Quote Originally Posted by miotas View Post
Lets be honest, back in the "good old days" there were loads of terrible games, it's just that everyone remembers their favourites, like with music. There are still good games being made today, but when compared to the accumulation of all your favourites over the last 30 odd years it pales in comparison.

That said however, with improved graphics there does seem to be more of an overall push towards games that are pretty but lack substance. Also the big games have massive budgets, and no-one wants to risk making a flop so they stick with something that has proven to work, and thus it often feels like you are just replaying "X" game.
I think that's very true for 'bugs' as well. When I first started playing computer games, bugs were permanent. There were no patches, period. If you found a bug, you had to live with it and work around it the best you could. In rare cases, an expansion pack might fix some major bugs in the original release. Most games now get patches so frequently that it's just a question of when a bug will be fixed not if. Some developers are better with bugs than others, of course, but in general I think gaming has benefitted a huge amount from patching via digital distribution.