British gamers happy to wait for bug-free games, survey finds

Two-thirds of British gamers would rather wait for video games to become free of performance issues before playing, according to a recent survey by YouGov.

A number of high-profile games have faced criticism in recent years for launching with prominent glitches, bugs, missing visuals and other issues. Examples include Cyberpunk 2077, which was released in December 2020 with a heavily publicised selection of bugs, and the most recent Pokémon games, Scarlet and Violet, which saw characters pass through the ground and walls, among other issues.

However, the survey indicates that it may be more financially prudent for developers to wait to launch their games, rather than repairing them afterwards.

This held true across all gamers. According to the YouGov Surveys poll, two-thirds (66%) of British gamers would rather wait for glitches and bugs to be resolved, while 24% said that they would still play the game as soon as possible.

For those who play between one and seven hours a week, 68% would wait for the problems to be fixed, while 21% would play the game as soon as possible, even with the glitches.

Gamers who play for more than seven hours a week were the keenest to play the glitchy games immediately, with 27% of respondents selecting that option – however, that left 64% who would prefer to wait.

The findings also indicated that news of video game bugs or glitches could have the potential to adversely affect the sale of games.

More than half (51%) of all British gamers said that their interest in purchasing a new title would be affected “a lot” if the game has bugs or glitches, while a further 28% said that their likelihood to purchase a title would be affected “a little” if it contained such issues.

75% of the gamers who play for more than seven hours a week replied that their likelihood of purchasing a title is affected “a lot” or “a little” by the news of bugs, and this rose to 82% of the respondents who played between one and seven hours.