A few years ago, a lone programmer named t0st did something extraordinary: he fixed an 8-year-old bug in GTA Online that had been driving players crazy. The bug? Painfully long load times, sometimes u
It’s a big company problem. Here’s why even obvious bugs like this one slip through the cracks:
The Tyranny of “Requirements”
In large organizations, everything revolves around the roadmap. If a bug fix isn’t tied to a specific requirement or feature, it gets labeled as “tech debt” and shoved to the bottom of the backlog. And let’s be honest: “tech debt” is corporate-speak for “we’ll deal with this never.”
The Rotating Door of Ownership
Over eight years, developers and product managers come and go. The person who originally filed the ticket? Long gone. The person who understood the issue? Moved on to another project. Institutional memory fades, and the ticket becomes a relic of the past. Even if the problem is still very much alive.
The Myth of “Quick Fixes”
A 13-line patch might seem trivial, but in a legacy codebase, even small changes can have unintended consequences. Without proper tests or documentation, developers are often hesitant to touch old code. The risk of breaking something far outweighs the reward of fixing a non-critical bug.
The Invisible ROI
Let’s be real: improving load times doesn’t directly impact the bottom line. Selling Shark Cards (GTA’s virtual currency) does. Companies optimize for metrics that show up on quarterly earnings calls, not for goodwill or user experience, until it’s too late.
The Tyranny of “Requirements”
In large organizations, everything revolves around the roadmap. If a bug fix isn’t tied to a specific requirement or feature, it gets labeled as “tech debt” and shoved to the bottom of the backlog. And let’s be honest: “tech debt” is corporate-speak for “we’ll deal with this never.”
The Rotating Door of Ownership
Over eight years, developers and product managers come and go. The person who originally filed the ticket? Long gone. The person who understood the issue? Moved on to another project. Institutional memory fades, and the ticket becomes a relic of the past. Even if the problem is still very much alive.
The Myth of “Quick Fixes”
A 13-line patch might seem trivial, but in a legacy codebase, even small changes can have unintended consequences. Without proper tests or documentation, developers are often hesitant to touch old code. The risk of breaking something far outweighs the reward of fixing a non-critical bug.
The Invisible ROI
Let’s be real: improving load times doesn’t directly impact the bottom line. Selling Shark Cards (GTA’s virtual currency) does. Companies optimize for metrics that show up on quarterly earnings calls, not for goodwill or user experience, until it’s too late.
Depends. In an online store earning $50,000 a day, a one-second delay adds up to more than $1 million in lost sales each year.
https://www.bigcommerce.com/glossary/page-load/
I never got into GTA Online because I couldn’t stand the long load times. So they probably lost a shit ton of potential customers.