>If they would just make it work right the first time, the way software used to be developed
Was this ever true? Was there really some golden age where everything worked or were we just blissfully ignorant to the problems?
Was this ever true? Was there really some golden age where everything worked or were we just blissfully ignorant to the problems?
I think part of this comes from the much smaller testing surface - my old vacuum cleaner has one button for power and one dial for suction power, so it's quite simple to write a bug-free implementation. Same for my dishwasher, laundry machine, etc. They generally come with a very limited number of inputs, and a microcontroller that runs through a state machine based on the inputs.
* Games consoles and games were plug and play. Until the PS3 (late 2000s), none of the game consoles required any sort of updates. Yes there was hardware revisions but what you bought in the box was what you got.
* Most computers before the PC was dominate in the UK, just switched on and you operated them.
* Mobile phones didn't require updates, the only thing I need to do once was restart the phone because the sim needed to update a setting because I wasn't receiving SMS. These old nokia phones still work btw and my newer smart phones many don't work or can't be updated now.
* Almost all my media was on VHS and/or Cassette. As long as the player worked, my media would play.
I tend to do a lot of retro-gaming / retro computing now and all this stuff that is pre-internet and doesn't assume an internet connection just works (even on modern operating systems) without much interference.
There was of course bad products, but they didn't require an internet connection either so it was just a bad product that you replaced with something better if you cared to.
Video games have never been produced in an environment where bugs can be completely stamped out.
I think we don't think of them as having a ton of bugs for a few reasons; one, we didn't have the social media forums to post bugs and read about them, so unless you personally encountered a bug, you wouldn't know about it. Since most bugs only trigger under rare circumstances, most people aren't going to know about them. Secondly, since we knew there were never going to be updates, we didn't think about things not working as being 'bugs' that can be fixed... they became just part of the game.
That's true of old games (when updates couldn't be delivered), but certainly not any newer AAA game at release that I can think of.