What was the "fiasco" of the year?

The whole ME3 ending thing seemed to be the biggest fuss to me.

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. With that in mind, what do you think was the most negative, disconcerting or downright appalling event in 2012?

PS: Sorry for the lack of options. I tried to remember as many as I could, but my memory only goes so far...

sexism because people seemed fine until this year and then everyone "needed to speak out" about it

Also waiting for Tomb Raider so I can do my part and help that defenseless Lara kid. She needs me to protect her guys!

The Mass Effect nonsense.

I know that when people really love a piece of entertainment they lose some grasp on reality but Jesus Christ, you guys!

Mass Effect 3 Ending debate. That thing was blown out of proportion. I heard that group of people were able to raise $1000 within an hour to send a passive aggressive message to Bioware in in the form of cupcakes.

.

I just found it weird that so many men were talking about objectifying women. I only really paid attention to articles on that topic written by females. Not surprisingly, many of them had no problem with Lara facing (and overcoming) extreme adversity.

The whole mass effect thing. I don't agree with it, but it was probably the thing that I heard the most about this year. People went crazy for a surprising amount of time.

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.

I voted for Doritosgate even though the ME3 shitstorm was hilarious

The ME3 ending outrage had an incredibly lopsided ratio of people flipping their shit and of the issues' actual importance.

Thanks to fan art Lara has been getting raped for years.

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

@Neurotic said:

The Mass Effect nonsense.

I know that when people really love a piece of entertainment they lose some grasp on reality but Jesus Christ, you guys!

Pretty much.

@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.

Word!

The way this was handled frustrated me to no end. Especially on the Bombcast. When people who talk about this stuff professionally make comments on the level of a typical news story user-comment, something is seriously messed up.

Admittedly credit goes to Destructoid for reminding me of this, but remember when Phil Fish told a Japanese game developer that his games suck?

(The article mentions some other good ones like Street Fighter X Tekken's On Disc DLC, Bayonetta 2 being Wii U exclusive, and Diablo 3 being fucked on Day 1, but the Phil Fish one was the only one of those four that wasn't about a game specifically.)

Also, while I believe that the Mass Effect 3 thing was the most notable controversy in terms of attention it got, but the sexism stuff is probably the most important controversy as it is something the game industry will probably have to address.

For a sheer entertainment watching the ME3 responses

Really its 38 but thats to depressing for the good people who worked there for me to think about

@DeF 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.

Word!

The way this was handled frustrated me to no end. Especially on the Bombcast. When people who talk about this stuff professionally make comments on the level of a typical news story user-comment, something is seriously messed up.

I have no opinion on the game as of yet but I'm sorry that comment was a little fucked up vOv

E.

The reaction to that Hitman trailer was incredibly stupid. And that was just one of many, many, clumsy discussions about sexism in videogames this year.

@feliciano182 said:

@Neurotic said:

The Mass Effect nonsense.

I know that when people really love a piece of entertainment they lose some grasp on reality but Jesus Christ, you guys!

Pretty much.

But in one sense isn't that awesome that there is a story in gaming that people were SO passionate about that the fervor got to that level? I think if nothing else that says how much of an impact that series has had on the gaming landscape.

Definitely the Mass Effect 3 ending which was widely panned across the internet and the thing Bioware has been trying to fix without completely tossing it out for something new.

Everything surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending was far more appalling than the ending itself.

@TepidShark said:

Admittedly credit goes to Destructoid for reminding me of this, but remember when Phil Fish told a Japanese game developer that his games suck? (The article mentions some other good ones like Street Fighter X Tekken's On Disc DLC, Bayonetta 2 being Wii U exclusive, and Diablo 3 being fucked on Day 1, but the Phil Fish one was the only one of those four that wasn't about a game specifically.)

Yeah, I went to that Destructoid article to refresh my memory, but I didn't include any of those three because, honestly, I don't think they are that significant. SFxT was not the first, and will not be the last, game to have on-disc DLC. Especially if we're talking about fighting games, where developers need everyone to be able to play with everyone, regardless of which DLC characters they had purchased. The whole uproar about Bayonetta 2 being a Wii U exclusive seems to me like the typical fanboy stupidity that you could also get with, say, Dark Souls being ported to PC. Nothing new under the sun. And everyone expects MMOs and MMO-like games with always-online DRM to be pretty much broken during the first few days after launch, so the Diablo III issues were not that big of a surprise.

Those were all pretty stupid moments in 2012, don't get me wrong. But I felt that they were just very specific instances of things that happen every now and then in the industry :P

38 studios. the mass effect 3 complaining doesn't come close.

@JoeyRavn said:

@TepidShark said:

Admittedly credit goes to Destructoid for reminding me of this, but remember when Phil Fish told a Japanese game developer that his games suck? (The article mentions some other good ones like Street Fighter X Tekken's On Disc DLC, Bayonetta 2 being Wii U exclusive, and Diablo 3 being fucked on Day 1, but the Phil Fish one was the only one of those four that wasn't about a game specifically.)

Yeah, I went to that Destructoid article to refresh my memory, but I didn't include any of those three because, honestly, I don't think they are that significant. SFxT was not the first, and will not be the last, game to have on-disc DLC. Especially if we're talking about fighting games, where developers need everyone to be able to play with everyone, regardless of which DLC characters they had purchased. The whole uproar about Bayonetta 2 being a Wii U exclusive seems to me like the typical fanboy stupidity that you could also get with, say, Dark Souls being ported to PC. Nothing new under the sun. And everyone expects MMOs and MMO-like games with always-online DRM to be pretty much broken during the first few days after launch, so the Diablo III issues were not that big of a surprise.

Those were all pretty stupid moments in 2012, don't get me wrong. But I felt that they were just very specific instances of things that happen every now and then in the industry :P

The Phil Fish one was an interesting controversy when it happened though. For sure, not the biggest one of the year, but still a crazy story.

The long and tumultous fall of once venerable developer Silicon Knights. I get that Dennis Dyack "is a hack" argument for why this story isn't so big, but when you begin to investigate how that studio was run under Nintendo, and then what ensued under Microsoft, SEGA and finally Activision it is a super sad cautionary tale. It was a long time coming, but Silicon Knights could have been an incredible developer had things turned out less like Team BONDI under one "benevolent dictator."

I insist that people turn their attention to NEOGaf for this one thread: http://www.neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=503761

@FancySoapsMan said:

E.

The reaction to that Hitman trailer was incredibly stupid. And that was just one of many, many, clumsy discussions about sexism in videogames this year.

This years sexism will only lead to next years vapid discussions of why there aren't more quality queer video game protagonists, right?

This ones actually tough...hmmm.

The whole Mass Effect 3 stuff by far, after that I decided I'll ignore most if not all game communities from now on, just like Reggie said you just can't please gamers.. never.

The whole Mass Effect nerd-rage thing was "Badumb".

It was an embarrassing year for video game "journalism".

38 Studios. It just came out of nowhere and exploded so quickly.

38 Studios for me. Sure the ME3 stuff and sexism stuff went pretty wild, but none of them even got to such a serious level such as what happened with that studio. I will subjectively say that all other choices don't hold a candle to the real fiasco that was 38 studios.

Definitely Mass Effect 3. Personally I enjoyed the ending. I hated Bioware removed most of the exploration aspect out of ME3, but I kind of understand why...the galaxy is at war and there is not time for site seeing. Besides that I loved ME3's story and ending.

The Mass Effect ending reaction was the most unexpected surprise.

The sexism debate that seemed to literally come out from nowhere. Hopefully that's where it'll recede, and we can get on with our lives.

I'd say the shit with 38 Studios. Yeah the Mass Effect 3 ending was a big deal but it was still just people complaining on the internet. With 38 Studios people lost jobs, money, and pretty much everything.

I do really want to say ME3 fiasco, but the whole thing seems petty in comparison to the 38 studios thing.

I would say the events surrounding Bioware caused some of the biggest issues I've seen in awhile. Having both ME3 and SWTOR both have serious and public issues was shocking since both were very expensive and heavily managed.

@Demoskinos said:

But in one sense isn't that awesome that there is a story in gaming that people were SO passionate about that the fervor got to that level? I think if nothing else that says how much of an impact that series has had on the gaming landscape.

You make a good point, though in my opinion, I wish the fervor had been for better reasons than what is basically a mixture of "outrage" and "entitlement".

@feliciano182 said:

@Demoskinos said:

But in one sense isn't that awesome that there is a story in gaming that people were SO passionate about that the fervor got to that level? I think if nothing else that says how much of an impact that series has had on the gaming landscape.

You make a good point, though in my opinion, I wish the fervor had been for better reasons than what is basically a mixture of "outrage" and "entitlement".

Indeed. The fervor around it did in some circles at least get a bit misguided. There were people however who were legit angry that were able to articulate their dislike beyond "Fuck You Bioware!"

That 38 Studios stuff was pretty crazy. I really hope a made-for-cable docudrama gets made out of that catastrophe.

@Demoskinos said:

@feliciano182 said:

@Demoskinos said:

But in one sense isn't that awesome that there is a story in gaming that people were SO passionate about that the fervor got to that level? I think if nothing else that says how much of an impact that series has had on the gaming landscape.

You make a good point, though in my opinion, I wish the fervor had been for better reasons than what is basically a mixture of "outrage" and "entitlement".

Indeed. The fervor around it did in some circles at least get a bit misguided. There were people however who were legit angry that were able to articulate their dislike beyond "Fuck You Bioware!"

FUCK YOU BIOWARE!

sorry had to get one more out before the new year.

I'd say most people got up in arms about Mass Effect 3 than anything else. I found it amazing how quickly fans of that series turned on that game. With the main writer of the series forced over to the Star Wars: The Old Republic, I think the team did okay with what they were left with. Obviously, not everyone felt the same. I agree with Brad in that Mass Effect 3 got EA'd to death.

The ME thing was UNPRECEDENTED

The stuff with 38 Studios was the biggest news event of the year but it's not a lasting event. The sexism issue came up over and over again because it's a big problem and is unfortunately going to remain one for generations.

@Demoskinos said:

Indeed. The fervor around it did in some circles at least get a bit misguided. There were people however who were legit angry that were able to articulate their dislike beyond "Fuck You Bioware!"

I don't know, even the most articulate seem to be missing some pretty important points.

REGARDLESS, the initial reaction was what was really without any merit, no people, Electronic Arts is not worse than Bank Of America, wake the fuck up.

Just a friendly reminder that Keighly is the cancer killing video games and you are a bad person if you visit Gametrailers and support him you are a bad person.

@Animasta said:

@DeF 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.

Word!

The way this was handled frustrated me to no end. Especially on the Bombcast. When people who talk about this stuff professionally make comments on the level of a typical news story user-comment, something is seriously messed up.

I have no opinion on the game as of yet but I'm sorry that comment was a little fucked up vOv

You don't find it absurd that people were rushing to the defense of women by attacking a comment that referenced protecting a woman?

How the fuck does that make any sense?