Colin Anderson, a former developer at Rockstar Games who worked on the Grand Theft Auto as an audio manager, has criticised the ‘day zero patch mentality’ of modern video game development, admitting that he misses the time where you would ship a game in its complete form.
Speaking on X, Anderson was responding to a post about the release of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas 20 years ago, reflecting on a period in the industry where patches were not available, at least not on consoles.
As a developer, I miss the discipline of knowing there was no way to “fix a game once it had been manufactured. The “Day Zero Patch” mentality today just encourages poor development and management practices, and it’s a worse customer experience too.
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He continued in a reply that the practices has made its way into video games from the music industry. “It started with the music’s ‘we’ll fix it in the mix’, then film’s ‘we’ll fix it in post’, then game’s ‘we’ll fix it in a patch’.”
Rockstar Games is currently working on the next highly anticipated instalment in the Grand Theft Auto series, which is slated for release on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in Fall 2025.
[Source – Colin Anderson on X via Games Radar]