Eh. I patched it even though I was having nearly no bugs. The bugs I was having seemed like things that would be difficult to test (in particular, with some of the items that I got through the preorder bonuses and trying to mod them) and ones that would happen once in a dozen playtests because of poor path choosing (The dog in Goodsprings was caught on a crate during the fight. Later he ended up getting back to his proper location after I left the town for an hour or two.) I'm using the PS3 one though, and most of the people I've heard of having bugs have been playing on PC or Xbox360.

I give game companies the benefit of the doubt, especially when they don't have huge resources to test things. Stardock, for instance. GalCiv2 had a great many bugs when it was released, but they spent a year patching it and improving it after release, and the following two years releasing expansions that patched even more quirks and bugs. The GalCiv 2 I play now is a superb game, much better than the one I bought several years ago. My play style tends to reveal more quirks and bugs that aren't patched, but that's because most people just annihilate the Minor races ASAP, so I doubt much testing went into what happens when you give them ships, money, and technology to use in a proxy war.

I'm less forgiving of companies whose games have bugs several years after release and that stop releasing patches for their games after a couple of months.

I think the fact that patching was once exclusive to the PC and has now moved into the console space is indicative of this very console generation: console games are becoming more like PC games. It's obvious really. This is the generation that was initiated by Microsoft and their PC-centric mentality which not only influenced their console, but allowed so many of those PC developers to enter the console space. DLC is just a reinterpretation of the expansion pack mentality.

PC games (and now console games) are still just computer software, and virtually all computer software get's updated and patched all the time post-release. This is only new to console gamers.

Plus, you gotta consider just how gigantic and complex Fallout 3 and New Vegas are. How many console games are there of similar scale that feel more polished? An even bigger example of this issue is ArmA II - probably the deepest military shooter on the market but also the buggiest. There's no way Obsidian could thoroughly QA all that.

I think intentionally leaving a game unpatched is just a futile resistance to the change.

I understand why you'd want to make a point to game studios by not patching your game, but in reality, you've already purchased their product and by not patching it you're simply just shorting yourself from playing a better game.

I agree that it's unacceptable that this has become the norm for so many studios, but I don't think not patching a game after you've purchased it is the way to go about it. I think a better way to combat this is to wait for a game to release and see if the community is upset about an overwhelming number of bugs, simply do not purchase it. By not buying their game they're hurting far more than they would be if you're not downloading a file that's only a few megabytes.

I still can't believe Obsidian released such a buggy game. (Though, if you go to Fallout: New Vegas's GameFAQs message board, everyone will tell you these problems don't exist.)

But aren't you just punishing yourself if you play the game unpatched? I mean, I get the principle behind it, but you did pay for the game, right? Why not get the most out of your money, and play a stable product?

It sucks that developers are relying more on post-release patches, and something should be done about it. I totally understand your stance on the issue, but I don't think I would be "man enough" to play such a buggy game. So I commend you ... even though I think you're a little masochistic. :)

I don't buy the whole "the game is just so big" argument. Yeah, it's huge, but they chose to make the game that huge. They knew before they started that they wanted it to be bigger than Fallout 3. This seems to indicate that either games aren't ready to be this big, or the developers just aren't talented enough yet.

For a PC gamer, bugs are like that uncle at holiday parties, familiar, yet still annoying. However, if that uncle gets hammerdrunk, spills his beer on the cat, tries to make out with grandma, and backs into your car, well, you definitely think twice about attending the next. You certainly wouldn't say afterwards, "Sure Uncle Larry was out of control, but those ham balls were absolutely divine!"

Likewise, one would not sit through a movie with a reel that snaps every half hour, nor read an unfinished book whose author *hopefully* adds those missing pages a few years later. Why should games be any different?

@Rus: I commend you for trying to play the game without patching but aren't you just punishing yourself for the developer's flaws.

@Chas: Good point. Since Fallout: NV released I've heard that the game is way too big to squash all the bugs from multiple people in the industry. In reviews, podcasts and articles people who really like the game are always excusing the bugs and justifying it's faults by pointing out it's scope and I think there lies the problem. 

Off course some people are going to be able to play through the game without encountering game breaking bugs and might get an enjoyable experience out of the game, only encountering the more amusing bugs Fallout: New Vegas has to offer but I still feel that most high profile reviewers pay enough attention to the bugs and glitches in their reviews. I will take one example from the most extreme case in highest rates review on Metacritic.

The Guardian gave Fallout: New Vegas a perfect score yet the critic drops this quote in the article:

" I've had to switch my Xboxoff using the power button roughly once every two hours so far – and a lack of signposting for irrevocably game-altering decisions can be frustrating, though perhaps understandable given the huge scope of the game."

To me this is unacceptable because how does having to hard boot your system regularly not break your immersion and thus hurting the experience. 

I myself would like to see this trend (what I like to call the "EA release procedure" as they are the most notorious for it) squashed, if not fully reversed. It's a reason why the games we get these days have become stale. Basic formula means fast fixes. So considering so little effort is put into QA before a game ships and so little resources put into post release support, they need the fast and easy fixes to compensate. This means a reliance on basic formulas, which means "safe" and stale games.

Blizzard has the right idea with their approach. They do not even make an announcement of a release date until they're sure it's mostly fixed. Granted it's not perfect (as of late, they have been letting alpha level bugs slip by), but it's a step in the right direction. It's certainly better than the EA style of "release on this date no matter the condition" (look at Red Alert 3, which needed 3 patches in 2 days of release just to allow people to start it up)

Playing a game unpatched is no solution though. refusing to buy an incomplete game on the other hand is. When people stop supporting the "release no, fix later" mentality, it will change.

Rus, I'm with you until the "bad word of mouth sinks a game" part. I don't think you make the case that APB or Warhammer Online were derided as buggy messes; rather, I recall both games having significant design issues. And then you highlight several high-selling, buggy games? How's this a problem for publishers?

The bottom line is that Daniel's right -- this is only new to console-only gamers. Would you reject Windows updates because they're not the OS Microsoft released? Of course not. I don't view games much differently, but I am much less likely to buy a second time from a developer who does not offer post-release support.