Game scandals of 2018 (Topic)

Intrigues, scandals, investigations. If we talk about the gaming industry, these theses are an integral part not only of the activities of Jason Schreier from Kotaku, but of the whole world of video games. We will remember this year for crunches, accusations of racism and was very indicative for publishers who are chasing super-profits. 2018 is coming to an end, so today we will discuss the main scandals of the world of video games.

Closing of Telltale Games

There is no sadder story in the gaming industry this year than the story of the fall of Talltale. On the example of the now deceased studio, we see several problems at once. The first is how the greed of the board of directors, disrespect for their products and fans leads to business collapse, and the second shows how much all internal problems are hidden from the eyes of gamers, as it seemed to be successful on all fronts of the company.

The scandal began when the studio's management unexpectedly fired 225 employees in one night without warning, saying that they would not receive severance pay. This led to the fact that many employees had no means of subsistence at all. The company began self-liquidation by laying out the cards on the table. Behind the scenes of the adventure queen studio, the staff were constantly overworking, under pressure, and all games except the first season of The Walking Dead were completely financial failure. Fortunately, the situation was resolved by the fact that the last season was sold to Skybound studio, where former Telltale employees are working on it, and the rest of the people found work in other studios.

Battlefield V Released

DICE missed the mark this time too. Everything related to the release of the game can be described as a whole set of incorrect marketing decisions. At first everything was fine, the developers decided to abandon the frenzied "Season Pass" in the game, and also chose the World War II setting, which, although it outlived its usefulness several years ago, has now again aroused the interest of the audience. And then everything went downhill. Starting with the first stream of the game, where the phrase "Don't like it - don't play" was heard, and ending with the studio removing everything that was good from the game. More specifically, the time to kill (TTK) mechanic was removed from BFV, which completely broke the game balance in the game.

I also remember the scandal with Kotaku, who called the TTK mechanics the best in the series. DICE brazenly took the phrase out of context by inserting it into the trailer where it mattered: "BFV is the best game in the series." Add to this the idiotic costemization and ambiguous statements by the producer of the game about the role of the USSR in World War II, which offended many USA gamers.

Crunch at Rockstar

We were pleased with the release of RDR 2, however, as it turned out, the game pleases us at the cost of violating human labor rights. In an interview, the main scriptwriter of the game dropped the boastful phrase that employees work 100 hours a week, but only then remembered that it was kind of illegal ... After, Kotaku released an investigation, which reported that a cult of crunch and fear reigns in Rockstar. In order to achieve the perfect result, the developers were forced to recycle. Some Stockholm Syndrome employees put pressure on those who don't overwork. And also many developers are afraid that if during an unexpected visit by the Hauser brothers you will not “die” from hard work, showing your dedication, you may be fired.

The scandal hesitated by itself. RDR 2 has been licked by both gamers and critics, so we can't talk about whether the company's policy has changed.

Online shopping war

2018 is also remembered by the fact that Steam got everyone. Gamers because it turns into a garbage dump of indie games, and developers with extortionate commission from sales of 30%. Many large publishers decided to abandon Uncle Gabin's site and sell games on their own, as was the case with Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 76. This also led to the fact that this year Epic Games opened their store, where they take a commission from the developers only in 12%.

Just a month later, the Discord service offered publishers and developers 90% revenue on its site, taking only 10% for itself. And as a fatality - the well-known developer and producer Brian Fargo made a statement that he was preparing his site called RobotCache, where it offers publishers a phenomenal 95% of the sale of the game, and also introduces a system of reselling between users, where 70% goes to the publisher, and 25% to the gamer, who resells the game.

Racism in Video Games: 2018 year edition

And where without blaming games in all the problems of humanity. This year, two projects distinguished themselves, which were accused of racism. The first is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It features the character Mr. Game & Watch, which is the epitome of one of the first handheld Nintendo consoles from the 1980s. In the game Fire Attack for Game & Watch there are enemies of the evil Indians with feathers on their heads. In the new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, players discovered that during one of the attacks Mr. Game & Watch looks like the evil Indian from Fire Attack. The studio was accused of racism, as this animation offends the Native American people. The problem was solved by removing the feather from his head ...

The second case is fresh. Amanita Design was accused of racism, as the protagonist of their game Chuchel is similar to "blackface" - a cartoon image of Ampro-Americans, which was used by clowns in the 19th and early 20th centuries in America. The studio was forced to change the color of the character to orange.

Fallout 76

For two months, Bethesda was not a childish freak and undermined the trust of fans in every possible way with the release of Fallout 76. To say that the game is bad is to say nothing, and the number of fakups cannot be counted. The ratings of the game are terrible, as it turned out to be not an interesting grinder, for which the developer refused to return the money. There are millions of bugs in the game, the patch of the first day weighed 45GB, performance on all platforms sags, as well as fakap with bags from the collector's edition, leaking personal data of users to the network, initiating legal proceedings against the company, and so on.

In short, Bethesda rushed into DICE, and kicked BFV aside and took the title of "Biggest Failure of the Year" for its Falaut.

Diablo Immortal and Mobile Gaming

Blizzard has taken a step towards the Asian market, where mobile platforms are dominant, and siphoning money from players is commonplace. The studio thought it was okay to announce a mobile game with endless grind and donation instead of Diablo IV to a crowd of ardent fans at BlizzCon. The players were furious, and the Diablo Immortal trailer collected 700 thousand dislikes on YouTube in one day. It upsets most of all that Blizzard does not consider his act shameless and intends not only to release Diablo Immortal, but also to start transferring the WOW universe to mobile platforms.

Sony vs. Crossplay

Very principled Sony did not want to introduce crossplay for their console. We all knew that, but things got worse when Fortnite hit the Nintendo Switch. Gamers who played battle royale on a fourth curling iron and decided to run it on a switch found it impossible. PS4 does not allow crossplay with this platform. Sonya for a long time denied that they angered the fans, infuriating everyone with their policy.

In the end, they still took pity and allowed crosspell, but only for Fortnite.

Puddle in Marvel's Spider Man

And of course, one cannot but recall the most disgusting, terrible scandal that has ever existed in the industry! An insidious deception from Insomniac Games, which showed us what we didn't get at the debut demo of the game's gameplay. We clearly saw that in the location where the action took place, there was a puddle in one place, which disappeared from the final version of the game. Shame!

Sorry, but it was impossible not to remember this absurdity. Who knew that this joke would turn into serious accusations that Insomniac Games staged a graphics downgrade in the final version of the game ....

There is absolutely nothing left until the new year, and who knows what game scandals 2019 await us ahead.

The Topic of Article: Game scandals of 2018.
Author: Jake Pinkman