Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with handicap features, and also to find Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, you’d lose a number of hours exploring every nook and cranny finding them!
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There have always been incomplete / broken games. Now they can be fixed. I agree the day 1 patch is annoying, as well as “I haven’t played this in a while… Oh, now I can’t because it needs to patch” but it’s still an improvement over “this is broken and can never be fixed.”