A new game is coming out soon and you are super excited. Rather than spending a whole night camping in front of the game store of your choice to grab this game when it is finally releasing, you can now just purchase the said game from the comfort of your home, pre-install and start playing the second it officially releases.

This, just like so many other video game enthusiasts, has been me in the past. But recently, I have come to a very sad realisation. Things are changing. And in this case, change is not necessarily a good thing.

It looks like it hurts

Let’s go back in time a bit. To be precise, to March 2017; The month Mass Effect: Andromeda was released. Fans of the series had mixed feelings about this release as we didn’t get Shepard back. To be fair, we were warned by Bioware in advance, but a lot of us still had some hope until the release.  But this is beside the point. What I want to address is the number of bugs and glitches that came with the release of a game developed by a so-called AAA studio. 

Whilst some of the glitches were quite amusing, especially the ones that caused faces to do really odd stuff, some others were really annoying and even game breaking. Falling through floors, being kicked out of the Nomad (the planet surface vehicle for those who are not familiar with the game), up to quests that you can’t complete because the NPC walked through a solid wall. 

I am only trying to have some fun

In August 2017 Agents of Mayhem was released. Although not being Saints Row 5, it is set in the same universe and made by the same people who were responsible for the beloved Saints Row franchise. Whilst Agents of Mayhem didn’t suffer any major bugs or glitches, it just seemed bland. The music and the animations were great but playing in this world felt really uninspiring. It had next to nothing that one would expect from something set in the Saints Row universe. At no point was I confronted with something that made me think ‘I hope no kids heard that’ or ‘Did he really just do that?’. Agents of Mayhem wasn’t necessarily a bad game but I would certainly sum it up as “Meh”.

This is getting old now

Fast forward in time a little bit, skipping a few examples where I have “wasted” my money on. I ask you to think back to November 2018 when, you probably guessed it already, Fallout 76 was released. Let me say first that I really REALLY want to like the game. And I have tried to play it time after time. But, to this day it is just riddled with bugs. Bugs we have seen when Fallout 4 was released, the same bugs that were apparent with the initial Skyrim release. And yes, we can go all the way back to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to track some of the bugs and glitches.

I mean, we are already used to Bethesda releasing games which are riddled with bugs. But Fallout 76 did take it to another level. At times I felt that it was far worse than an Early Access game where you’d expect to walk into bugs. From animation bugs, where player models appear naked, the player getting stuck in their Power Armor, Fast Travel points on the map not being clickable to more annoying ones where enemies just kept respawning, randomly getting ammo removed due to server latency, completely whack hit detection, your CAMP blueprints not being stored properly, unable to complete quests due to various reasons and weeks after release and several patches, the game still just randomly crashing (and no, it’s not my hardware). To top this all off, walking around in West Virginia feels just lonely, mainly due to no NPCs being in the game and it is rare that you run into another player because the server player capacity is set to 24. PvP is a total mess because it’s just not really PvP. And don’t get me started on the outdated graphics engine which has been used again. And is one of the causes for a lot of the existing bugs.

Since Fallout 76 I have not pre-ordered a game or bought anything on release day. And trust me, I really wanted to do so with Anthem. Which brings us to February 2019. Let me just say that I don’t have first-hand experience with Anthem, due to a rule I set in place for myself, which I will explain later, and can only go by what I have seen on YouTube or read on various articles. But it isn’t looking good and I invite you to have a look for yourself if you haven’t already seen the plethora of videos about Anthem out there.

You’ve lost me

All this makes me wonder, what is actually happening with all these AAA studios which I used to trust and throw my money at? Is it the pressure of their publishers? Are the studios of a mindset that their fans will forgive them no matter what mediocre game is being produced? Or do the studios simply not care anymore, are making a game half-heartedly, hyping up a game before release and then hoping for a “quick” influx of cash?

Just to draw on one of the AAA studio examples above; Bethesda is currently working on Elder Scrolls 6. A game series which is dear to my heart and I really want it to succeed. But, due to everything that has happened over the past few years, I am honestly worried. Worried that one of my all-time favourite franchises is going to miss the mark and leave me, and many other fans of the franchise, hanging.

Personally, I am at a point where I trust Indie developers more than the AAA studios. But this might be steered by generally having lower expectations. Or maybe I should say that I am not raising the bar as high for Indie studios.

For now, I have set myself a rule and will wait at least a week to see how a game is after it was released. This will hopefully save me from some disappointment. Not sure if I manage to stick by my rule because Tom Clancy’s: The Division 2 is, at the time of writing, releasing in a couple of weeks. Time will tell.

Let us know in the comments what you think the reasons could be or what games have you bought and/or pre-ordered and wish you hadn’t.