What was the "fiasco" of the year?

@Hailinel said:

The sexism talk. For all of the idiocy behind Retake Mass Effect and the strange details of Doritosgate, too many journalists were too clumsy in rushing out to shame developers for being sexist when they barely knew anything about the games in question. Also, for all of the criticism of one developer's comment about "protecting" Lara, a lot of white knights came out of the woodwork to attack that comment.

Pretty much what I came in to say too.

Mass Effect was a bunch of whining, entitled gamers getting up in arms over nothing. It was on a massive level, but still nothing really that new.

38 Studios was easily the biggest mess related to video games this year, and it wasn't even that close. This was something that actually had an impact on a lot of people, unlike most of the other things listed in the choices.

I think the 38 Studios thing was the biggest fiasco of the year simply because it affects an entire fucking state while everything else has little to no impact on anything outside of our tiny little neck of the woods.

@WinterSnowblind said:

Bioware in general has been the biggest fiasco. Old Republic proved to be a failure, ME3 had a ridiculously bad ending and the two Doctors left the company. I think Bioware will stay around for a good while longer, but I think the days of them being the number 1 guys for RPG's is over. Their games will gradually bring in less and less money until EA just close the doors on them.

38 Studios is a close second. They poured a ridiculous amount of money into an unproven IP that ended up being one of the blandest RPG's in recent memories. Even if they didn't go bust, the fact they thought they could use the same world and lore to create an MMO is almost laughable. It's sad to see so many people lose their jobs, but whoever was in charge of managing those projects must have had some screws loose. Develop a game world and build up a fanbase, before spending millions in multiple projects revolving around it.

The sexism stuff was pretty bad too. Not only because of the numerous articles from people pretending to know what they're talking about, but the general lack of maturity and common sense from the general gaming community. Being male and not wanting females depicted as underage school girls that need defending by everyone with a penis, doesn't make someone a "white knight".

This is the kind of shit that bothers me though.

Are women really that poorly represented in video games? Granted, most games seem to be directed at men, but that's not so surprising when most of the people buying/making them are probably guys themselves.

I don't know, maybe I'm playing the wrong games but I honestly don't think games in general are that horribly sexist.

Hmm, this sounds like a job for games journalism: Just in how many important characters where there in games where women out of the 2012 games? Without the numbers I suspect most of them would be in fighting games.

Well, what the fuck. How are people voting for the Mass Effect option? That's just silly. Unless you mean that the whiners are the ones who make a fool out of themselves.

@FancySoapsMan said:

This is the kind of shit that bothers me though.

Are women really that poorly represented in video games? Granted, most games seem to be directed at men, but that's not so surprising when most of the people buying/making them are probably guys themselves.

I don't know, maybe I'm playing the wrong games but I honestly don't think games in general are that horribly sexist.

In certain games, absolutely. Try playing Metroid: Other M.

But my point was that it's the community that's the problem. Women in videogames are depicted decently, most of the time. I think the new Tomb Raider looks great, but the amount of rage there was over what was clearly just a poorly worded comment by one of the developers, from both sides of the fence, was ridiculous. It's either "you're a misogynist" or "you're a white knight/get back to the kitchen". No middle ground or room for reasonable discussion, it was embarrassing all around.

@BabyChooChoo said:

I think the 38 Studios thing was the biggest fiasco of the year simply because it affects an entire fucking state while everything else has little to no impact on anything outside of our tiny little neck of the woods.

Pretty much what I thought in this pole. There were so many lives affected by the closing that the other choices don't even come close.

Mass Effect, followed by 38 Studios.

@WinterSnowblind said:

@FancySoapsMan said:

This is the kind of shit that bothers me though.

Are women really that poorly represented in video games? Granted, most games seem to be directed at men, but that's not so surprising when most of the people buying/making them are probably guys themselves.

I don't know, maybe I'm playing the wrong games but I honestly don't think games in general are that horribly sexist.

In certain games, absolutely. Try playing Metroid: Other M.

But my point was that it's the community that's the problem. Women in videogames are depicted decently, most of the time. I think the new Tomb Raider looks great, but the amount of rage there was over what was clearly just a poorly worded comment by one of the developers, from both sides of the fence, was ridiculous. It's either "you're a misogynist" or "you're a white knight/get back to the kitchen". No middle ground or room for reasonable discussion, it was embarrassing all around.

Ah, okay, I agree that that is a problem.

@Meltac said:

@Hailinel said:

The sexism talk. For all of the idiocy behind Retake Mass Effect and the strange details of Doritosgate, too many journalists were too clumsy in rushing out to shame developers for being sexist when they barely knew anything about the games in question. Also, for all of the criticism of one developer's comment about "protecting" Lara, a lot of white knights came out of the woodwork to attack that comment.

Pretty much what I came in to say too.

Yuuuuuupp. All of that was pretty dumb so that's getting my vote.

@Breadfan said:

38 Studios shutting down. It was an actual fiasco. Unlike the constant bitching over a game's ending.

I was going to post this but you already had me covered. They made a great game, and seeing them getting shit on by the government and the media along with just getting destroyed as a whole is fucking horrible.

@Legion_ said:

Well, what the fuck. How are people voting for the Mass Effect option? That's just silly. Unless you mean that the whiners are the ones who make a fool out of themselves.

That's probably it. That's why I specified in the first post what I meant by "fiasco":

@JoeyRavn said:

By "fiasco" I mean "any event related to the gaming industry that is not part of a video game in itself". For example, the reaction to the ME3 endings would be one such "fiasco", but not the ending themselves.

Remember when Ryan said the 'F' word? Not fuck, the homophobic one. Boy the forums sure were fun for a bit after that.

The Mass Effect stuff. Some whiny idiots set the gaming community back and made us all look bad. I was ashamed of it all and embarrassed for the people that kicked up such a fuss about it. No wonder the doctors left.

The Mass Effect 3 ending stuff, that was all pretty embarrassing.

38 studios was way bigger thing than the outcry from ME3. That shit was and is serious.

If we're talking about needless drama, then the ME3 ending stuff.

If we're talking about serious social stuff, then the sexism in games stuff really hitting home with the Anita trolls, and then almost every male getting super defensive and saying 'I'm not like that / it's just a game / why does it matter', while missing the point.

Easily the ME3 ending. A lot of the things up there could be chalked up to "video game writer faux outrage". The ME3 ending outrage came from a supposedly minority of entitled whiners as described by a good number of video game websites, but it actually came from people who purchased the game and felt deceived, either rightly or wrongly, that they didn't get what they paid for. The controversy wasn't that people wanted the ending to be changed, it was the reaction by the video game press to those people.

I voted Retake Mass Effect, but can someone explain to me what Doritosgate was all about exactly? I've read some stuff, but still can't seem to get a grasp on what it was exactly.

@TheShoebox said:

I voted Retake Mass Effect, but can someone explain to me what Doritosgate was all about exactly? I've read some stuff, but still can't seem to get a grasp on what it was exactly.

I asked about it some months ago. I'll try to find the response there, but it basically boiled down to people crying about nothing. Period.

EDIT: It was some BS about journalistic integrity because Doritos set up interviews with Keighly. Never mind the fact that he doesn't write reviews or that the only real world counterpart to this would be the White House correspondents' dinner though it barely compares. No one ever explained to me how it wasn't a joke to bring it up in light of real world practices that actually have an impact on the world.

here you go http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/huge-front-of-the-store-ad-for-black-ops-2-dew-and-doritos/566969/

The only actual fiascos on that list are 38 Studios and War Z. The rest is just the internet bitching about things.

@golguin said:

@TheShoebox said:

I voted Retake Mass Effect, but can someone explain to me what Doritosgate was all about exactly? I've read some stuff, but still can't seem to get a grasp on what it was exactly.

I asked about it some months ago. I'll try to find the response there, but it basically boiled down to people crying about nothing. Period.

EDIT: It was some BS about journalistic integrity because Doritos set up interviews with Keighly. Never mind the fact that he doesn't write reviews or that the only real world counterpart to this would be the White House correspondents' dinner though it barely compares. No one ever explained to me how it wasn't a joke to bring it up in light of real world practices that actually have an impact on the world.

here you go http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/huge-front-of-the-store-ad-for-black-ops-2-dew-and-doritos/566969/

The other part of "Doritogate" (whoever came up with this name should be dragged into the street and fucking shot) was that whole Rab Florence thing. Y'know, where he pointed out a bunch of "journalists" advertising for companies to win a free PS3, got sued, and was subsequently shitcanned.

You might remember it, the Bombcast had a 40 minute conversation that boiled down to "the internet are just being a bunch of fucking misogynists again, fuck you people".

If by 'fiasco' you mean something people blew way out of proportion, than the ME3 ending. If we're talking about problems that could impact the industry as a whole in a significant way, then either 38 Studios or THQ.

@Ravenlight said:

The only actual fiascos on that list are 38 Studios and War Z. The rest is just the internet bitching about things.

@mazik765 said:

If by 'fiasco' you mean something people blew way out of proportion, than the ME3 ending. If we're talking about problems that could impact the industry as a whole in a significant way, then either 38 Studios or THQ.

I'll quote myself again, since my first post seems to be ignored:

@JoeyRavn said:

By "fiasco" I mean "any event related to the gaming industry that is not part of a video game in itself". For example, the reaction to the ME3 endings would be one such "fiasco", but not the ending themselves.

And, also, "fiasco" at the OED Online.

I bet that guy from Ocean Marketing is pleased that most of those things happened this year.

Well, the 38 studios thing was big. At least they were able to ship Reckoning though.

But nothing got the gaming communities panties in a twist like the Mass Effect 3 ending.

The collapse of 38 Studios is the definition of "fiasco". Some of the other items on the list are a joke in comparison.

38 Studios, because most of the rest were just people who already whine being more publicly visible or annoying than usual. The Lara rape shit was a bunch of fuckign stupid idiots claiming to be feminists all but making shit up, and was mostly kept to the messae boards.

38 Studios was everywhere. EVEN TV.

Chapter 11 bancruptcy is nothing from what I've heard. Oh wait, it quite possibly is something very bad. Keep fighting THQ

Edit: Wow, I voted for the second to last option. Didn't know people cared for Mass effect or Rhode Island that much.

Diablo 3

Tough call between choices A and B. I went with the 38 Studios debacle in the end due to its ever-increasing bizarreness, Although the ME3 brouhaha got a lot of attention, I found the whole thing ridiculous. Fuckin' internet people.

I would say the 38 Studios situation. That shit got bad really quickly and as more news came out, you saw how poorly managed they were. It's even still ongoing with Rhode Island filing a lawsuit against Schilling for it.

If anything, the fact it got mainstream press attention says something.

I voted sexism only because of the reaction. People were crying over some bullshit and the developers didn't help themselves.

@Hailinel:

Joker was flying around Earth, not in a Mass Relay. Either way, you seem dead set on placing every ounce of blame on the fans, regardless of how rational their arguments are. There's no point in further discussion with you because you are convinced that you're 100% right in all cases, when you're really just looking for a fight.

You know, the very first time I saw the ending, I thought Joker had just engaged FTL from the relay, of which there doesn't seem to be any evidence to the contrary, even then, it just seems like something pretty damn minor, and quite petty to be honest, since nobody here knows the speed at which the normandy travels or how fast it would take for it to get to the relay.

Frankly friend, I'm not placing blame on anyone, I'm pointing out the real fiasco of this entire argument, which relies solely on the incapacity of a massive amount of people to differentiate between what is objectively bad and what they dislike, there's plenty to talk about many things in that ending, and rather than doing that, we're talking about how we hated the whole damn thing, which says volumes about the inmaturity of modern videogamers.

All in all, I'm pretty confident of my statements, as for the "fighting", I'm just pointing out the hollow parts of your arguments, backing out won't make you right friend.

@Hailinel: Learn to read friend, "pretty confident" is quite different.

@Hailinel: Learn to read friend, "pretty confident" is quite different.

I'm sure Curt Schilling and I are on the same page on this one.

I want to say Wii U. This is a big deal for Nintendo, it had a monster day 1 update (and its down again today due to overwhelmed servers). And the software on that system is still very flawed.

Still like the system (skyword sword is great), but so far I've personally had these issues:

1. Wii U crashes when switching back from Wii mode, gives data corruption error

2. eshop frequently does not work (error 105-4256 even with manual IP)

3. DHCP sometimes works, making it difficult to diagnose. Going between screens will lose internet connectivity. (required manual setting + reserved IP at router to fix)

4. Netflix still just shows blank screens and plays audio from the HDTV port (not the only person with this) - but it shows the select menu just fine.

5. Very long load times

Games are transient things, but considering how widely shelves are overflowing with these things..... Bleh, I hope Nintendo gets it working - probably one of the video game companies I most want to succeed. And I'm still glad to have the system and expect a decent number of solid titles. It just seems like they should have taken a good OS (Linux, FreeBSD, who knows) instead of trying to roll their own at this point.

@Hailinel said:

The sexism talk. For all of the idiocy behind Retake Mass Effect and the strange details of Doritosgate, too many journalists were too clumsy in rushing out to shame developers for being sexist when they barely knew anything about the games in question. Also, for all of the criticism of one developer's comment about "protecting" Lara, a lot of white knights came out of the woodwork to attack that comment.

Perfectly summed up. The Lara Croft "protecting" comment drama was one of the most unimportant, media manufactured "controversies" I've heard in quite some time. It was embarrassing to hear journalists attempt to have a serious take on it, even on the bombcast.

To me, the most insulting thing ive seen this year within the gaming community is the fact that EA won the title of worst company of the year over Bank of America... I know its a stupid poll and doesn't mean anything but still, EA beat BANK OF AMERICA????? One mediocre ending to a good series fucking beats the fact that banks fucked our economy? Yeah...really hard to take a gaming community seriously when this is the result.

@Turambar said:

Did the whole Sony hacking happen this year or last? Man, I don't remember anymore.

@Hippie_Genocide said:

For me, it was the whole fallout after Aris' comments on Cross Assault, and how some game journos (especially Kotaku), handled their coverage of it. And yes, that includes Klepek. This probably was a bigger deal to me because I'm more plugged into the FGC than any other gaming subculture.

Oh right, that whole "No, we can't have a fighting game community without sexism" quote. Man, that guy was pretty shitty wasn't he?

He really isn't. I agree that he made some dumb and tasteless comments but, to be brutally honest, that is precisely what he's known for. He takes the piss out of everyone and members of the FGC tend to find him pretty entertaining as a result. Plus the guy does a lot for the community in terms of organising events and tournaments.

Cliffy B left Epic? Why is this the first I hear about this?

38 Studios closing was heartbreaking.

@Crysack said:

@Turambar said:

Did the whole Sony hacking happen this year or last? Man, I don't remember anymore.

@Hippie_Genocide said:

For me, it was the whole fallout after Aris' comments on Cross Assault, and how some game journos (especially Kotaku), handled their coverage of it. And yes, that includes Klepek. This probably was a bigger deal to me because I'm more plugged into the FGC than any other gaming subculture.

Oh right, that whole "No, we can't have a fighting game community without sexism" quote. Man, that guy was pretty shitty wasn't he?

He really isn't. I agree that he made some dumb and tasteless comments but, to be brutally honest, that is precisely what he's known for. He takes the piss out of everyone and members of the FGC tend to find him pretty entertaining as a result. Plus the guy does a lot for the community in terms of organising events and tournaments.

So what you're saying is he makes comments that people agree are really shitty, but the same people agree that it's a good thing? Hopefully you can understand the mental disconnect I'm finding impossible to bridge.

How is 38 studio closing a "fiasco", they tried to make a big open world wow clone subscription based mmo... it would have failed, anyone who thought it wouldn't have failed was ether A) the investors who had no clue about video games B) clinically brain dead. It's surprising they closed BEFORE releasing the mmo and not a few months after but non the less everyone knew where that studio was headed.

Also, why is the Diablo 3 launch issue no on the list... that seemed pretty big, and compared to mass effect 3, where once again, people knew BEFORE the god damn game was released that the ending will be how it is and you had every clue about it from devs leaving bioware to pre-launch DLC that EA is gonna screw the game. I seriously don't get why the ME issue is bigger than the Diablo issue.

@Aterons said:

How is 38 studio closing a "fiasco", they tried to make a big open world wow clone subscription based mmo... it would have failed, anyone who thought it wouldn't have failed was ether A) the investors who had no clue about video games B) clinically brain dead. It's surprising they closed BEFORE releasing the mmo and not a few months after but non the less everyone knew where that studio was headed.

Also, why is the Diablo 3 launch issue no on the list... that seemed pretty big, and compared to mass effect 3, where once again, people knew BEFORE the god damn game was released that the ending will be how it is and you had every clue about it from devs leaving bioware to pre-launch DLC that EA is gonna screw the game. I seriously don't get why the ME issue is bigger than the Diablo issue.

How is 38 Studios closure a fiasco? Because over 300 people lost their jobs. None of them were informed about what was going on until after shit hit the fan. No one got paid the final week they were supposed to. Some of the employees moved from some other state to Rhode Island and had their mortgages handled through 38 Studios which meant they were about to be homeless. Same thing regarding their health insurance as there are numerous reports of employees and spouses going to a doctor and then finding out they had no way to pay for it.

They borrowed $75 million from the state that they couldn't pay back which meant taxpayers would now have to pay more to make up the money. Due to that the Rhode Island state police, the attorney general's office, the U.S. Attorney's office, and the FBI had to launch investigations into the company. The state of Rhode Island filed a lawsuit in November 2012 against Schilling, Stokes, and other backers of the company. Schilling, who was filthy rich before he started that company, was now completely broke.

That's why it's such a fiasco. It affected an entire state.

The whole ME3 controversy and Diablo 3 launch only affected people (i.e. forum-dwellers) who gave a shit about those games. If you don't care about either of those games then it was just another normal day for you. I don't see how the 38 Stuidos isn't more of a fiasco.

War Z or the Doritos thing (the dude getting fired and that random chick threatening to sue more so than Keighley though)

ME was the most ridiculous, 38 the most sad.

H. 2012 was a disappointing year for the gaming community as a whole. Whether it was taking various marketingspeak at face value (Mass Effect, Diablo, Nintendo), defending sexism, displaying obscene amounts of tribalism, sensationalism, hypocrisy (lambasting game journalists for sensationalism), entitlement...

Come on, "gamers", I thought you were smarter than that. Not much smarter, but still.

Also, the definition of fiasco: a complete failure. Just because it's in "quotes" doesn't change it to "what some people called fiasco but in my opinion was completely overblown and an indication of how terrible the games media is".