Video Game Glitches

According to good ole’ Wikipedia, “A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot.”

We could go on and on about specific and infamous glitches in video games but there’s something more important that we should discuss. Why do they happen?

The Gamer was explaining it me this week saying the developer’s don’t anticipate movements, and then they are left undesired results in the final outcome of the game.

To me, it’s easier to picture older games having glitches because the technology was new and there was still a lot to learn, for example this Duck Hunt glitch when you reached level 100.

With newer games, I always imagined them to be these flawless pieces of work and not have the same problems that occurred when video games were the latest in entertainment technology. But with the advancements video games have had over the years, with more complex codes, it’s no wonder they still have glitches. For example in Smash Bros. Brawl, despite it being a farily new game, had an infamous glitch called Giant Jiggly Puff and the results left many a gamer smiling.

Some of these glitches are hilarious, like Ladder Goat from Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. To quote Hank Green from Vlog Brother, “We expect video games to obey the laws of physics but when they don’t it’s amusing.” This man’s video is hilarious, but if you don’t like swearing then only watch it until about 1:50.

Here’s another question: Why don’t the teams fix the glitches? A lot of time the glitches aren’t found until the game actually comes out. Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with money. It would take more money that it would be worth to fix glitches, especially if the glitch was in a game where they would have to recall and sell. Not worth the company’s time.

Here’s an analogy that I found to be most helpful:

Let’s say that you run a business, and you decide to upgrade your security/employee-management. You put finger print locks on the doors, so your building is more secure, and also so you can see when employees arrive and leave based on when they used the fingerprint lock on the front door. Now things will be so much easier!

A week later, you notice one of your employees has missed every single day of work. You demand an explanation and he swears he was here, and his co-workers attest to that.

You failed to take that situation into account when making your rules, and so, your system had more employees in the building than you thought. This is a bug.

As you can imagine, there are a lot more rules in a videogame, and thus the potential for a lot more bugs. A lot of situations that you should have realized would happen, but failed to, creating a bug. And with games the faulty information caused by one bug can cause other bugs, which can cause even more bugs, which can hide where the problem started. And sometimes you get a bug once, can't figure out what you did to cause it, and so you don't know what rules need fixing. You know it's there, you saw it happen, but as hard as you try you can't recreate it.

Since glitches are rarely, if ever, fixed, we might as well have fun with them. When all is said and done, glitches are just a part of the video game experience. They can make us laugh until our stomach hurts and/or terrify us until we don’t want to sleep without the lights on.

What are some video game glitches that you are familiar with? Let us know and we’ll see you next week!