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Which publishers or devs are in your black book?

ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
And by black book I mean unless massive changes occur you will never buy their game.
I know some people say "If it's one good game they can get me back" but that is unlikely. Sonic Team will never get their shit together and make a competent game unless they do a house cleaning which Sega will never do.

Or another example is they are tied to a model you just can't condone for yourself. Like Terrabattle for example for me, it's a mobile game and they seem tied to that platform so I accept that I probably will never get another game from those folks. That is fine, there are other things to look at. Or Ubisoft with their assembly line of game design, I can't condone that practice so I put them in my black book as well.

If either camp a developer/publisher falls into name who and explain why.
 
C

ChaosAngel

Member
I can't say I have any. I've been burned every so often, but not enough to actually stop supporting a certain company regardless of future games.
 
K

Komo

Banned
Well I'm certainly not a fan of Ubisoft, but that's just because none of their games have ever really appealed to me. I wouldn't really put them in my 'black book' though. If they put out something that interested me, I'd jump on it.
 
J

John Kowalski

Banned
None. Video games are very hard to make and even the best folks have their bad times. Also video games are very important to me and i think it's important that we don't make each other feel bad because someone or something doesn't meet my standards.
 
I

I Want Your Cat

Member
Hmm, can't think of any. If I'm interested, then i'll check it out. If I'm not interested, then I leave the game / devs in peace. I won't go into threads talking trash like a child.
 
S

Spot

Member
Every major publisher has their fair share list of successes and failures. Just be smart with your purchases.
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
I would never say it's holding a grudge, but more like I see where a company is going and it's not for me so I move on. Somethings I accept won't come together. Nobody in good conscious can say Sonic team will put together a great Sonic game when they never iterate and toss out games that can be refined.

Maybe it's that I spent too much time in the third world. But I'd like to see what others think. :)
 
J

jblank83

Member
I don't buy EA, Microsoft, or most of Ubisoft's titles because I think their business practices are detrimental to the industry.

Get angry about it.
 
E

EhoaVash

Member
Ubisoft

All their games are just bloated with boring ness and same-y stealth mechanics


Activison ..I don't play shooters.or skylanders also their spiderman games have sucked since 2004

EA I hate bioware story telling and sports Sim.
 
H

HellofaMouse

Member
im always open to try something new no matter how much i hate the franchise or the publisher. treat me like a human being, and put some heart into your game and i dont care about how anticonsumer you were in the past or how underwhelming your games were.

but judging by the last couple of years, it doesnt look like im gonna buy any aaa game from ubisoft anytime soon.
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
jres80 said:
I don't buy EA, Microsoft, or most of Ubisoft's titles because I think their business practices are detrimental to the industry.

Get angry about it.
Click to expand...
I understand, because when a trend you don't like is set, it can do damage to the industry.
We have limits in opportunity costs in game design. Sometimes if a bad trend get put out we can suffer for it. Like all those botched launches because people just assumed that the day one patch would fix things, when the incentives are pointed the wrong way.
 
M

Moskibear

Member
Blizzard, RNG gods. They used to stand for something else, now they're just as corporate as many other companies in the games industry.
 
R

RM8

Member
Inorigo said:
None.

It's video games; I don't hold grudges like a child.
Click to expand...
You can avoid a developer / publisher for other reasons besides throwing a tantrum. I don't buy EA stuff because the most broken, unfinished, glitchy, untested game I've ever bought (at full price no less) was from them. That was in like 2006, before scammy DLC / IAPs were a thing. Granted, I like a handful of their properties and that's the main reason why I don't buy their games, but the ones I would buy (SimCity) are better skipped.
 
M

Mango The Magician

Banned
Well, I don't much care for EA what with subsequently removing basic features in The Sims. Also, there are a few others which I love that could very well end up on the other end of the spectrum, depending on their actions.
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
Moskibear said:
Blizzard, RNG gods. They used to stand for something else, now they're just as corporate as many other companies in the games industry.
Click to expand...
It's scary to see when a company ties so much of their design in most of their games to people just enjoying the random good thing and mostly ignoring the trend that for that to be effective you need a long enough dry spell to just tug you to the next hit.
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Member
Nope.
I'm all about the game and not who published/developed it. So if it's good or to my liking I am getting it. If I blacklisted I would have nothing to play. Ever Dev/Pub has pissed me off at some point.
 
N

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
I refuse to buy a Naughty Dog game until they put their games on a console that I own.
because that would be a waste of money
 
Astral Dog

Astral Dog

Member
I dont really care about a black book, but EA and Ubisoft are the companies i normally avoid now, if they were to make a game that interest me, then it does not matter
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
Rm88~ said:
You can avoid a developer / publisher for other reasons besides throwing a tantrum. I don't buy EA stuff because the most broken, unfinished, glitchy, untested game I've ever bought (at full price no less) was from them. That was in like 2006, before scammy DLC / IAPs were a thing. Granted, I like a handful of their properties and that's the main reason why I don't buy their games, but the ones I would buy (SimCity) are better skipped.
Click to expand...

I would think those are valid reasons to avoid a developer/publisher. I don't get why that would be called throwing a tantrum.
 
P

Pharaun

Member
joe2187 said:
Bioware.

Never gonna touch a Bioware game again.
Click to expand...

Same here, but probably for different reasons. I tried playing their pc & Xbox games and had the same experience every time, by around 8-10 hours in I realize that the gameplay is dogshit awful and I would have more fun slamming my head into a wall. After having this same experience over multiple games I understood that I just don't like the way they design games and won't try them anymore.
 
S

sn00zer

Member
No, why would you? People pretend like the videogame industry is this nefarious and conniving group ready to steal away all our civil liberties. Dude, the garment industry, electronics companies, and mining industries LITERALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SLAVE LABOR. So no, no I do not blacklist people who make videogames.
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
Another example of a dev in my black book is Bethesda, not because I care one way or another about their practices, but the games they make are not my thing, I would not expect something out of them. Gave Skyrim a shot, put me off and since it's their bread and butter I would never look at them for a game.
 
R

Renekton

Member
sn00zer said:
No, why would you? People pretend like the videogame industry is this nefarious and conniving group ready to steal away all our civil liberties. Dude, the garment industry, electronics companies, and mining industries LITERALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SLAVE LABOR. So no, no I do not blacklist people who make videogames.
Click to expand...
Internet in general is suspicious of ALL for-profit enterprises including videogame companies.
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
Gearbox (aleins and helping release that crap duke nukem forever) Ubisoft have been for while now Unity just topped it all off.
 
C

CanUKlehead

Member
None for me either.

I have a few wait-and-see developers, but if reviews of Assassin's Creed Victory are good, I'm not going to cheat myself out of a good game just because of ACU.



If I think about it though:

I may just not be aware of a lot of them, but aren't there individuals in some development studios that are questionable? Like Dragon Quest's Sugiyama (denying Japanese war crimes), and I vaguely remember controversy regarding Shadow Complex and a relationship with Orson Scott Card (views on homosexuality).

I think it's more likely I might blacklist a developer cause of that, even though I don't want to punish all the people who worked on it (unless they're all Nazis or sth). Like a different kind of moral stance, compared to blacklisting Ubi or EA for shitty business practices.



Edit: I guess it would be like am I willing to separate the songs from the artist. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson--do I stop listening to those songs after all that stuff happened? Vs. boycotting an artist (say, EA) for a couple of shit albums (SimCity 4, Battlefield 4). I'll still check out the next album for the latter and see if it's good.
 
ShinMaruku

ShinMaruku

Member
sn00zer said:
No, why would you? People pretend like the videogame industry is this nefarious and conniving group ready to steal away all our civil liberties. Dude, the garment industry, electronics companies, and mining industries LITERALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SLAVE LABOR. So no, no I do not blacklist people who make videogames.
Click to expand...

That's because business schools never really teach ethics, it's a general business thing. Now I won't call them nefarious and conniving(You give humanity too much credit), but some of the practices in all are questionable. And my reasons are less that and more the way they are going is not for me so they get ignored.
 
T

Takuhi

Member
Telltale is the only developer I boycott, because their games are full of bugs that they do not fix AS A COMPANY POLICY.

It's not about holding grudges. It's about protecting oneself from getting burned and encouraging responsible business practices.
 
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