I'll start off by saying I'm a big fan of open world games. GTA IV was ok, but Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Red Dead Redemption have been some of my favorite experiences this gen. However, I'm getting a little annoyed at the constant bugs these games suffer from. Here's a list of what I've experienced with them:

• Oblivion- crashed multiple times over the course of 60+ hours of playtime, audio kicks in and out at random intervals in dialogue
• Fallout 3- crashed numerous times...in fact, I'd say it's the game that's frozen the most times since my PS1 days, people not showing up in sidequests - had to go to Fallout Wiki to figure out how to beat them
• Red Dead Redemption- beat the mission, and I can't move or go anywhere, have to quit and restart the mission again (which wouldn't be so annoying if it wasn't a big story mission)

That being said, I'm replaying the mission in Red Dead Redemption right now, because it's so much fun. I'm not saying these are the only games that have bugs, but it seems to me that the only open world game I've come across without a significant amount of bugs is Assassin's Creed II, which was quite awesome in its own right, but with not nearly as much content as the above titles.

I realize the amount of content in these games comes with a cost of them being more prone to bugs, but is anyone else peeved that they never seem to eliminate these, game after game?

You should wait until Fallout New Vegas comes out, so we can tell if they worked on making the game less buggy. Though by experience I can see that these types of games will always have some bugs.

Maybe Bethesda is to blame?

Considering that two of the games you've mentioned are from Bethesda Studio, maybe they just need better programmers or whoever fixes the bugs or maybe they should be more attentive when fixing the bugs. But having said that, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Fallout 3 are both very massive RPGs and I guess it could be a very tedious job for Bethesda to actually eliminate all the bugs and possible to miss some bugs. I have heard people complain about the Elder Scrolls games like Morrowind and Oblivion being buggy in various areas but they're not so major to completely ruin the fun of the game.

I can't comment much on Rockstar because I have yet to experience a major bug in Red Dead Redemption and have never played GTA IV.

I actually rarely seem to get bugs, I didn't have anything major in Red Dead Redemption. I did notice quite a few in Just Cause 2, but that is possibly just because it is so crazy

What munkeh111 said

I just never seem to get bugs in games..........except Fallout 3 {shudders at the thought of that game}

sand box games like the ones you listed will always ship with bugs as the time required to bug test these games is insane especially the multi platform ones, Imagine having to play through every possible piece of content in something like Oblivion on every platform just to find the bugs then have to fix them and do it again to check if the fix broke anything else the cost would be in the millions and the added dev time would be in the months if not years. these types of games will always have bugs.

Oblivion and Fallout is crashing because of a reason. It froze hundreds of times in both games before I knew the solution which stopped the freezes almost totally. Also the Space Add ON of Fallout 3 works sometimes not because of that. I was extremly pissed but after I couldnt star the last Add on in Fallout 3 I searched for solutions how to solve it and I found out why the game freezes all the time.

Its the automatic save option, it always increases the save file sizes and above a certain size it freezes a lot. In the beginnig it almost never freezes but as the size of the savegame grows the game becomes more and more destablized. Above 14-15 MB you cant even start the Fallout 3 AddOn with the UFO.

It increases the size always you go through a door and it safes automatically. And you can stop Fallout 3 and Oblivion from freezing if you switch it of totally or atleast swich of the autosave if you go through doors and you will see it works wonders and the game runs very stable. If youe savegame file already reached a huge size you cant do nothing an anymore. Also the amount of the savegame files affects the stability in both games Oblivion and Fallout it has something to do with the engine since it occurs in both games. So just reduce the number of save files (5-6) and use autosave just for waiting and your savegame file size will stay easily under 10-8MB and the game is very stable.

Open World games are more complex especially the Bethesda games were the structure of different choices is very complex compared to other games (even though Its still not enough for my taste).

You can expect more bugs in open world games. You know, sheer mass-wise. But still it's a poor excuse.

Waiting for a patch of three to get some basics stuff fixed, sucks monkeyballs. O, quilty Empire total war, i'm looking at you. 

Bugs are, sadly, one of the hallmarks of this genre and will be for a long, long time. Its funny sometimes but it gets annoying really fast, especially the ones that impair you and keep you from finishing quests. Morrowind and Gothic 2 and 3 were also heavy on bugs.

Sadly, a lot of stuff doesn't get patched. I mean, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who's noticed Oblivion's audio bug, but the game has been out for over four years now, and I'm sure if I started playing right now, I'd experience it within an hour of playing. It's like Bethesda just sticks its head in the sand and pretends like the problem doesn't exist.