won't buy any of your games until they're in a playable state."
By buying a million copies of their games people are effectively saying "It's ok to release unfinished games with a AAA price tag attached. I'll still buy it and then wait around while you finish coding it."
And the more people say that the more Bethesda will do it.
If you want to buy unfinished games and wait around for them to be completed there's a much better solution. Look into the Alpha Funding games here on Desura. Rather help a small indie company who engages with their fans create a superb game than throwing your money at Bethesda in $60 chunks and hope that they get around to patching your issues.
Personally, I've stopped buying Bethesda's games. I got badly burned on a purchase not long ago. A purchase I preordered in good faith and then had to not only deal with getting the game late (European release times: y u always so far behind ??? -picture of memeguy-) but then found it in a state that, while playable wasn't exactly fun (invisible enemies, no sound on 1/3 of the levels, bad balancing, disappearing save data) until a few patches later.
Maybe I'll miss out on a few good games but I can no longer bring myself to support a publisher that treats it's fans badly and seems to have a pattern of greed over quality.
I will (and have) spent some money (almost nothing by comparison) on alpha funding though. Games that look to have real promise with just as much fun as the big titles being developed by guys with passion that are walled off from their community by a publisher with barbed wire and flashy adverts.
Next time you're looking at a AAA $60 game maybe you should check online to see how many bugs there are and, if there are many, spend a few $s on alphas and pick up the AAA title a month later once the major patches have gone through. It'll be 1/2 price by then anyway and you'll have access to both the AAA and the alpha funded games.
And then maybe the publishers will start taking the hint?
