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Megathread Controversies and bad/good behaviour of Companies in the industry (WIP)

Thread Description
Documentation and collection of the good and bad things video game companies do

DarkMahesvara

varishangout.com
Regular
Here we document and collect good and bad behavior of Gaming Companies (Software/Hardware Developers and Publishers)!

This can be used to make decisions if you want to buy there games and support them. Since this will be a long list use "Control" + "F" on your keyboard to search for Companies or Games.

If you know about something that would fit, comment below (with sources + already archived link to archive.today / archive.org) and i add them to the OP!



Examples of behavior:

The Bad:
  • Censorship
  • Anti-consumer tactics like DRM, always online/requiring account for singleplayer, collecting (unnecessary/private) data, suing and harassing modders, extreme microtransactions, exclusivity (content or store availability)
  • Broken Products
  • Treat workers badly
  • General SJW bullshit like virtue signalling

The Good:
  • Not apologizing and yielding to twitter/cancel mobs for no reason
  • Free/cheap/good content (going above and beyond)



Rating:

Since it's easier to complain than praise and any rating by only one person will be biased at some point, feel free to rate them yourself or comment below if you disagree (with reason).

Companies and Events will be rated by the above criteria: Red = Bad; Yellow = Mixed (some good some bad / Not entirely good or bad); Green = Good.



Developers, Publishers and Games:

Activision Blizzard / Treyarch / Infinity Ward / High Moon Studios / Toys for Bob
(OverWatch, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk's, Spyro/Skylanders, StarCraft)

ASUS
(Computer Components Manufacturer)

Amazon Games
(Lord of the Rings MMO, Crucible, New World)

Atlus
(Megami Tensei, Persona, Etrian Odyssey, Catherine, Trauma Center)
(2019) CENSORED: removes "Transphobic" dialogue from Catherine: Full Body's international release
(2020) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Persona 4 Golden
(2021) CENSORED: Western Release Of Persona 5 Royal To Censor Scenes Featuring Two Gay Men
(2021) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Persona 5 Striker

Bethesda Softworks / Game Studios
(The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, Dishonored, Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Evil Within)
(2006) MICROTRANSACTION: Popularized DLC/Microtransaction by adding Horse Armor Pack into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
(2015) Supported Paid mods in Steam Workshop
(2018 - 2019) Fallout 76 (see IH full video):
(2020-2021) Doom Eternal:

Campo Santo / Sean Vanaman
(Firewatch, In the Valley of Gods)

Capcom
(Resident Evil, Mega Man)
(1998) CENSORED: removes smoking and gore scenes from Resident Evil 1's introduction video
(2001) CENSORED: removes the ability to kick dogs and cats, also prevents you from sniping birds down in the North American and European releases of Mega Man Legends
(2005) CENSORED: removes blood splatter sprites from all enemies in North American and European releases of Mega Man Zero 1, 2, 3 & 4
(2005) CENSORED: removes blood effects, head and limb decapitation from Japanese releases of Resident Evil 4
(2009) CENSORED: removes the ability to cause heads to explode with headshots in the Japanese release of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
(2017) CENSORED: replaces decapitated heads with photos in Japanese releases of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
(2017) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (now removed!)
(2017) CENSORED: replaces Hong Kong flags with Chinese flags in Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers
(2019) CENSORED: reduces body gore details in Japanese releases of Resident Evil 2: REmake
(2019) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Resident Evil 2 (now removed!)
(2020) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Resident Evil 3 (now removed!)
(2020) Makes Cover/Hololive Remove thousands of videos due to requiring permission for Companies to stream there Games in Japan (Cover Tweet and Statement)
(2021) Allows Cover/Hololive to stream there games after signing a license agreement gradually recovering (hopefully all) removed videos (Cover Tweet and lost Statement)
(2021) CENSORED: reduces body gore details (again) in Japanese releases of Resident Evil Village
(2021) DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper in Resident Evil 8 Village (degrades performance so much it got even in the normie news)
(2021) CENSORED: Capcom Arcade Stadium Removes Street Fighter II’s Rising Sun

CD Projekt (CDPR) / GoG
(Witcher, Gwent, Cyberpunk2077)

Devolver Digital / Good Shepherd Entertainment / Croteam
(Serious Sam Series, Hotline Miami, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior Series and many more)

Epic Games
(Fortnite, Unreal, Bulletstorm)
(2012) +40% owned by Tencent (China/CCP)
(2018 - now) Epic Games Store/Launcher:

Five Nights at Freddy's
(FNAF)

Facepunch Studios
(Garry's Mod, Rust)

Frost Giant Studios

Geoff Keighley
(Final Hours Series)

Gigabyte
(Computer Components Manufacturer)

Koei Tecmo / Team Ninja
(Fairy Tail, Dead Or Alive)

Landfall
(Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, TABG, TABZ, Clustertruck, Air Brawl, Square Brawl, Nuclear Business, Stick Fight: The Game)

MangaGamer

Microsoft / Xbox / Xbox Game Studios / Obsidian Entertainment / 343 Industries

miHoYo
(Genshin Impact, Guns Girl Z, Honkai Impact 3rd)

NCSoft / ArenaNet
(Guild Wars 1&2, Rytlock's Critter Rampage)

Nintendo

Newegg
(Online Computer Component Retailer)

NZXT
(Computer Components Manufacturer)

PeroPeroGames / X.D. Network Inc.
(Muse Dash, Carto, The Almost Gone, Sands of Salzaar, Journey of Greed, Tale of Fallen Dragons)

Playtonic Games / Playtonic / Playtonic Friends
(Yooka-Laylee; Demon Turf; BPM: BULLETS PER MINUTE; A Little Golf Journey)

Razer
(Computer Peripherals Manufacturer)

Sega
(Yakuza Series)

SUPERHOT Team
(SuperHot, SuperHot VR)

Sony / Playstation

Steam / Valve
(Counter Strike, Half-Life, Left4Dead, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, Ricoche, Portal, Dota, Artifact)

SteelSeries
(Computer Peripherals Manufacturer)

Square Enix

TiMi Studio Group
(Honor of Kings, Arena of Valor, Call of Duty: Mobile, Pokémon UNITE)

Tantalus Media and Forgotten Empires
(Age of Empire Definitive Editions)

Ubisoft
(For Honor, Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, Far Cry, Rayman, Rabbids, Watch Dogs, Just Dance, Tom Clancy's series / Rainbow Six)

Wube Software LTD.
(Factorio)
 
Last edited:

FunsLeaf

varishangout.com
Regular
Here we document and collect good and bad behavior of video game companies (Developers and Publishers). This can be used to make decisions if you want to buy there games and support them.

Since there is already so much i will just start with current events and add more as time goes on. If you know about something that would fit, comment below (with sources) and i add them to the OP.

examples:
The Bad: censorship, general SJW things like virtue signalling, anti-consumer tactics (DRM, suing/harassing modders)

The Good: don't bent or apologize to twitter mobs for no reason



SUPERHOT Team (SuperHot)

Sony / Playstation

Wube Software LTD. (Factorio)

Frost Giant Studios
The recent Activision Blizzard sexual harrassment lawsuits come to mind, among other things I vaguely recall: Tracer butt controversy, mobile diablo, Blitzchung controversy (banned hearthstone player for pro hong kong message).

Archive links (as to avoid giving these journos clicks if possible)
Archive of an article about the lawsuit.
Archive of Tracer butt controversy
Archive of an article about Diablo Immortal
Video of Diablo Immortal reactions
Archive of an article of Blitzchung controversy.

Also let's not forget about Bethesda and Valve paid mods shit: Archive of article about paid mods

Also Little Witch Nobeta is pretty based: https://varishangout.com/index.php?threads/little-witch-nobeta.319/
 

DarkMahesvara

varishangout.com
Regular
The recent Activision Blizzard sexual harrassment lawsuits come to mind, among other things I vaguely recall: Tracer butt controversy, mobile diablo, Blitzchung controversy (banned hearthstone player for pro hong kong message).
Gonna wait until the sexual harrassment law suits are over and a conclusion is reached but i will add the Blitzchung and butt controversy.
Also let's not forget about Bethesda and Valve paid mods shit: Archive of article about paid mods
added thx
not sure if that fits. I don't wanna simply add games because they are based. At least not if there has not been some kind of outcry.
 

Grönsak

varishangout.com
you can add AoE3de to the list of stupid censorship.

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versvlees

varishangout.com
Yes. Absolutely. Maybe BECAUSE of Sony's new standards, but they decided the same for the other platforms.
Quite frankly this is something more developers should get more shit for. Censoring products to the lowest common denominator which is a relatively new thing. Remember how certain markets would get their own censored versions while leaving the global or other markets free of them.

Can you imagine how retarded this kind of global censorship would have looked back in the old days. For example, imposing the meme level German censorship of replacing enemies with robots, zombies and green blood on worldwide releases of games.

Sony new standards would not be such a cancer if developers would just give the censored trash versions to them but release uncensored versions for other platforms. The fact that some developers still use the Sony platform as a basis. You know any new release is pozzed during development to adhere to Sony standards.
 

FunsLeaf

varishangout.com
Regular
I see small mistake with the list, Valve did not make Garry's mod, that was Garry Newman / Facepunch Studios, who also made Rust and are working on S&box (Garry's mod but with Source 2).
Garry made a statement in support of paid mods, also paid mods should also be included in the Bethesda Softworks section since Valve wasn't alone in that retarded decision.

Nintendo, they make pretty good hardware and games, but they got a long history of fuckery: Sacrifices to the Church of Nintendo (good summary of Nintendo fuckery by EmpLemon)
- Nintendo Copyright Fuckery on Youtube,
- Shitty Creators Program that was full of problems.
- Nintendo Hates You: Gaming Giant Lobs A DMCA Nuke At Hundreds Of Fan Games
And a lot more that I can't be bothered to link.
 

DarkMahesvara

varishangout.com
Regular
I see small mistake with the list, Valve did not make Garry's mod, that was Garry Newman / Facepunch Studios, who also made Rust and are working on S&box (Garry's mod but with Source 2).
Garry made a statement in support of paid mods, also paid mods should also be included in the Bethesda Softworks section since Valve wasn't alone in that retarded decision.
Edited and Added it! Its difficult to draw the lines since Valve published it. i made an extra entry for Facepunch Studios mentioning it.
Added thx
 
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