Roger’s $0.02 - $70 Broken Games

One of the more worrying trends in PC gaming is the habit of some publishers to ship broken and in some cases barely playable high-profile games. The most recent example of this was the highly anticipated cooperative multi-player game Redfall. Bugs, an unoptimized game engine, and a host of bugs plagued the game from the outset. Even gamers possessing an RTX 4080 GPU were affected by stuttering, low frame rates, and odd loading issues. For many owners, the game didn’t just feel buggy but unfinished. And unfortunately, Redfall isn’t the only example.

I’m a big Star Wars fan. The universe and the characters have always fascinated me. When I pick what to watch on Disney+ I inevitably select the Star Wars channel. Even Marvel’s rather deep catalog of the service fails to keep my interest. And I say this from someone who’s collected comic books for over 20 years. So when there’s a new Star Wars game on the horizon I keep a heightened awareness, waiting for its release. When Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was unlocked for installation on Steam I couldn’t wait. I left my PC running the entire day until it was downloaded and installed. It was also part of the reason why I upgraded my GPU. Having read the system requirements I wanted to be ready, within the constraints of my budget. The previous game in the series was fun and I generally suffered a few issues. OTH Survivor seemed rough from the get-go. From the constant need to reload shaders every time I started the game to the weird frame rate drops in the cutscene to the game outright locking up in the middle of the fight sequence. I couldn’t even force quit (haha pun “force” quit… get it?) the game. I had to force quit Steam to close the game. I repeat I had to force quit a digital game store to kill the actual game process. And it wasn’t just one time. I had to suffer through that process four more times. Eventually, an update fixed, I hope, the issue since it hasn’t returned.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. From the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight to Sony’s PC port of the Last of Us the amount of games released in a nearly unplayable state is too large to ignore. I understand that today’s gaming platforms and game engines are incredibly complex. When you throw in the wide array of hardware types and combinations of PCs the complex grows exponentially. But game developers and their publishers do owe to an audience that pays on average $70 for a new title some respect. $70 to play a game that’s non-responsive, crash-prone, or just plain broken is a huge pill to swallow especially in a period of high inflation and increased costs of living. Games are an escape valve from the pressures of a work week for many people. The added frustration and anger at having spent enough money for a week’s worth of groceries seems more like sadistic torture from Dante’s Inferno than an entertainment product.

My simple proposal. If game publishers and developers feel the need to release or rush out an unfinished game product onto the market they should also be fine with allowing a full refund to the buyer up to 14 days after purchasing and installing the game regardless of how many hours you've put into the game. Steam and Epic's two hour cutoff for a full refund is frankly a BS limit. Yeah I get the buyer's remorse but in some cases gamers, like myself, put in a sincere amount of time trying to work around bugs by assuming our machines are at fault. Most stores and manufacturers allow a policy of return for defective products be it a TV or appliance. The same should go for a product that one could argue is filled with so many bugs that it’s unplayable and therefore defective. At least gamers could at least feel that they have some recourse besides subreddit and Twitter posts.