Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

So, every once in a while I see people making reference to day 1 patches as some sort of bad thing, or some sign that a game is troubled or its developers lazy, or something like that.

I know that not all of you follow gaming news at large, so you may not know about what's going on outside of sports games, but there's an interesting thing going on right now in the world of No Man's Sky, a PS console exclusive that has had, well, an interesting development cycle after a massive reveal at E3 a few years ago.

I won't recap it all, but the relevant part of the saga has to do with a broken street date and a forthcoming *massive* day 1 patch, which I'll link to here.

The subsequent fallout has been centered around why games *need* release day patches and whether or not it's a good thing that they have them.

This post lays out why day 1 patches are not just preferable, but, in most cases, necessary, and I think it's worth reading and remembering whenever we discuss Madden's development time and cycle, as well as release schedules for patches for other sports games as well.

Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

I see this thread being people who think developers are lazy and send out unfinished products versus people that welcome anything to improve a game. I know you're trying to show that latter, but I don't see it changing people's minds.

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Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

Hopefully not. But we shall see I suppose.

Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

It's as simple as this imo: games were shipped "unfinished" and "in need of updates" from the beginning; you just didn't know because patches weren't a thing and you didn't have the internet.

Frankly we're getting closer and closer to annual-release games just becoming subscription-based with constant updates anyway. Let's just do that and get it over with already.

Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

Wow. That process sounds like a headache. It's literally out of there hands when it gets released by it seems. The only ones who suffer (like me) are the ones without an internet connect and have to lug my ps4 around to connect it to download them. Especially annoying when there's game breaking bugs present. See Madden 13 and the disappearing players on ps3. Day one patches are a blessing and a curse for me but for most people it's not that big of a deal. Just the time it takes to download these files.

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Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

Isn't No Man Sky an online game?

Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

It does not require an internet connection to play.

Re: Day 1 Patches, Madden, and you
 

I don't know that the market is ready for it. Even persistent games like Destiny release new boxed copies every time there's a big expansion.

If the market could support it and they could figure out how to do content delivery I'm sure it would happen.