I think it's fair to say that all PC games are expected to be released with some level of bugginess or incomplete features. The question is about the extent of said bugginess and incomplete features. For example, the state of Shogun 2 on release I found to be quite acceptable even though there were some issues. By comparison, the state of Cliffs of Dover on release was an absolute disgrace IMHO.

I'm very picky about my gaming collar these days. I've been buying a few of the older LucasArts games on Steam here lately because they're cheaper, they're finished, and they're good. Do they look as good as BF3? No, but then my eyesight sucks to begin with.

DCS has a good history for quality right now, so I'm waiting patiently for whatever they push out the door next. I've even downgraded from FSX back to FS9 because more of my addons run on it without a problem and they don't look bad. I'm waiting to see what Mag says about the new Ghost Recon before I try that; it probably won't be anything good.

I'm like the OP. I'm tired of unfinished games. I'll wait for a finished product, I don't mind. But, it's getting to the point where I'm assembling more plastic models than playing PC games.

I always thought it interesting how many old PC games I own, games for DOS or Windows 3.1 even, that just work. Back then, and still today in DOSBox. Install, and they work. Of course some have a well known "bug" that appears under certain situations.

I've got to wonder if the bar for development difficulty and customer expectation on those titles was as high as it seems to be today. Will there come a point where the entire game development manpower on Earth could spend the entire game development budget on Earth and still not be able to finish one game?

I agree with you panzer that software is software and hardware is hardware so there is undoubtedly going to be some form of bug requiring tweaking to get optimisation out of the game.

however missing features is a no no. UBI is synonomous for this and its down right below the belt (Silent hunter 2 onwards anyone?)

I have no understanding where we can be delivered crap (FSX) and the devs and people to say well you need a beast of a computer to run it (knowing full well they are relying on leaps in technology of computers to cover their sh1te programming). Or maybe you just need some decent coders to do their job and fix the glaring errors in it. That team deserved to get fired and microsoft should have put their hands up and said sorry and spent some of their raging fortune in fixing that sad piece of crap.

It is one of my sore points.

There are too many people willing to say.. well its ok, and put it down to coding troubles for shoddy workmanship.

Clod should be sued, silent hunter should be burned at the stake and the FSX team and micrshaft.... well, we should find a cure for death so we can kill them and then revive them just to kill them again.

No excuse for crap, not even the golden word "coding".

Plenty of crap out there and if i could rub my arse with code, my motherboard would be chunky monkey with last nights curry !!!

I think the bar is set higher now since gaming isn't just a minority of pc gamers and an Atari 2600/Sega/Playstation owners and communication *about* games has changed so much.

Bugs in games "back-when" weren't as big a deal or common since games weren't played online, or not many were, so they were simpler. Most games these days that are single player only are very solid. Those that can put real time into single player alongside multiplayer are usually solid single player games. Most issues that come up are with MP/co-op gaming, where the most variables are. Keep in mind that MP gaming as an expected component of a game is still relatively new.

Also keep in mind that going online to talk about games is fairly new for the average gamer too. Before that it was mainly specialty groups like here. Now most that play online also get online to talk about it. Expectations are higher just due to communication about complaints. It used to be that magazines were the main source of info about gaming on pc or console--that's where your info and reviews came from. Now there are 1000's of forums where everyone has a voice--more often negative than positive.

If I actually experienced every bug in a game that I hear people complaining about, I'd quit gaming. As it is, I rarely see what I hear about, and even fewer bugs that really ruin the experience for me. IMO, the natural human tendency to b!!ch and moan is a more rampant problem than bugs in games, since it blows expectations out of proportion and influences a player's perspective of a game more than their own experience with the game.

I assume you mean "Flight" instead of "FSX"?

Case in point, Iron Front - stay away from that buggy POS.

Phew, good thing I decided not to pre-order it from Steam.

See? Raw Kryptonite is absolutely right in his post!

Nope definitely FSX.... I just can't do a poo nasty enough to even consider flight as a medium to clean my rectum with......

What a great analogy

SD