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[lazygecko]

So I was just watching this video on the development of Superman 64 and how it mentions that due to some nasty corporate politics, it seemed as though WB was deliberately hampering Titus' progress on developing the game. Got me thinking about whether this is a recurring phenomenom in the industry.

We have another infamous incident from the final days of GRIN, when after the huge commercial flop of Bionic Commando, the company was in dire financial trouble, and were betting everything on their Final Fantasy spinoff project they had contracted from Square-Enix. But after seeing the performance of Bionic Commando it seemed as though Squenix got cold feet and tried to weasel their way out of the deal, not paying development milestones and sending ludicrous requests like asking them to fax over the game's source code and assets.

Any other notable instances of these things you can think of?

 

[Keinning]

Takeshi's Challenge? He kinda wanted to sabotage gaming as a whole though because he thought gaming was stupid.

 

[jett]

Prey 2.

Bethesda fucked over Human Head in an attempt to buy them out on the cheap.

 

[Option-]

mass effect andromeda

 

[Zombie James]

Recently? Shadow of War, Mankind Divided, and MGSV.

 

[rsnl]

That Aliens game where they defrauded Sega to fund Borderlands

 

[L Thammy]

There was this group that paid developers to fuck up the games they worked one. One, I think it was SimCopter or some Lego thing, spawned shirtless guys who would gather around helicopters and get cut up. I'm 90% sure I'm getting part of the story wrong.

EDIT:
Okay, let me get Wikipedia to handle it:

The game gained controversy when it was discovered that designer Jacques Servin inserted sprites of shirtless "himbos" (male bimbos) in Speedo trunks who hugged and kissed each other, who appear in great numbers on certain dates. Their fluorescent nipples were drawn with a special rendering mode usually reserved for fog-piercing runway landing lights, so they could easily be seen from long distances in bad weather. A bug caused hundreds of himbos to swarm and crowd around the helicopter, where they would be slashed up by the blades, and then need to be air-lifted to the hospital—which earned the player easy money. The easter egg was caught shortly after release and removed from future copies of the game.

The designer was fired afterwards for adding unauthorized content (which delayed the release of the game, and caused Maxis to miss Christmas season). He cited his actions as a response to the intolerable working conditions he allegedly suffered at Maxis.[1][2] This caused a member of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), a gay AIDS organization, to call for a boycott of all of Maxis' products, a measure which Servin rejected.[3] Some months later, a group named RTMark announced its existence and claimed responsibility for the himbos being inserted into the game along with 16 other acts of "creative subversion."[4] Servin stated that he had received a money order of $5,000 from RTMark for the prank.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I was gonna mention Fortress, but op has me covered

Um, I guess Phantom Dust reboot https://kotaku.com/how-a-small-game-studio-almost-made-it-big-1696997142

 

[SporeCrawler]

Miyamoto does it regularly to improve quality

 

[sixteen-bit]

I feel like Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is a contender.

 

[Man God]

Sonic Extreme...and basically everything done by Sega of America in the mid 90's.

 

[Keinning]

There was this group that paid developers to fuck up the games they worked one. One, I think it was SimCopter or some Lego thing, spawned shirtless guys who would gather around helicopters and get cut up. I'm 90% sure I'm getting part of the story wrong.

EDIT:
Okay, let me get Wikipedia to handle it:

sim copter had the naked dancing dudes, non?

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I don't know if I'd say 'deliberately sabotaged' is accurate but Valve's reluctance to allow a source engine game come out before their own Half Life 2 strained the development of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, directly contributing to a poor launch that caused the game to under-perform in sales and ultimately kill what would have been one of the greatest RPG developers - Troika games.

edit: and as an aside 'deliberately sabotage' is a bit redundant

 

[shawnbuddy]

Takeshi's Challenge? He kinda wanted to sabotage gaming as a whole though because he thought gaming was stupid.

Similarly, Harlan Ellison wanted to annoy gamers with his "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" game by creating a game you couldn't possibly "win." It still turned out to be a brilliant game, in part because of trying to get as close to this condition as possible and capture the story's themes, but he wasn't coming from a place of love for gamers.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

The Deadpool one will never not be funny. Imagine working on a game and being told that you should shoot for a 6 or lower. I don't remember much in the way of specific sabotage, but I imagine when your bosses are telling you that there's not much hope of help from the top.

 

[Rellik]

Prey 2.

Bethesda fucked over Human Head in an attempt to buy them out on the cheap.

And I still haven't forgave Bethesda for that scumbag move.

 

[ForkNetwork]

Bethesda has done it twice I think

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Not any one game, but Bernie Stolar infamously tried to tank the Saturn in America to force Sega of Japan to release a better system.

 

[Hilbert]

Not any one game, but Bernie Stolar infamously tried to tank the Saturn in America to force Sega of Japan to release a better system.

Wasn't that why he was hired? To graciously kill the Saturn?

 

[L Thammy]

Wasn't that why he was hired? To graciously kill the Saturn?

Wasn't the issue that there was a conflict between Sega America (who wanted the 32X to be the main system) and Sega Japan (who was focusing on the Saturn)?

 

[OBias]

Wasn't the issue that there was a conflict between Sega America (who wanted the 32X to be the main system) and Sega Japan (who was focusing on the Saturn)?

This particular conflict was over by the time Bernie Stolar was hired.

 

[RRockman]

There was this group that paid developers to fuck up the games they worked one. One, I think it was SimCopter or some Lego thing, spawned shirtless guys who would gather around helicopters and get cut up. I'm 90% sure I'm getting part of the story wrong.

EDIT:
Okay, let me get Wikipedia to handle it:

I... I don't get it.

 

[JCHandsom]

Didn't Bethesda almost ruin Obsidian by pushing up the release of Fallout: New Vegas?

 

[KJRS_1993]

Miyamoto does it regularly to improve quality

Which is why Star Fox Zero was immediately considered a classic, thanks to his influence.

 

[PSqueak]

Similarly, Harlan Ellison wanted to annoy gamers with his "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" game by creating a game you couldn't possibly "win." It still turned out to be a brilliant game, in part because of trying to get as close to this condition as possible and capture the story's themes, but he wasn't coming from a place of love for gamers.

Guess he technically got away with it with the german release...

 

[Glowsquid]

I might be remembering the situation wrong but IIRC the cancelled C&C Tiberium FPS had a lot of producers who had very different ideas of what the game should be and tried to impose their way by hindering the other guy's work.

 

[SprachBrooks]

Didn't Bethesda almost ruin Obsidian by pushing up the release of Fallout: New Vegas?

What reason did they have for this? I ask because they outsourced the damn thing to them lol.

 

[Akuun]

deleted

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Prey 2.

Bethesda fucked over Human Head in an attempt to buy them out on the cheap.

.

 

[Lagamorph]

Shigeru Miyamoto with Starfox 2

 

[L Thammy]

I... I don't get it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-cussing-computer-1185312.html

Here's another fun read related to this.

 

[Verano]

Nintendo games with the hand holding...i hate it...im not a kid plus i like to be challenged. One game comes to mind is Paper Mario Sticker Star. I wanted to play a classic mario rpg but Nintendo was like nope fuck you here's stickers...enjoy! 😒

 

[LordOfLore]

What reason did they have for this? I ask because they outsourced the damn thing to them lol.

They very weirdly only allowed them X amount of voiced lines for all DLC combined for instance so Obsidian created mute and robot characters that mostly spoke with text IIRC.

 

[Mr. Tibbs]

Prey 2.

Bethesda fucked over Human Head in an attempt to buy them out on the cheap.

And I still haven't forgave Bethesda for that scumbag move.

Bethesda has done it twice I think

There's some really bad people at Bethesda.

Bethesda "thought they could bully [Human Head] into a corner,” a source said, and the publisher made a move to buy Human Head. “It was one of few studios that could work with and improve id Technology. They wanted to buy us at a sweet price,” but the developer denied the buyout. Human Head didn't want to permanently marry itself to a publisher that was "bleeding Human Head dry." This would limit the studio's ability to work on its own creative endeavors down the line, potentially with other publishers.

 

[Carroway]

Allegedly Metal Gear Solid 5, had some internal problems with the rather public firing and dismissal of Hideo Kojima. While a lot of the rumours cannot be substantiated, it ranges from Kojima being unable to be with the production team for the last months of development to Konami deliberately trying to make the development difficult, by adding needless red tape for the production team.

Of course, most of these rumours are heresay, with the exception of Kojima leaving Konami.

It can explain why the latter half of the game feels rather... unpolished, unusually so.

 

[Danjin44]

Ride to Hell Retribution.

This only explanation I can think of why this was sooooo bad. It wasn't just bad because of low budget, bad voice acting, it was really sexists, bad sound track, crap gameplay and just very ugly game. I really want to know what the hell happened during development.

 

[yuoke]

Nintendo games with the hand holding...i hate it...im not a kid plus i like to be challenged. One game comes to mind is Paper Mario Sticker Star. I wanted to play a classic mario rpg but Nintendo was like nope fuck you here's stickers...enjoy! 😒

I wish that was sabotaging, because then it could mean there is at least a chance for a true third paper mario.

They see it as mario and luigi being fine as the only mario rpg, and want paper mario to be experimental.

 

[JCHandsom]

What reason did they have for this? I ask because they outsourced the damn thing to them lol.

Because Bethesda promised the developers bonuses if they hit an 85 on Metacritic, so they pushed forward the deadline to hamper the game with technical issues so they wouldn't have to pay out.

https://www.engadget.com/2012/03/15/obsidian-missed-fallout-new-vegas-metacritic-bonus-by-one-point/

 

[Ushojax]

Metal Gear Solid 5

 

[flatearthpandas]

Mass Effect 3 Wii U

 

[PrimeBeef]

Which is why Star Fox Zero was immediately considered a classic, thanks to his influence.

Plus that is the oposite of sabotage.

 

[Yohane]

Miyamoto does it regularly to improve quality

Old Miyamoto

 

[The ๖ۜBronx]

I still fail to see, knowing what we know, how the decisions made in Destiny's late-stage development weren't completely obvious in their detriment to the games release.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Didn't Bethesda almost ruin Obsidian by pushing up the release of Fallout: New Vegas?

I swear Obsidian needs to do a better job at the contracts they get with companies.

I know KOTOR 2 was screwed over because the publisher gave them a crazy release date too. This seems to happen way too often with Obsidian.

 

[HelloNewman]

I still fail to see, knowing what we know, how the decisions made in Destiny's late-stage development weren't completely obvious in their detriment to the games release.

Because they knew it was gonna be huge and they have a massive following and no one really talks about the story after a certain amount of time. Hell, I couldn't tell you the story of most of the games I play.

 

[chronic_archaic]

MGSV and how Kojima was treated in general during the development of that game.

Was Destiny screwed over in development? Didn't it have a story at first that eventually got thrown entirely out the window?

Mass Effect 3. Both how its ending was written in a vacuum, and how EA clipped tons of stuff into DLC.

Destiny had to have it's assets repurposed and it's release delayed by a year due to Joseph Staten leaving as lead writer in early 2014 after higher ups wanted a complete rewrite of the story and focus on MMO esque things instead of it's overall narrative that was similar to Mass Effect. The game was slated for late 2013 as a Xbox 360 exclusive before all this happened.

 

[The Real Abed]

Miyamoto does it regularly to improve quality

Miyamoto destroyed Paper Mario because he didn’t want another straight RPG. Which is exactly what the fans want but never get. We get shitty Sticker Star and Color Splash instead of the proper Thousand Year Door sequel we truly want. (And I actually loved Super Paper Mario and will probably replay it when I finish TTYD again.)

I love Miyamoto but he’s ridiculous. Does he still head the straight Mario series or did he turn that over like Zelda? Because the normal Mario series seems to get better and better with it’s gimmicks. But Paper Mario just gets worse and worse. (And I’m not a fan of what’s happened to M&L either but I suspect that’s not Miyamoto?)

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Seems like we got off the rails on what the OP is considering to be a sabotage.

He means a company, or group of people within development objectively hindering the development of a project via corporate politics or active opposition towards the completion of the game.

It DOES NOT mean design decisions you feel ruin the game, nor does it mean radically changing the path of development to achieve something different. Those were not made to destroy a game.

Which means we do not need to make this another goddamn Paper Mario thread. For fucks sake.

 

[rackham]

Whoever voiced Corvo in Dishonored 2 tried their hardest to fuck that game.

 

[RRockman]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-cussing-computer-1185312.html

Here's another fun read related to this.

That was very interesting indeed! Thanks!

To be quite honest, the guys seem like trolls with money more than an anything else. Have they dissolved? I can't find anything post 2001.