14 DAY TRIAL // Developer, publishers and even gamers these days have become obsessed with glitches and with eliminating them as quickly and thoroughly as possible from their gaming experiences.
But The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is good example of how glitches can make a game special and how imperfections can add a sense of place to a game and can make a world evolve beyond being a simple artificial construct.
Yes, there's a simple way of getting unlimited gold in this game as long as one is willing to get the same book from the same skeleton and then sell it over and over.
Yes, there's a small chance to see a dragon ride a horse as long as the conditions are right.
Sometimes cows explode and kill players.
Some giants decide they want to kill the player and are willing to chase him across half the map in order to take them out.
It has been reported that skeletons can show up at weddings and spook the hell out of other characters, spoiling the fun for all the guests.
Someone tells a story about how he killed one dragon by fast traveling when the creature was near but not yet engaged in combat.
These are not actual bugs, because they do not stop the player from playing Skyrim and they never result in making a quest unavailable or broken.
These are just glitches, mistakes brought on by the huge nature of the world and the many components that the developers at Bethesda created and allowed to interact with one another.
Yet the majority of those posting on the official forums for Skyrim are urging Bethesda to deliver a patch as quick as possible and fix everything that's reported and they seem to be doing this in the time that they could be exploring the world of the game that is not affected by these glitches.
And that's a shame because there's so much out there to be enjoyed and so little that is “broken” in any way.