On November 6th, 2015, Bethesda Softworks released the long anticipated entry in the decades running Fallout series: Fallout 4. The rest is what a lot of readers probably expect or already know; awards, reviews of all colors, and merchandising.
What you might not know is that it retained a strong player base through the modding community, or players that made content for the game for others to enjoy, completely free of charge. This carried on to this day. Content to improve upon and play in the sandbox provided by Bethesda, all was well…until the Next Generation Update. As fans feared, it promptly broke everything.
As of April 2024, the best suggested solution is to avoid or reverse the update. While Bethesda gave their community ample warning that it was coming, that’s about all they gave; a warning. After all, from a business standpoint, they’d moved on. While there was not an immediate impact visible outside of Bethesda’s doors, games with a bad update unaddressed by the developers all tend to wind up in the same, less than ideal place. Just ask Star Wars Galaxies.
Why Should I Care About A Random Update In A Video Game?
It’s not so much where the point comes from, but what it entails. At the end of the day, this was just another software update. They happen all the time, and sometimes without your knowledge or input. Granted, there’s always a log somewhere, but it would be horrendously impractical for your computer to let you know it now displays a specific type of web page in California about half a millisecond faster thanks to changing one line of code.
In other words, we really only care about updates when we have to care about updates. It’s generally best practice to let your machine do what it needs to do, and not skip them unless absolutely necessary.
The problem comes about when something unforeseen or ignored goes unaddressed when releasing a product update. In the example provided, Bethesda ignored concerns from their community, and launched the patch regardless. As a result, lots of fan favorite features broke. When something breaks, if that feature is important to the function of the product, someone has to fix it.
This same logic can apply to any technologically based system; your websites, customer databases, servers, and even credit card readers. Almost everything has some form of rudimentary software in it these days. While software brings convenience, it risks complications.
When Good Updates Go Bad
If you’re looking for a more relatable example, look no further than the year 2000. Yep, we’re (briefly) talking about Y2K. To settle it once and for all:
- Yes, it was serious.
- Yes, we knew about it for a while.
- The experts quietly fixed it well before everyone started to panic.
Since the year currently begins with a two and we are not fighting off armies of biker gangs for a case of purified water, everything worked out. But what exactly was going to happen?
Before modern computing, computers were a lot closer to their calculator ancestors. A closed computing system has a finite limit to how much data it can actually parse; at the time, the year being 2000 simply wasn’t recognized by older analog systems. To an extent, this remains an ongoing problem.
You see, while we’ve gone a long way from the great ancestral adding machines of the past, it all still runs on numbers. When an oversight happens, databases break. Good maintenance is only part of the solution. After all, even a well-intentioned accident needs to be caught before it causes problems. Web design is equally about catching bad maintenance before it causes problems. Could Bethesda have worked with their community to make sure that everything synced up without causing compatibility issues? Absolutely. But, they did not, and their customers aren’t happy.
What’s Your Point?
Sometimes, it is better to have a few extra seats at the table. You work hard for your customers, and they love you for it. But you have the right to focus on what brought them to you in the first place. After all, if you get caught up in something that you aren’t thrilled about, you’ll stretch yourself thin. Resources being in the right place fixes and prevents problems. After all, what would’ve happened if no one noticed or bothered to prevent the Y2K scenario?
Never hesitate to add an expert to the equation. Is it always the cheapest option? Of course not. But is it better to clean up the aftermath, or prevent the fallout entirely? When it is your business on the line, we’re willing to wager every business owner would prefer the second option.
Keep your business interests alive and well. At Tycho SEO, we maintain make sure that one bad update isn’t going to bring the house down. With a team of pros backing you up, you can rest assured that things will flow smoothly along without any technological snags clogging up the pipes. We’ll keep you safe and secure while you help your business be the best it can be.
For now, that’ll do it for this blog. Next one is going to be a bit of a surprise. Stay tuned: you’ll love this one. As always, thank you for choosing Tycho SEO for your cybersecurity and search engine optimization needs. See you on the next Ahead Of The Curve.
