Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases?

An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting: "As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"

Comments

Mr Tanenbaum, the hardware must be fixed first!!!

[master_p]

Mr Tanenbaum, as I have told you in an email, modern CPUs lack any hardware support for modules within a process! that's a major flaw that does not allow for proper isolation of modules within a process.

You said that "it will be a hard sell to hardware manufacturers" when I proposed you to promote this idea. But it's so easy to make! the hardware extensions required for modules within a process are minimal - mostly extensions to page tables; existing software needs not be modified!

Of course, this is not a panacea, but it is certainly a step in the right direction...