alt Hacker News> The question isn't whether a game has updates available, it's whether the un-updated version feels like a complete experience vs a compromised one.
Exactly -- a game released a week ago is unlikely to have updates that could make it feel like a compromised experience.
Take, say, Terraria. I had a blast playing it ten years ago, despite having a fraction of the content and polish it does now. Nonetheless, if that version was all I had access to today, it would feel like a compromised experience.
Updates matter significantly more for some games than others. Sandbox games like Terraria and Minecraft often lie at one end, while at the other end you'll often find first-party Nintendo games, which typically receive a handful of bug fixes at most. Of course, how much playing a 'lesser' version bothers you personally varies greatly too.
The spreadsheet just shows which games have fully updated versions available on cartridge.
Hardcover books often contain typos. The Kindle versions of these books will sometimes get updated to fix these typos. These updates make the reading experience better for Kindle customers, but they do not reduce the reading experience for hardcover customers. Your hardcover book will remain just as good as it was at the time it was published.
Now, Terraria received much more significant updates. I think a game like Terraria is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of physical games.