There's a lot of terrible videogame companies out there, but which one deserves the crown for being the worst of the worst? Please justify your answer in the comments.
Poll: What is the worst game company out there?
- Thread starter Matthew Jabour
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See the three men in my avatar? The guy with the orange background is Bobby Kotick of Activision, the company that milks franchises to the bone and has lax gameplay innovation except for the recent Black Ops 2, which is a mediocre game at best. Also, I had a temporary vendetta against the company after they nearly killed off True Crime (a.k.a. Sleeping Dogs), a game that I was really excited for.
The two other guys are execs from EA, the gaming industry's equivalent to the Roman Empire. Not only do they have little innovation in their games, but they also assimilate small game developers just to acquire their IPs while removing vital people from their dev groups to the point that their souls are gone. And all the games they release are aimed for a general audience, meaning that the content is dumbed down to the point of insanity. Case in point, Dead Space 3, a game in a series of horror games, was made less scary than its predecessors because apparently most people didn't like games that were too horrifying.
And to add to the bit about making games for a general audience, they're trying to force every future game to have an online component of sorts, which often wastes the resources of developers trying to make a game with a extremely in-depth single-player storyline. The publisher also has a restrictive online distribution system, and a marketing team that treats gamers as if they were really just preteens and basement-dwellers,
And if that isn't evil enough for you, take note that this company tried to buy out Valve, which is akin to killing off the gaming equivalent of Pixar.
The two other guys are execs from EA, the gaming industry's equivalent to the Roman Empire. Not only do they have little innovation in their games, but they also assimilate small game developers just to acquire their IPs while removing vital people from their dev groups to the point that their souls are gone. And all the games they release are aimed for a general audience, meaning that the content is dumbed down to the point of insanity. Case in point, Dead Space 3, a game in a series of horror games, was made less scary than its predecessors because apparently most people didn't like games that were too horrifying.
And to add to the bit about making games for a general audience, they're trying to force every future game to have an online component of sorts, which often wastes the resources of developers trying to make a game with a extremely in-depth single-player storyline. The publisher also has a restrictive online distribution system, and a marketing team that treats gamers as if they were really just preteens and basement-dwellers,
And if that isn't evil enough for you, take note that this company tried to buy out Valve, which is akin to killing off the gaming equivalent of Pixar.
I'd say Zynga
They have barely any original ideas, their games are filled to the brim with ads one way or another (heck they have ads for themselves in their own games) and on top of that they're complete assholes to their own employees, see the various articles on the escapist in regards to Zynga not allowing ex-employees to find a job at their competitor.
Silicon Knights.
Crazy CEO, terrible games, awful production cycles, and they ruin employees careers.
Crazy CEO, terrible games, awful production cycles, and they ruin employees careers.
*Sigh...should I stop warning you that putting just a sentence and giving nothing in your OP is a warnable offense? You already got a love-tap by the ban-hammer for this very issue Mr. Jabour!
Seriously, the worst game company in the world will be a company that no one has ever heard of because they just spit out crap after crap (like, literally releasing broken games). Every game company that has been mentioned so far has stuff that I (and millions of other gamers) have loved. I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion but it's absolutely silly to call these multi-million dollar companies bad at what they do. I suppose once some of these companies crash themselves so badly that they can't recover, THEN they can be called the worst
Although the guy above makes a good case for Zynga...
Here:
Who made this game? If you MUST have a worse company ever, make it the people who made this game.
Agreed, /end threadaguspal said:
Seriously, the worst game company in the world will be a company that no one has ever heard of because they just spit out crap after crap (like, literally releasing broken games). Every game company that has been mentioned so far has stuff that I (and millions of other gamers) have loved. I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion but it's absolutely silly to call these multi-million dollar companies bad at what they do. I suppose once some of these companies crash themselves so badly that they can't recover, THEN they can be called the worst
Although the guy above makes a good case for Zynga...
Here:
Who made this game? If you MUST have a worse company ever, make it the people who made this game.
That's Steller Stone, I just came in to post them actually. I don't know anything about their other games, but if Big Rigs is any indication they are probably bad.tippy2k2 said:
I'll also have to agree with what both of you said. EA has got good games same with most other companies
Although some of their sales strategies bother me.
Zynga
-What they make can scarcely be called games; just Skinner Box grindfests with no real point.
-Their methods of creating said "games" is nothing short of blatant theft.
-They engage in aggressive market control, threatening anyone legally for trying to play them at their own game.
(it's OK for them to steal ideas and styles verbatim, but as soon as someone else does it, oh here comes the lawyers)
Really, it's just the very worst kind of company who can gain control, and it all stems from horrid business ethics at the very top; not just incompetence or presumption.
-What they make can scarcely be called games; just Skinner Box grindfests with no real point.
-Their methods of creating said "games" is nothing short of blatant theft.
-They engage in aggressive market control, threatening anyone legally for trying to play them at their own game.
(it's OK for them to steal ideas and styles verbatim, but as soon as someone else does it, oh here comes the lawyers)
Really, it's just the very worst kind of company who can gain control, and it all stems from horrid business ethics at the very top; not just incompetence or presumption.
Ubisoft. As a PC gamer, their games are consistently the most difficult to run clusterfucks. It's also the publisher whose games I've had the most success boycotting, so it *must* be hatred.
EA/Microsoft are bad to a lesser extent, I hadn't been to a game night with my friends in recent memory where an Origin exclusive or GFW:L game actually ran with no goddamn problems. It's all server maintenance or disconnects every 3 minutes.
EA/Microsoft are bad to a lesser extent, I hadn't been to a game night with my friends in recent memory where an Origin exclusive or GFW:L game actually ran with no goddamn problems. It's all server maintenance or disconnects every 3 minutes.
Hey, can we not do this? None of these companies are terrible. And the people that work for them aren't evil. The only thing that threads like this do is reinforce the irrational hate that's building up in the community (and making it much, much worse than the things it hates). At least be mature about your complaints.
EA and Ubisoft.
Honestly, I want to like EA. They do do things right occasionally and I'll be all "Oh look, EA has done something good, maybe they're changing!". And then they do something stupid like hold Dead Space to ransom for 5 million copies of 3 sold. I don't even like Dead Space, but that's bullshit.
In addition, they are guilty of trying to homogenise all their games these days. Most EA games I've played in the last couple of years have started playing basically the same. More and more mindless action, less and less everything else - unless its one of the kids titles or their sports titles.
Ubisoft is guilty of something different. I also want to like Ubisoft. They release some cool and interesting games from time to time. However, their attitude towards PC gamers and BS DRM makes it so that unless that game is exceptional, I'm not going to risk my money buying it when the DRM could screw me over, like it does numerous others.
Honestly, I want to like EA. They do do things right occasionally and I'll be all "Oh look, EA has done something good, maybe they're changing!". And then they do something stupid like hold Dead Space to ransom for 5 million copies of 3 sold. I don't even like Dead Space, but that's bullshit.
In addition, they are guilty of trying to homogenise all their games these days. Most EA games I've played in the last couple of years have started playing basically the same. More and more mindless action, less and less everything else - unless its one of the kids titles or their sports titles.
Ubisoft is guilty of something different. I also want to like Ubisoft. They release some cool and interesting games from time to time. However, their attitude towards PC gamers and BS DRM makes it so that unless that game is exceptional, I'm not going to risk my money buying it when the DRM could screw me over, like it does numerous others.
I usually say EA, Zynga, and Activision but none of them have made a game I've wanted to play in years (or ever in Zynga'scase). So I'll say Ubisoft as I have never seen seen a company so determined to discourage me given them money despite me actually wanting to. While they have dropped their always onlinec drm rubbish the fact is I don't trust Ubisoft.
Wait, "monopoly on certain games" what does this mean? They send ninja assassins to every dev that tries to do something like Portal or Half-Life? Is that why we haven't seen other people take on those?Tayh said:
OT: I'm surprised Ubisoft isn't on the list. Not that I particularly dislike them...well, not more than what is normal, I suppose, but Ubi usually ends up on lists like these.
As for my answer...dunno, I'm not interested in games in either of these. I think I'm least interested in Activision games, followed closely by EA. And by that I mean I mean that from each's catalogue the amount of games I even care about is the the smallest for Activision and EA.
Does that count?
Define worst. It's obvious that any company that makes shit games is bad, but what about aggressively evil marketing schemes? How do you compare a company that makes competent games that asks for your soul with a company that makes horribly flawed games? I don't think you can.
If you're going for pure evil, I don't think anyone can outdo EA. They aren't even concerned with making games anymore, they just want to put out a product that will bring in the cash. That can take the form of something simple like the next Madden iteration, or it can be an ill-conceived idea like Syndicate. Both are good games in their own right, but they only exist to bring in cash, and not to stand as an example of the abilities of the associated dev teams to craft a genuine work of art[footnote]using the word loosely here. I'm not speaking of art games, or artistic merit here, just the ability to make something different and neat[/footnote]
On the other hand, you have Mdicky here that can't even make something that will appeal to its target audience.
If you're going for pure evil, I don't think anyone can outdo EA. They aren't even concerned with making games anymore, they just want to put out a product that will bring in the cash. That can take the form of something simple like the next Madden iteration, or it can be an ill-conceived idea like Syndicate. Both are good games in their own right, but they only exist to bring in cash, and not to stand as an example of the abilities of the associated dev teams to craft a genuine work of art[footnote]using the word loosely here. I'm not speaking of art games, or artistic merit here, just the ability to make something different and neat[/footnote]
On the other hand, you have Mdicky here that can't even make something that will appeal to its target audience.
