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End-user license agreements are non-negotiable and essentially represent computer software as an as-is product. Consumers are limited to compensation of the price of the product and no more, and publishers and developers are held to a "best possible effort" standard to reproduce and fix bugs. According to the courts, digital software is not a tangible "product," and therefore most liability laws are not applicable. I know the American Law Institute has tried to establish more stringent guidelines, but those would only be interpretive suggestions for judges, not law.

In other words, if you tried to sue Bethesda (to offer an example) for shipping a buggy game, you couldn't get anywhere. Companies that have sued software vendors in the past for bugs that caused material loss haven't gotten anywhere either, even when they've lost millions of dollars due to bugs that interfered with their business practices. It sucks indeed. Even if we had a fighting chance, many gamers are so ultraforgiving of game-breaking bugs that I doubt they'd be so inclined. Consider Fallout: New Vegas; I'm still surprised that there hasn't been an industry-wide outcry against such a flawed product. I thought I'd be one of the kinder critics, so I was shocked when there was so much unfettered praise heaped upon it.