Game developers and publishers you won't buy from... - or: fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, I'm a fanboy/girl.

[Wraith]

I've been into video games since I was 4 years old. Apparently I amazed some Aladdin's Castle employee while a relative looked on at how well I did at Pac Man back in the day. Since then vidya has pretty much been a nice part of my life. However over time, certain companies have pissed me off to no end that now I have a life time ban on buying from them. The reasons vary, but some companies I have stopped buying from are notorious for shoveling feces into the pockets of consumers.

EA is easily number one. Anyone owned or affiliated with them gets a no go for me, and it's been this way for about almost decade.

Who won't you buy from anymore and why?
How serious are their offenses to you?
What things can companies do to keep your business, or regain it if it's lost?

 

[Caddchef]

Bethesda, seriously have they ever released a game that wasn't a buggy piece of crap.

Also, and i don't think this is really worth noting because everyone should hate them, EA.

 

[American Lollinator Mace]

Dear Square-Enix...
Fuck you. You know what you did.

 

[Wraith]

Dear Square-Enix...
Fuck you. You know what you did.

Show me on the Aeris Sonichu doll where they touched you.

 

[Doc Cassidy]

Any company that uses a female protagonist won't get a dime from me.

 

[millais]

Well, for a few months, I seeded the torrent of Revolution 60 just to ensure a few good souls would not waste their money by sending it to Brianna Wu.

 

[c-no]

Gearbox is one I pretty much refuse to buy from. The reason for it was putting a lawsuit on a disabled guy who made Duke Nukem Megaton Edition. While they may of buried the hatchet, I'm pretty much just not going to buy anything from them at this point, especially since outside of Memelands 1 and 2, not much else from them is of interest to me.

Link: https://techraptor.net/content/duke-nukem-dust-up-gearbox-vs-gobeille

 

[P.A]

Gearbox is one I pretty much refuse to buy from. The reason for it was putting a lawsuit on a disabled guy who made Duke Nukem Megaton Edition. While they may of buried the hatchet, I'm pretty much just not going to buy anything from them at this point, especially since outside of Memelands 1 and 2, not much else from them is of interest to me.

Link: https://techraptor.net/content/duke-nukem-dust-up-gearbox-vs-gobeille

Yeah, Gearbox seems like one of the few definite choices to me. Most other companies, even with gross missteps, they eventually do something that's worth your money. Comparatively, Gearbox is "And nothing of value is lost": The Company.

 

[Mimic]

Anything Comcept touches that IntiCreates can't save. We all know why, too.

 

[Sable]

EA, but it's more because the games that they make aren't what I'm into than the fact they're useless evil wankers.

 

[_blank_]

Ooooh boy, let's see....

Right off the top of my head there is Ubisoft. See, I used to have a idiotic patience for them. I bought every AC game from II through Syndicate, played most of the Far Cry games, a lot of their "indie-ish" stuff... but over time, I just really lost patience with them. I think it was The Division that ultimately broke me, and Watch_Dogs 2 that cemented it for me (no, not because "Omg black person, no can do!" but more the whole "oh look we're young and hip hackers! Watch me Parkay and do a flip while taking it to The Man! Meme Meme Meme!")

Speaking of which, another studio who've I've lost a lot of faith in is Volition. I LOVED Saint's Row 2 and I will admit while a pale comparison to 2, SR The Third was a good time for what it was. Then IV came out and I was like "Y-Yeah, this is fun... empty... but fun... and and... hmm.." And now They're bringing out Agents of Mayhem, which looks to be a concentrated lump of everything I didn't care about from the past two Saints Games. I just kinda want that raunchy underdog story about fighting opposing gangs, not fighting robots in super-spacetime.

Dear Square-Enix...
Fuck you. You know what you did.

Shit, what haven't they done? Shuttered United Front, bitchslapped Crystal Dynamics for not being a good enough whore, forced Eidos Montreal to take one up the ass for Ol' Disney, and curbstomping io Interactive? Yeah Squeenix can go get fucked by a Buster sword.

 

[P.A]

Shit, what haven't they done? Shuttered United Front, bitchslapped Crystal Dynamics for not being a good enough whore, forced Eidos Montreal to take one up the ass for Ol' Disney, and curbstomping io Interactive? Yeah Squeenix can go get fucked by a Buster sword.

Let's not forget that KH3 and FF7R is starting to rival Duke Nukem Forever in how much time it's taking them to show off anything useful.

 

[Raging Capybara]

EA, UbiSoft and anything related to Pokémon.

GameFreak has too much money to release underwhelming games with horrible graphics, inexcusable.

 

[NumberingYourState]

Capcom. I mean, if the game has a shitty fucking story and terrible cutscenes of course no one in their right mind wants missing-quality being the sole incentive to an in-game microtransaction. Not that the latest Dead Rising has a good ending whatsoever regardless. Also what they did to other long-standing series is the equivalent of whoring out your life long best friend for chump change.

343i, I expected Halo: The Master Chief Collection to be our necessary safe space to ignore the Weebification of what was supposed to be the closest contender to alien - HALO. Except it took fucking six hours to install right when I had plans to stay up into the next morning playing what defined my childhood. Except that never happened. I couldn't lend myself to touch the Xbox One after that mess until the next few months over. 343 Industries' staff were hiding in their corner working on the game from their beat up surface pro tablets. Updates fucked the game up even more while fixing other things. Then I just stopped playing it altogether. Too good to be true never stung this hard.

Bioware had no stable workforce, it was a clout of political narratives taking a metaphysical form hiring and firing anyone that walked past their offices. Even Bethesda makes sense of their messes, Bioware does not, since nobody who works there works long enough to spew fluff in front of a camera. Anyone that does is a two-bit intern with no real in-depth knowledge of the company or projects they work on.

Blizzard. Who can put collect-a-thon and the worst aspect of online gaming into one autistic package?

 

[AnOminous]

It's cliched as fuck, but EA is really the only one on my never ever give them a penny and pirate their shit even if they do ever come out with something I want.

I would piss on them if they were on fire, but only if I pissed gasoline.

 

[Overcast]

At this point, probably Bethesda.

This is a company that represents a lot of what I hate about a lot of modern gaming practices. They release clearly unfinished and buggy games that, while pretty to look at and are very large, lack a really compelling narrative and really much of any substance. And it only seems to get worse with each game.

You have Oblivion's quest lines which have you go visit every branch of the guilds you wish to join and complete quests for, in particular the Mage's Guild in which I think you have to pass a test in every city before you can go to their headquarters and do the real stuff.

Skyrim meanwhile, barely has around half a dozen or so missions before it ends and you become leader of the College of Winterhold. What's worse is that you don't even have to be proficient at magic to earn that title which makes no sense. (Granted, the same could be said for Oblivion, but at least it felt like you had to work from the bottom upwards.)

Now, all of this I can just write off as a bunch of well meaning but incompetent developers. But what really gets my goat with them is how they freely allow people to mod their games. Which, normally, is kind of a cool thing to do, however, when you consider the state their games usually are and how a couple years back, there was the whole "paid mods" controversy, it honestly sounds to me that not only are they having players fix up the bugs for them, but they're tried to profit off of them as well.

That is shady as fuck and I can't believe we ever got to this point.

So yeah, unless if it's a new Obsidian Fallout game, I don't plan on giving Bethesda any more money.

 

[Bob Page]

I have a few companies on my shit list:

EA: for fucking up the medal of honor series(Allied Assault was the best they made, IMO), basically shitcanning Command & Conquer

Bioware: Ruining a potentially great franchise(Mass Effect), not making a new Jade Empire and had a known asshole/racist in their PR Department(Manveer Heir)

IO Interactive: Why the hell have you guys not made a sequel to Freedom Fighters? The game ended on a cliffhanger. Not cool.

 

[Donuthole]

At this point, probably Bethesda.

This is a company that represents a lot of what I hate about a lot of modern gaming practices. They release clearly unfinished and buggy games that, while pretty to look at and are very large, lack a really compelling narrative and really much of any substance. And it only seems to get worse with each game.

You have Oblivion's quest lines which have you go visit every branch of the guilds you wish to join and complete quests for, in particular the Mage's Guild in which I think you have to pass a test in every city before you can go to their headquarters and do the real stuff.

Skyrim meanwhile, barely has around half a dozen or so missions before it ends and you become leader of the College of Winterhold. What's worse is that you don't even have to be proficient at magic to earn that title which makes no sense. (Granted, the same could be said for Oblivion, but at least it felt like you had to work from the bottom upwards.)

Now, all of this I can just write off as a bunch of well meaning but incompetent developers. But what really gets my goat with them is how they freely allow people to mod their games. Which, normally, is kind of a cool thing to do, however, when you consider the state their games usually are and how a couple years back, there was the whole "paid mods" controversy, it honestly sounds to me that not only are they having players fix up the bugs for them, but they're tried to profit off of them as well.

That is shady as fuck and I can't believe we ever got to this point.

So yeah, unless if it's a new Obsidian Fallout game, I don't plan on giving Bethesda any more money.

here's a perfect chance to say that all things considered the bethesda/zenimax conglomerate is kinda gross

to begin with, the board of directors (https://www.zenimax.com/about - yes, there's a trump on there) is already shady as fuck. as far as i can tell it's stayed mostly the same for years - most people on the board have been there since the company was founded (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/vprr/0704/07043400.pdf) and consists pretty much entirely of ancient butt buddy lawyers, attorneys and executives (at least, moonves, del, and altman have been best friends for decades) who'll start dishing out lawsuits the second you let them off their leashes. as far as i can tell, chris weaver, bethesda's founder, founded it with robert altman in '99 to manage bethesda's finances and legal shit before altman and his fuccbois ended up outing him from the company

weaver filed a lawsuit against him (http://www.courts.state.md.us/businesstech/pdfs/mdbt7_04_opinion.pdf) which ended up being settled out of court because he did shady shit regarding the information he dug up - he went through company emails to get them. he's still a shareholder, but altman (who got into some deep shit with the feds in the '90s: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/04/business/clifford-and-altman-settle-with-fed-over-bcci.html) still runs the show

they've done some incredibly shady shit with the devs they acquire - the human head/prey 2 situation is probably the most famous example, but it seems like they did something similar with arkane, using deadlines and loans to fuck them over to the point where they could snap them up for a super low price. this is the company that's gone after notch and "praey" for the gods for "infringing on their trademark". their outside auditors and legal counsel, kpmg and dla piper, are both well regarded, so they definitely have connections. they've gone after oculus and won, and now they're going after samsung.

it fucking sucks that most people only hate bethesda and todd because their games past morrowind are kinda shit, and not because the suits behind them are a bunch of old, greedy, litigious cunts who do some insanely suspicious shit to keep their company on top. i hope the paid mods situation convinced at least a few people they're fucking scumbags, although it's been a few years and it doesn't look like anything's drastically changed - they'll probably never hit that same level of "cool video game company to hate" that corporations like ea, ubisoft, and activision have, and it's a shame. one person boycotting a company doesn't do jackshit, but they're still the only developer/publisher i try not to buy from on principle. if there's one games company you have to boycott, please god, don't fucking buy anything from zenimax or anything they own: bethesda, id, arkane. just don't.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

Capcom. I mean, if the game has a shitty fucking story and terrible cutscenes of course no one in their right mind wants missing-quality being the sole incentive to an in-game microtransaction. Not that the latest Dead Rising has a good ending whatsoever regardless. Also what they did to other long-standing series is the equivalent of whoring out your life long best friend for chump change.

I like their games, but I'm still pissed off that they've left Devil May Cry to rot.

 

[BillionBisonBucks]

Fuck konami a million fucking times. Several of my all time favorite series, dating back to the NES, are utterly defunct due to no good reason but fucking apathy.

I have a Netflix sub, but I'll go the extra mile to watch Castlevania on a streaming site.