Giving a free pass for a half assed effort and obvious lack of polish and testing is not the same as buying Fallout 4.

Buying a game with minor framerate issues and a few minor bugs =/= Buying a half assed game with an obvious lack of polish and effort.

The hate for Fallout is really over the top. I played it for some hours and didn't encounter any serious bugs AT ALL. Sure, there are framedrops here and there, but there are also framedrops in GTA 5 and nobody started a hate train because of that. I only saw minor bugs, like the hands of a ghoul just flying around, nothing that really stood in the way of me playing the game. There is nothing gamebreaking so far.

I wouldn't play a game if it is so buggy that it is just unplayable. But as long as the bugs are minor, I don't care too much. If it's just graphical, I couldn't care less. Some bad textures, some weird animations or stuff like that isn't too bad imo. Even framedrops are nothing to cry about if they don't happen too often.

What counts for me is the game itself. If I find a game that is promising great gameplay, I will get it despite some flaws. With Fallout 4, I got it because I loved Fallout 3 on the PS3 so much although it was indeed a bloody bugfest. Only if I would hear something about major, gamebreaking bugs I would have hesitated to buy it. But compared to other Bethesda games, Fallout 4 actually runs pretty damn good.

The same would be true for any other game I am desperately waiting for. Minor bugs on Shenmue 3? What do I care. Half-Life 3, Skate 4 and so many more. As long as the game itself isn't broken, I'm fine with that.

There are bad examples like Battlefield 4. I got that game at launch with my PS4 and I never experienced such a hell of a bugfest in my entire life. The single player was so damn broken, you could barely play it! Not only were there script errors every now and then preventing you from continuing, the game also just deleted your save file for no good reason! So you came back to it the other day and you had to start over. Great, just great. Then there was multiplayer. I could never EVER finish a single round, because the game crashed before the round was finishes. I could only play for about 5-10 minutes until everything froze. That happened about 2 months until a patch came out and the game was still broken like there's no tomorrow. Oh, and guess what? No review told me about this fucked up state! Battlefield 4 got high scores left and right and no one talked about such serious issues. Most sites didn't mention bugs AT ALL. It was way way more severe than it is with Fallout 4, where everyone gets so mad at right now. So, I wouldn't buy such a shitty mess again, but how am I supposed to know about it if nobody talks about it?

I also got the Witcher 3, which also was full of bugs. I like to call the game "The Glitcher" becaus of that. :P
First, I had framedrops in literally every corner. Way more than in Fallout 4. Then the walking felt very strange and delayed. I don't know how to describe it, but I didn't feel like I could control Geralt 100 %. Something just always felt off. Oh, and then there were indeed gamebreaking bugs. One time I climbed into the basement of a house, looking for some loot. When I wanted to get up the ladder again, it didn't work. I pressed X, I pressed ever other button like a mad man, but Geralt just stood before the ladder doing nothing like an idiot. I loaded my last save, it still didn't work. So I loaded another save from about 60 minutes ago and never went back into that particular cellar of doom.

I heard some talk about the glitches in the Witcher 3, but not nearly as much as with Fallout 4. Instead, everyone kept praising the game, oh it's so big and beautiful, oh CD Projekt are gods, blah blah blah. But I personally had a much tougher time with it than I am having with Fallout 4 right now. And yes, I know that a lot of stuff got fixed with patches, but that will be the same with Fallout. I'm talking about my experience at launch. It was a bugfest, there's no denying it.

So, in the end I expect a working game without major bugs that keep me from continuing to play further. But minor stuff like graphic glitches just aren't a reason for me not to buy a game. On top of that, I just can't rely on the press or forums when it comes to stuff like this. There are too many people just pulling arguments out their asses for no good reasons. You hear so much stuff about games from people who never played the games that you just can't give two shits about it anymore. You just have to play the game yourself. If I do find major bugs in Fallout 4 that break the whole game, guess what I'm gonna do - I'll go to the store and ask for my money back. It works here in germany.

Well, mods that are still in development get a free pass. I played Counter-Strike in 1999 for example and didn't mind the bugs because it was a free.

But paid games should have close to no problems. I'd never buy a game from CD Projekt Red or Bethesda at launch.

None. In fact the better a game, the more frustrated I would be because an amazing game is within grasp but held back by bugs.

It can be hard to know when you're buying a game day 1 because of review embargos.

I use to play EA's NHL from NHL10 to NHL13 but I couldn't handle the bugs/issues anymore that EA continually refused to fix year after year, so I've completely stopped since then.

Well I can tell you I will never be giving a Telltale game a chance again. I bought the disc version of the Walking Dead season 1. Ridiculous glitch fest, just appalling, no idea how it got past QA

As for letting games I love get away with it, I still enjoyed Unity (though Syndicate is showing what it should have been...). The glitches/bugs weren't as bad as everyone said, but the framerate was still poor and stuttery in places

The line I really draw comes over save files being eradicated, or stutteriness to the point of getting headaches. I think I'm generally fairly forgiving if the game itself is still fun to play

I'm not gonna waste my time playing glitchy games.

Smash bros melee, love wavedashing
Mario 64, staircase glitch helps with speed runs

Let's face it, every game is gonna have glitches and bugs regardless of how much development time is spent. What matters is if the gameplay experience is fun throughout

For me, it depends on the developer's reputation. If I know the developer tends to release buggy games at release (Ubisoft, Bethesda), then I'd wait weeks, months or maybe years after release to get it. If the developer has a relatively good track record on fixing games (Rockstar, Rocksteady) or with rare bug instances (Insomniac, Naughty Dog) then I buy it Day 1.

I didn't even give Snake Eater 3D a free pass for running like shit.