Why are there so many bugs on pc video games?

[jupiter2]

When i began playi,g pc video games last year i discovered somethingcompletely new for me:bugs and patches.

In most of the games i played i often had to go on the web and search answers for bugs.

I learnt how important it is tomake several saves.

My question is :why are there so many bugs on pcs?Someone told me it is because many video game for pc build great universes which are more likely to have bugs tha consoles games.

But on consoles ,i never met for example bugs obliging me to begin a new party from the start.

Of courses there are several kinds of pcs whereas consoles are unique supports.

But dont you think that pc games would have more success if people had not to catch head aches because of bugs?

I often dream of a kind of "clever pc language",able to solve easily most of bugs for the user,a language able to understand the user,telling him what to do.

I mean nowadays,when you have a bug and that the computer tells you:"window looks for a solution to the problem"it does not help you very much.

 

[DexterMorgan]

Wide variety of configurations, both OS/software/driver and hardware.

EDIT: Shouldn't this be in General gaming/Hardware section?

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Lack of quality control, mostly. Unlike consoles, where all games are submitted to the console manufacturer for quality verification, PC doesn't have some central authority that decides whether your game is in a releasable state. Quality control falls squarely upon the shoulders of the publisher, who are usually only interested in getting the game into the market as quickly as possible and will often cut some corners to achieve that goal. Another factor is that until fairly recently it wasn't possible to patch console games, which precipitated the development of a tradition of rigorous quality assurance among console game developers.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Wide variety of configurations, both OS/software/driver and hardware.

This.

Every PS3 is almost exactly the same as any other PS3. PCs, let's face it, have more uses than just gaming, and configurations vary. There's not going to be entirely stable PC games, unless we get the same type of monopoly in the PC market, which had better not happen, because monopoly prevents progress.

 

[Roflcore]

+ pc games are more complex/longer

but personally, the mainstream games are IMO bugfree. F3 for instance did not have any serious bug (besides the game was shit but you know what I mean).
Only smaller companies have lots of bugs, but I don't mind since their games generally own every other pc-game

 

[PlanHex]

but personally, the mainstream games are IMO bugfree. F3 for instance did not have any serious bug (besides the game was shit but you know what I mean).
Only smaller companies have lots of bugs, but I don't mind since their games generally own every other pc-game

wut
Large companies make lazy buggy-ass ports all the time.
I think I even found a website once dedicated to boycotting all Ubisoft PC ports because they're usually sucky as hell.

Also, GTA IV. 'Nuff said.

 

[maximaz]

It seems to me like Japanese games tend to be a lot less buggy than others, especially western games. When I can't advance in a Japanese game, I'm always certain that it's not due to a bug. Has anyone else noticed, or is it just me?

 

[Eyenixon]

Stop lying to yourself, the Japanese don't make anything better other than butter knives.

 

[Roflcore]

but personally, the mainstream games are IMO bugfree. F3 for instance did not have any serious bug (besides the game was shit but you know what I mean).
Only smaller companies have lots of bugs, but I don't mind since their games generally own every other pc-game

wut
Large companies make lazy buggy-ass ports all the time.
I think I even found a website once dedicated to boycotting all Ubisoft PC ports because they're usually sucky as hell.

Also, GTA IV. 'Nuff said.

Well a port is a bug per default and I wouldn't call GTA IV bugged, its just marketing.

 

[Wooz]

There is no such thing as a "bug per default". And nobody would market their game for being bugged.

You make no sense.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

but personally, the mainstream games are IMO bugfree. F3 for instance did not have any serious bug (besides the game was shit but you know what I mean).
Only smaller companies have lots of bugs, but I don't mind since their games generally own every other pc-game

That's right. Sure.

Now stop lying to yourself, and face the truth. FO3 was buggy as hell, and it broke a new record of being buggy on consoles. Some bugs in it are also game-breaking.

 

[Roflcore]

And nobody would market their game for being bugged.

Well, shall I google sales numbers for you? Or you might wanna do it yourself?

@ausdoerrt
I don't remember any bugs beside the bug that was fixed in 1.1 (crashing after you exit the game). The game was ofc shit and unbalanced and all, but even my heavily modified version with tons of broken scripts made it to the end. Compared to smaller companies (Arcanum 1.0 ) they did the beta-testing right, but thats all credit I give them. Can't judge console versions since I don't own one (heard of the framerate at the PS3 but I thought that was a hardware issue)

Oh and yes, a port is a bug per default, forcing a computer to work in terms of a console is just wrong and I never seen it work.

 

[Wooz]

Well, shall I google sales numbers for you? Or you might wanna do it yourself?

You're slow, aren't you?

Nobody would include a game's bugs as a part of their marketing.

Oh and yes, a port is a bug per default, forcing a computer to work in terms of a console is just wrong and I never seen it work.

I think the problem lies in your understanding of the word "bug".

 

[swampcat]

bugs can be found onto all games : PC , consoles , PSPs and etc etc.....

Patches are things to solve bugs but sometimes it doesn't work.....

Glitches and bugs are not the same thing by the way

(Sorry for my english)

 

[fedaykin]

The primary reason is linearity of gameplay, I think. Console games are predominantly so linear that it is easy to go through the game and find & repair most bugs. In the rare cases when a console game is not linear, it has its fair share of bugs that sometimes never get fixed.

 

[FrattBorrigan]

either that, or simply just to piss people off with 300-1220 mb updates.

 

[maximaz]

Stop lying to yourself, the Japanese don't make anything better other than butter knives.

Wouldn't know about butter knives, I'm just having trouble remembering last Japanese game that had a noticable bug or that I had to download a patch for.

 

[Roflcore]

You're slow, aren't you?

Nobody would include a game's bugs as a part of their marketing.

Actually you are slow, really slow. Do you honestly believe if a company has more then a year(+ a killerbudget and a lot of HR) to port a game they would produce such a piece of sh*t by accident?

Haha, nice idea, but I'm afraid they ain't that stupid. You must be sort of blind if you didn't read the massiv complaints and "I'm going to buy a console, it runs fine their" (as it does) comments.

PC isn't their main market anymore, they know that, the more fans they can convince to switch, the more money they can make. So they port it with minimum effort to maxime profit. Pretty simple, I expected you would get that faster.

I think the problem lies in your understanding of the word "bug".

Absolutly not, if you would take the time and read the definition of the word bug you would notice how dead accurate my understanding is.

A software bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from behaving as intended (e.g., producing an incorrect or unexpected result).

Now how can a piece of software that is written for a different consumerbase, on a different system, by different developers be ported with low budget on a computer system? And in the end work as intended? Exactly, it can't and afaik it never did.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Stop lying to yourself, the Japanese don't make anything better other than butter knives.

Wouldn't know about butter knives, I'm just having trouble remembering last Japanese game that had a noticable bug or that I had to download a patch for.

You probably don't play too many japanese games then.

Or, another reason may be that by the time American localization appears (which is most likely what you're getting), the games have already been patched up and put on the new release in the latest version.

 

[maximaz]

Or, another reason may be that by the time American localization appears (which is most likely what you're getting), the games have already been patched up and put on the new release in the latest version.

That could be it.