[quanticle]

Not to mention all these RPG systems add a whole additional layer to mess up -- character stats might not be 'buggy' exactly, but they might be very poorly 'balanced.'

I'm not talking about balance issues. I'm specifically talking about issues where the game is clearly and obviously not working as designed. Clipping errors. Objects flying off into the sky because of problems with collision detection. Textures not loading. NPCs walking facefirst into walls because of buggy pathing code.

I think what's happened is that game development studios' reach has exceeded their grasp. They want to make these huge open worlds with numerous storylines, quests, etc, all with rich graphics and physics, but they just don't have the time or budget to get it right. So they rush out what they have, knowing full well that it has massive numbers of untested corner cases and hope that the PR blowback from the bugs isn't so bad that it ruins their reputation.

[bee_rider]

I 100% agree -- the balance issues just popped into my head as a tangent. Another example of how engines and rendering improve over time but there are lots of sort of 'other problems' that really don't scale with technology advancements.