Past Game Grievances And How You Dealt With Them

Games Video Games
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After playing an hour of the new No Man’s Sky update, I genuinely got excited again for playing more of the game. However, when I talk to some of my friends they are still bitter and harbor resentment against Hello Games for how badly that 2016 launch went. While I applaud Hello Games for continuing to support the game, I understand where those feelings come from.

This further led me down a thought examination of my former and existing grudges and grievances against game publishers and devs. For example, I am still mad at Square Enix over how they treated Deus Ex and Hitman. I used to be really bitter against Activision for shutting down dedicated server support for Call of Duty games on PC.

However, lately I have been self-examining and asking myself if I need to move on. Not necessarily to forget that it made me bitter or that those feelings weren’t genuine per se, but to not stay bitter. Thankfully now I gotten to the point where I don’t have as many moments like that as I did when I was younger, but I’m still getting better.

So, this leads me to ask y’all this, what grievances (let’s keep it at games) do/did you have and how have you dealt with those grievances? Have you reexamined those past moments of anger/resentment and came out with a different viewpoint now?

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When it comes to games-related issues, as long as the studio or publisher learns from its misstep I’m happy to just move on. For instance, 343 kind of dropped the ball for Halo 4 on both multiplayer and campaign fronts, but mostly made a recovery in Halo 5 (maybe not so much in the campaign, but everywhere else), so I’m back to looking forward to what they put out next.

On the other hand, if it’s truly heinous real world shit like the stuff surrounding Quantic Dream and David Cage, I’m ok with writing the studio off going forward. People before products wherever possible, y’know?

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I honestly can’t think of a game that hasn’t like stolen money from me outright that I actually harbor resentment for. Sometimes games are bad and I wish I had my money back, but life is too short to write shit like that in the Book of Grudges.

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When it comes to that real-life stuff you mentioned (i.e. David Cage), I agree with you in that it’s a legitimate reason to not give a studio or company another chance; especially if they show no signs of remorse or change.

I’m in a similar boat with Kingdom Come: Deliverance and The Last Night. While both games are ticking a lot of boxes for me, I don’t feel comfortable giving them any money or attention based off the behavior and comments from those developers.

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I was a huge fan of Vlambeers Nuclear Throne when it was in early access, watching them slowly improve and tweak the game adding daily and weekly challenges, participating in the community surrounding the game, it was great. The game had come and long way and seemed to be closing in on a full release when suddenly, it was released.

Things didnt seem right, weekly challenges had been removed, bugs remained, the community scratched its head with Vlambeer promising fixes to come. The PS4 and Vita versions of the game, released in tandem with the PC version, had much bigger issues. Dieing in a particular level would cause the game to crash, golden weapons and crowns (modifiers unlocked by playing the game) were unable to be selected.

Patches were eventually released for both PC and PS4 that fixed the majority of these issues but the VITA version remains largely broken with Vlambeer seemingly blocked by NDA from commenting on any future patching plans.

In the months and years since I’ve pieced together what happened. Nuclear Throne came in hot with a release date on PS4 that couldnt be moved. It was released with Vlambeer planning on fixing the issues plaguing the game at a later date. This fixing then turned out to be much harder than anticipated.

I don’t own a VITA. And I’ve never tried patching a VITA game, I shouldn’t be angry, I got my moneys worth of enjoyment out of Nuclear Throne 10 fold. I should have faith in Rami that he’s trying his best. But the idea of people spending money to support a developer they had faith in only for the game they bought to be broken and unfixed years later just kills any faith I had in Vlambeer to deliver on future promises.

I think because I “know” the faces of the people behind Vlambeer it makes the feelings of disappointment much more personal. It doesnt feel like Vlambeer let me down, it feels like Rami did. I know thats not fair of me to think and Im slowly coming to terms with that as I grow as a person.

When I see the reactions of anger towards Hello Games with the release of No Mans Sky I can understand where some amount of this anger comes from, as a recently reformed angry young white guy, it’s so much easier to be angry than disappointed.

Apologies for the ramble, hopefully there’s some sense in there

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This is sort of going back a whole, but I was a big Duke Nukem fan when I was younger. I thought those games were fun as hell and Duke Nukem 3D is one of the first games I spent more time making my own levels in than actually playing the game.

Then, well, Duke Nukem Forever happened. I was kind of resentful for how long it was taking to come out, and how it went from something that people were completely psyched about, to kind of a joke. Not that it was undeserving.

Then the company just sort of completely folded after 14 years of development. I was in total shock, even though i was now a grown ass adult with a job in the dang industry. I knew all the things that can happen in game development, but it still stung a lot.

But hey, it eventually came out anyway, and it was BAAAAAD. All the charm was gone. The levels were bad. The humor was unfunny and derivative. I no longer thought that the blatent objectifying of women was cool.

It kind of brought up all the questions of whether or not the games I enjoyed before were any good at all. I remembered time I spent on Duke Nukem forums and regretted all the time I wasted there.

It would take a few years before I launched Duke Nukem 3D again to see how I felt about it. The jokes were not great, the objectification of women sucked but I could deal with it … but the game was still FUN. The weapons were goofy, the level design flowed well and it just all felt really good.

I ended up beating it and still had a really good time.

So I guess what helped was going back to reassure myself that the game that set me on the path to work in games still had the same spark that inspired me.

The jokes still kinda suck now as an adult though. Especially in the expansion after you beat the final boss, which has a pretty nasty video that I don’t think would be acceptable at all anymore.

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This is about a publisher and not the quality of a game but I have to remind the world that EA’s treatment of Titanfall 2 was fucked up. Giving it that release date right next to two much bigger, more established shooters did irreparable damage to the player base of arguably one of the best shooters of the last 5 years and I can’t get over it. It deserved so much better.

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I have so many of these, so many names to name, but this probably isn’t the appropriate place for that.

Instead, here is a list of games I will never buy, borrow, or browse, and will actively discourage others from doing so if asked, because of the developers’ or publishers’ support of G@merG*te:

The Last Night
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Claire
FleetCOMM
Afterlife Empire
Offworld Trading Company (and anything else from Stardock)
Watch_Dogs
SeedScape
Amikrog (though there are other good reasons to avoid Doug T*nNapel

What do I do about these “beefs”? Largely nothing except be angry. GG hurt me so much, it hurt so many who I care about, that I will never forgive these people.

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There are a number of devs and companies that I do not/will not purchase from. But I try to focus on making that decision and dropping any additional thought from them.

I have anger issues, especially at work. I am trying to work through the anger and bitterness I hold onto like an addictive cancer. One of the ideas I continue to work towards is forgiveness. People or organizations that have “wronged” me neither remember nor care that they have done this. My anger towards them only continues to give them power over me. I will never be able to convince them to change with my anger. Reaching forgiveness may allow me to achieve some measure of peace and healing from the situation.

I can’t say that I have reached any part of this enlightenment. But in the meantime, I will just take action and try not to hold on to the “why”.

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I ignored Mass Effect for 5 years then approached it with the belief that it is the journey that matters, not the final minutes. I enjoyed 3 much more the second time.