History DarthWiki / IdiotProgrammingVideoGames

*** And because the computer it was included with, System/360 [[UsefulNotes/MainframesAndMinicomputers mainframe]], is widely regarded as their greatest work and was ''the'' computer of TheSixties and TheSeventies, the generator became so widespread that the traces of it periodically surface even ''now'', over 50 years past.

And when Windows 10 came about, it was discovered that the game's installer forcefully tried to install [[UsefulNotes/DigitalRightsManagement Games For Windows Live]], which at best, didn't work with "ordinal" errors; and at worst, it broke the system networking stack because it was coded to use system kernel for networking. It took the GOG.com release (in 2017) to finally make the game playable out-of-the-box without real GFWL installation, but Bethesda themselves stayed silent until ''2021'', when they finally updated the Steam release to remove the mandatory GFWL installation script.

* In this generation, every map contains its own unique copy of ''every'' asset associated with it. For example, every map that has Lillie in it has its own copy of her model, animations, and textures; major characters have hundreds of duplicate models all over the entire game, wasting tons of storage space and loading time. This technique ''is'' used in some other games to speed up loading, as it reduces the amount of time the drive spends seeking [[labelnote:Explanation]]In programming, "seeking" is the act of a storage device having to "move" to access other parts of the data - like a disc spinning or the drive head moving in and out. By having every map be self-contained with its own copy of everything it needs, the drive can just read one large chunk of memory that's all in the same place, instead of having to jump around the disc to find everything it needs.[[/labelnote]]. However, this technique only offers any kind of benefit when reading off something like a disc or a non-solid state hard drive. The 3DS's only two storage mediums are cartridges and flash memory SD cards - both of which ''don't have seek times''. This, combined with the afformentioned excessively high poly models and unnecessary checksumming, is believed to be why Gen 7 suffers from so many framerate problems compared to the previous generation.

* For some reason, ''VideoGame/TheDemonRush'' has many unnecessary things in its files that add to its already bloated memory footprint. These include Netscape 2.0, printer support, UsefulNotes/DirectX 8 (when version 9 had been out for over five years), ''16'' different "sound not found" handlers, and the Hebrew character set.

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysWorld'' constantly took five seconds to load whenever the game sends you to the overworld (minus the Halloween Backstage area, with takes place in a separate frame). This is because the battle system takes place on the same frame as the overworld, which had tons of texture assets used for that section. Scott revealed in a long deleted Steam post that this was a mistake he made early in development, and he couldn't fix it without remaking the entire game again. Some fans discovered that had Scott reduced the colour bit rate depth and used UsefulNotes/DirectX 11 included with the Clickteam 2.5+ add-on, the load times would be reduced.

** Near the end of the Delirium league, Grinding Gear Games unveiled their beta support for Vulkan, which in place of UsefulNotes/DirectX 11 resulted in a significant performance boost across all machines capable of using it. Where things turned sour was the league that came right after it, cited by some to make the game run ''worse'' than before on [=DX11=].

* A lot of games, especially 3D games that are made using the Unity UsefulNotes/GameEngine, tend to have a lot of performance issues when compared to games with equal or better graphics and content. For instance, a mid-end machine that can run ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' well will struggle to run ''Videogame/SevenDaysToDie'' without lagging. This is also a problem with developers who don't take into account the processing power of consoles, which can't be upgraded like a PC. It's rare to find a game made in the Unity engine that is very well optimized.

* ''Zero Gear'', a rather forgettable ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' clone, isn't problematic in and of itself... but the nature of its Platform/{{Steam}} integration in 2010 allowed it to be used to play any Steam-locked game you wanted, without owning the game. This was most notably used by hackers to bypass VAC bans: just start a new account, download the ''Zero Gear'' demo, and copy the files over. This has since been patched, though.

* The enemy trainer AI in Gen 1 has a major flaw: if it has a move that is super effective against the Pokémon it is fighting, it will always use it, regardless of whether or not the move damaged the opponent. The most infamous case of this is Lorelei's Dewgong, which will constantly use Rest[[labelnote:move explanation]]puts the Pokémon to sleep, making it do nothing for three turns but fully heals it from all status conditions and brings it back to full health[[/labelnote]] if put up against a Fighting or Poison type, which could render the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable if you don't have any way to attack it. ''Yellow'' fixed this by creating a special check for this specific fight to prevent this from happening. Another case less likely to cause an unwinnable state is Lance's last Dragonite, who will spam Barrier and Agility (which are also both Psychic-type moves, the former of which [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard it shouldn't even be able to use]]) in a futile attempt to exploit weaknesses, which can result in a Poison-type Pokémon such as [[WebVideo/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed an underleveled Venomoth]] or even ''a level 3 Weedle'' poison-stalling the Dragon Pokémon until it faints.

** The Safari Ball is internally identical to an Ultra Ball, which explains why catching anything in the Safari Zone is a crapshoot at best.

** One EasterEgg that was common with a lot of UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast games was that if you were to put the disc into a PC, you'd find extras on it. ''VideoGame/AtelierMarieTheAlchemistOfSalburg'' did this, and included a screensaver. However, the person behind this idea apparently didn't scan their machine for viruses first, as the screensaver was infected with [[https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/kriz.shtml a virus called "Kriz"]]. If the user is unfortunate enough to install the screensaver, the virus ''wipes the BIOS'' if the PC's clock is set to Christmas [[note]]a lot of early computer viruses were programmed to activate their payloads on certain dates in an attempt to avoid antivirus databases from picking them up quickly. However, there are hacktivist virus creators who pick significant dates and/or times to activate their virus just to make their point known[[/note]]. The game was later reprinted with a non-infected version of the screensaver, and later re-releases lack the screensaver completely.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' and ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Special Edition'' are equipped with "Creation Club", where players can purchase exclusive [[GameMod fanmade content]] from the new Bethesda store service. Already controversial for proving to some that Bethesda learned nothing from their ill-fated attempt to add a price tag to ''Skyrim'' mods on the UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} Workshop in 2015, this one makes itself even worse by downloading ''all'' of the Creation Club files (whether you intended to actually buy any of them or not) and only making stuff you paid for usable in-game. While having to carry DLC you don't own for a single game on a console that's expected to get by with only eight gigabytes of space is bad enough, these games could reach the point where you had space requirements in the ''terabyte'' range on top of their [[TechDemoGame already ridiculous system requirements]]. The only redeeming factor is that mods are only added seasonally (usually every six months or so) and, possibly due to the controversy surrounding the Creation Club, are much fewer than those hosted on Bethesda's own website or Nexus Mods (likely so they won't reach catastrophic space requirements until long after most companies would stop supporting a game), and their presence in the Creation Club means that Bethesda, at the very least, claims that they will all work with each other and with future updates to the game itself. That said, those updates ''still'' tend to break mods anyway, most commonly Script Extender and any mods that require it.

* Sega, with their Mega Drive/Genesis titles on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, finally opened up [[GameMod modding support]] for them through Steam Workshop, much to the rejoicing of fans everywhere. However, it was soon discovered that for ''some reason'', uploaded mods that utilized SRAM support wouldn't save their data... unless the mod was listed under ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles''. And even ''then'', it will not save all data properly if the mod's SRAM data is bigger than the aforementioned game's, as seen with ''[[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=674578957 Sonic 3 Complete]]''.

** For some reason, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS games use these same checksums on game assets like textures, even though those are stored in the game's ROM and can't be modified through course of normal play. Since the game has to check these when loading, it slows down loading new areas - not a huge problem in the Gen VI titles (''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRubyAndAlphaSapphire''), you just get a slightly longer loading screen than usual, but Gen VII (''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'') rewrote parts of the game engine to stream new maps instead of having explicit loading screens, which can result in a number of areas on the overworld experiencing regular slowdown.

* The companion app ''Pokémon Bank''[='s=] anti-hacking measures were notorious for letting through hacked Pokémon (which it's supposed to block) while rejecting legitimate ones (Pokémon from events, legendary/mythical or not, are some of the more common victims due to their movepools or special ribbons), and updates released to make it compatible with newly-released games generally don't work as intended since they failed to take into account newly-legalized species and movepool/ability combinations, as well as other factors. For example, when the app was updated to allow storing of Pokémon from the Generation I games (as they were released on the 3DS UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole in 2016), the app did not correct the names of these older Pokémon to match the post-Gen V normal capitalization standard or add diacritics when necessary; having a glitch Pokémon in the box would cause the nicknames of all Pokémon afterward to be shifted; and the games themselves would deem Pokémon transferred from the games and evolved into species introduced after Gen I as illegal and unable to be traded or used in battles online, along with Pokémon from older generations caught in Safari or Dream Balls or those with their Hidden Abilities that can only be found through Island Scan in ''Sun & Moon'' despite those ones being perfectly legal in the previous generation.

* The UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch Online's Virtual Console replacement for playing Nintendo's older games has a serious flaw. One of its features allows you to create a "Suspend Point", which saves the state of the game at that point so you can pause, then resume the game any time you want. It's the same as the state save feature in emulators. The problem is that the Suspend Point saves the ''entire state'' of the game, including the save file, whereas emulator save states only save the system's RAM contents and keep the game saves in a separate file. This means that, if you create a suspend point, save the game, then later load the suspend point, you lost all progress between the suspend point and where you thought you saved.

** A bigger issue, however, is Farsight's SkewedPriorities as far as what platforms they'll support despite them porting the game to every major platform. For some reason, they prefer the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, giving it the most priority with updates, patches, and DLC while every other platform - including the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 - either receives them months later or not at all, resulting in the [=PS3=] version being relatively smooth and free of major glitches while everything else is a mess. This also applies to the mobile landscape in that particular OS updates, both on [=iOS=] and on Android, cause ''Pinball Arcade'' or its variants to glitch to nigh-unplayable levels while they never get fixed. Meanwhile, patches continue to be released on the mobile versions to fix minor, rarely-occurring problems while issues like there being only the sound of the flippers and a completely absent HeadsUpDisplay remain unaddressed ''years'' later. It's as if the programmers at Farsight assume players never update their devices.

* ''VideoGame/RedSteel2'' is a wonderfully made game on the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} that looks and plays very crisply on the surface, with 60fps and graphics that rival the [=PS3=] and Xbox 360. Yet all of this comes at a steep technical price: intense disc activity. For almost the entire time you play this game, you can hear it noisily strain your Wii's disc drive as it struggles to [[DynamicLoading load everything around you]] ''and'' keep a high framerate. Sometimes, it gets so bad, the game actually has to briefly stop itself in an emergency to spend a few irritating seconds "[r]eading [the] disc". Hope no one endures the shame of having to say ''Red Steel 2'' broke their Wii.

* ''Zero Gear'', a rather forgettable ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' clone, isn't problematic in and of itself... but the nature of its UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} integration in 2010 allowed it to be used to play any Steam-locked game you wanted, without owning the game. This was most notably used by hackers to bypass VAC bans: just start a new account, download the ''Zero Gear'' demo, and copy the files over. This has since been patched, though.

* ''[[VideoGame/WWEVideoGames WWE 2k20]]'' suffered from a crippling (yet hilariously appropriate) Y2K-like bug where several modes stopped working the minute January 1st, 2020 ticked in. The only way to get the game working again was to set your machine's clock back before that date, and that's only if your version of the game wasn't tied to the servers. Thankfully, this was patched.

* There are several issues in the original ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy|1}}'':

* Unlike past games in the franchise, the Pokedex's alphabetical sorting function is based on the language that the gaming console is set to instead of that of the save file. In the event of a mismatch between the two, the Pokedex will use the proper alphabetization for the language the Switch is in while the species names stay in the save file's language, [[https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonScarletViolet/s/srH3SPlQKc resulting in the Pokemon appearing to be listed in a nonsensical order.]]

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysWorld'' constantly took five seconds to load whenever the game sends you to the overworld (minus the Halloween Backstage area, with takes place in a separate frame). This is because the battle system takes place on the same frame as the overworld, which had tons of texture assets used for that section. Scott revealed in a long deleted Steam post that this was a mistake he made early in development, and he couldn't fix it without remaking the entire game again. Some fans discovered that had Scott reduced the colour bit rate depth and used ''DirectX 11'' included with the Clickteam 2.5+ add-on, the load times would be reduced.

** One EasterEgg that was common with a lot of UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast games was that if you were to put the disc into a PC, you'd find extras on it. ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}} Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg'' did this, and included a screensaver. However, the person behind this idea apparently didn't scan their machine for viruses first, as the screensaver was infected with [[https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/kriz.shtml a virus called "Kriz"]]. If the user is unfortunate enough to install the screensaver, the virus ''wipes the BIOS'' if the PC's clock is set to Christmas [[note]]a lot of early computer viruses were programmed to activate their payloads on certain dates in an attempt to avoid antivirus databases from picking them up quickly. However, there are hacktivist virus creators who pick significant dates and/or times to activate their virus just to make their point known[[/note]]. The game was later reprinted with a non-infected version of the screensaver, and later re-releases lack the screensaver completely.

** The Heavy Ball... ''mostly'' works as intended, but the way its bonuses are implemented is odd. The bonuses are added to the catch rate instead of being a multiplier, meaning its effects are only noticeable for heavy Pokémon with low catch rates, of which there are precisely two: Snorlax and Lugia. ''Pokémon Crystal'' also introduces a bug where the weights of Pokémon whose index numbers are divisible by 64 are retrieved as junk data that gets interpreted as weights large enough to get the largest possible boost.

** For some reason, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS games use these same checksums on game assets like textures. While this wasn't too much of an issue with the Gen VI titles (''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRubyAndAlphaSapphire''), Gen VII (''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'') rewrote parts of the game engine to use asset streaming, which can result in a number of areas on the overworld experiencing regular slowdown.