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Through the lens of software studies, it examines development norms among major game companies, noting important connections with contingent commodities and perpetual beta development. Focusing on the discourse surrounding Ubisoft\u2019s notoriously broken Assassin\u2019s Creed Unity (2014), it highlights how digital producers and audiences negotiate failure in a digital environment that increasingly relies on updates, revisions, and patches. It argues that digital industry producers foster an indefinite beta atmosphere within the context of a purchase and recontextualizes audience outrage as free labor by encouraging customers to report on faulty code. Ultimately, industry producers then engender a perpetual update culture in which digital commodities mediate failure through the rhetoric of constant improvement, and producers leverage the instability of digital distribution against its audience.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/15554120211017044","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,9]],"date-time":"2021-05-09T03:09:49Z","timestamp":1620529789000},"page":"70-88","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Broken Games and the Perpetual Update Culture: Revising Failure With Ubisoft\u2019s Assassin\u2019s Creed Unity"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Jacob","family":"Mertens","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,5,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-15554120211017044","volume-title":"How do I get my REFUND?","author":"Anonua","year":"2014"},{"key":"bibr2-15554120211017044","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5040\/9781472544353"},{"key":"bibr3-15554120211017044","volume-title":"Was I mistaken in buy AC Unity? 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