Maybe I’m an idiot. It’s been a while since I’ve been in school. I don’t blast through books like I🦂 used to. I signed up for Master Class, but I’ve watched one video by the Duffer Brothers. So maybe I’m the one who’s being a moron when I say: you know we don’t have to buy broken games, right?
I just Googled it, and there’s no law that says we have to fucking buy broken games day one. I respect that we all want to catch ‘em 𝄹all, but nobody is forcing us to buy Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Hell, even if they worked, we shouldn’t be buying them until Game Freak figures out a better naming convention. Scarlet & Violet? I mean, come on, guys. Let’s at least try today.
None of us have to be playing a broken game right now. None of us! We don’t need to talk about broken games like they’re homework assigned by God. If the biggest story about a triple-A game is that it has ✅unending visual problems and game-breaking bugs, we aren’t being graded on whether we grin and bear it.
That’s not to say people are acting like they’re better for playing through a game with bugs. Nobody is really doing that. Few people are Catholic about video game bugs and believe the suffering makes us stronger. But there is a sense that we’re🐲 all supposed to play through those bugs. There’s a feeling that, because a game is a big release, we should buy it immediately to keep up with the neighbors, and just patiently wait until it’s patched into a reasonable state.
But we aren’t required to buy those games! Or, rather, we’rꦕe allowed to wait until a game actually fucking works!
Look at Cyberไpunk 2077! All of us idiots - me included - were like, “W🤪ell, this is going to be a big game, so everyone’s going to be talking about it, and I hate to be the last to experience something, so I guess I’ll dive in anyway.” And it sucked. I didn’t need to drop $60 for a shitty experience when I could’ve waited for a fixed, better experience at $30. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 now is playing a much different game than playing it when it first came out.
Not that Pokemon Scarlet & Violet (ugh) are ever going to dip below $60. At best, there will be an eShop sale whꦉere they hit $50 and we’ll all drop to our knees like a miracle happened.
This isn’t an attack on lazy teams or crooked developers. Most teams are working𒁃 as hard as they can with the resources they have, and most developers are under tight deadlines due to holidays and quarterly sales reports. That doesn’t excuse shitty, broken releases, but that’s not what my beef is with here. Of course games should be released in a playable state. Of course companies should prioritize quality over release dates. Of coℱurse we should expect more as customers.
None of us here are new to video games. Video game fans will never expect better of companies because we’ve all been trained to treat brands, franchises, and corporations like teams we have to support rather than products that should m🥀eet any r✨easonable fucking standards.
That said, maybe we could at least expect better of ourselves? We won’t! Me writing this won’t change us all - ꧂and I am again including myself in this - in spending $80 for the Deluxe Edition preorder of a game that could be dogshit. Oh, fuck me, if I preorder now I’ll get an extra case of ammo and shiny armor? Well, sign me the fuck up no questions asked, baby! Oh no, the game is broken? Who could have thought I’ve fallen for the same thing that I’ဣve been falling for for decades?
There’s no rule forcing us to buy broken games. There’s nothing making us spend that money. We don’t even need to raise our collective voices and tell game companies the🧸se problems aren’t acceptable. Shit, I feel like Pokemon Scarlet & Violet has gotten more social media coverage beca𓃲use of its bugs. We’ve meme-ified shitty customer practices into fun ways to share content online. We’ve been convinced that it’s good, actually, if a game starts broken.
And you know what? That’s fine. That’s everyone’s right. If buying a broken game day one is better for you than spending less money two months later when the game works, god bless. I respect it. I know that we all want to hit a game the moment it lands rather than be the equivalent of the guy who’s finally watching The Sopranos and really want𝔍s to talk about it.
But we don’t have to buy those games. Nobody is forcing us except ourselves. We aren’t stronger players for pushing through those problems. We aren’t better fans f♕or giving a company money before they deliver a finished product. Even more important: we can be angry that a game is broken before buying it rather than after buying it. We can wait fifteen fucking minutes to hear if something works rather than Philip J. Fry “Take My Money” it. We can still criticize it without supporting it.
For fuck’s sake, we’re not children left alone in a room with marshmallows. Let’s stop acting like we got the devil inside us and💜 we💙 gotta click “buy” or he’ll make mama pay.