I remember when games didn't need updates, they just worked, or the bugs they had were cool (or annoying and required workarounds). Though I guess it makes sense that since games are more complex and larger now, they end up having more bugs and need more updates these days.

The only games I tend to play these days are the ones that I don't have to update before playing. Such a nuisance to be always online.

I'm glad others have pointed out this is pretty bullshit. If it's a great game then it's good. If the game was buggy you're shit out of luck, stuck with a broken mess with no hope of it being fixed.

I was pissed off when HL2 required installing Steam.

I didn't know that was the least awful variant of this particular affront.

Don't tell me 'but now there's bugfixes!' like I never updated HL1 with bare executables. Fuckin' Doom had multiple relevant versions. They thought 1.666 would nail it down... and then grudgingly released 1.7 a month later.

Yes I loved not being able to save my progress

You still had to install the game with a disc most times.

Edit: I never owned a console other than the N64. Just pc.

Updates, yes but almost every game did need to be installed though