I don't think there can be much argument about the quality of games and in particular PC games deteriorating to the point of becoming unplayable lately. Maybe not all of them, but a shocking number and especially the AAA titles.

Just look at the last 3 major PC releases, specifically in the FPS genre. Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Medal of Honor & Call of Duty:Black Ops. BC2 was released with massive issues relating to servers, hit reg, unbalanced weapons and many more. MoH was and still is a complete shambles in many respects. And now we have BO, which some gamers are playing without any hassles one minute and the next the game is so unplayable as to cause the gamer to inflict harm upon others!

What is the cause or reason behind this? Shoddy development? Rushed product? Incomplete testing? Bad coding? Don't give a crap attitude?

I suspect it is combinations of all of the above and then some. With the advent of broadband, it is so much easier for gamers to get the latest patches and fixes to games, that developers know they don't need to polish the title to perfection, because gamers are so desperate they will buy any crap despite it's flaws, knowing that there will be a day one patch. There is the first problem. DAY ONE patch??? to borrow a line from the movie Broken Arrow, "I don't know what scares me more, the fact that there is a day one patch or that it already has a name!" And that we are so accustomed to it already.

Patches should be there to fix minor flaws and tweak settings etc. They should not be there to include product that should have been included in the original game. See MoH for this delight! Not just more maps, but an entire new game type for the multiplayer. Ridiculous.

I'm a console owner as well, but must confess to not playing terribly much and when I do buy a title, it is 90% of the time been out for quite some time, so don't notice flaws that may have existed upon release. Any console owners that have the same grief PC owners seem to be experiencing?

Now I'm not saying this is true of all games, as there are still some gems out there, but why should that be the exception and not the norm? We as a gaming community and not just in SA, but the entire planet over should take a stand and say we will not keep falling for these dishonest and immoral business practices of the developers and publishers. I wonder when someone in the US is going to try and sue Activision for false advertising and misleading the public or whatever? Only a matter of time I think.