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GAF Votes FOTY 2012 Thread: Fail Of The Year

Silicon Knights, Doritosgate, Phil Fish dickheaderry, 38 Studios and Persona 4 Arena Eu were all shocking in their own way.

I'm goin to go with Doritosgate, not only for those implicated but those who haven't addressed it at all and carry on the shady shit.

That's the true fail of the industry as a whole and it'll continue on.
 
I hate to do this as I like the game as a whole, but I'm going to have to vote Halo 4. Too many missteps especially when it comes to PR and post-release support as has been mentioned in this thread. 343 has done a pretty poor job with the biggest exclusive of the year for the 360.
 
I dont think WiiU is applicable. WiiU advertising and the massive confusion that surronds the system is though. My vote goes to The Curt Schilling and 38 Studio.
 
There are too many things to choose from. I'm going to go with Doritosgate and the roller coaster ride that was. I read every single page of the main thread and it was just fascinating to watch what GAF detectives kept digging up.
 
38 studios. Dreadful situation all round.

The fuss over ME3's ending was absurd. It was dissapointing sure, but the fuss was a new low in how pathetic gamers can be.
 
TOP VOTE: Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. I want to see more votes for this, people. This was the first game to give me legitimate hope for the Kinect as something worth owning. Everything I saw and heard about it leading up to its release looked and sounded GREAT. And I freaking love mech games too. Then, somehow, someway, they completely botched the controls to the point of unplayability, and all of the reviews were condemning to the highest degree. Thanks for building my hopes up then tearing them down, Steel Battalion.

Honorable Mentions:
  • UK Getting Fucked Over on Persona 4 Arena
  • Street Fighter X Tekken (both the game itself and the character DLC fiasco)
  • Denis Dyack
  • DoritosGate
  • 38 Studios
  • Diablo III
  • Resident Evil 6

I'm still working on finishing Mass Effect 3 so I can't speak about it's supposedly atrocious ending yet, but I've gotten enough hints and clues to figure out why people would be so up in arms about it.
 
Crewnh said:
There are too many things to choose from. .
Click to expand...

It really is incredible. The vast majority of hyped up things from this year ended up as massive dissappointments. And thats on top of the normal clusterfucks (studio closing, gaming press being the gaming press, etc.)
 
Persona 4 Arena region lock on PS3. pretty big fail for any company to start region locking on PS3. even bigger fail for niche companies, which won't hesitate to mention their close fan relationship every step of the way.

easily the most disgusting move for this whole year.
 
Diablo 3. The game died quicker than I could have ever imagined. Setting sales records prior to release before being reduced to niche game numbers is an incredible fail.
 
38 Studios

Huge taxpayer loan, the changing MMO landscape and trials of development, out of cash, sued by the state (who is broke), massive layoffs, Schilling loses everything and plenty of continued fallout. They meant well, they really fucked up.
 
Mass Effect 3; I drank the watered down Cool-Aid. I really wanted to like it, ended up with a subpar shooter, removed the RPG in a RPG shooter, my space opera felt like it was earth-focused and everything decision I was told would make a difference meant nothing. I felt creepy overhearing that this lady was missing something and going across the galaxy to fetch it.

Doritosgate -How I Learned to Lose Credibility and Love the Dew. The picture summed up the ambiguity of what the majority of the games press is about. Thank goodness there are still a handful of people I will continue to listen to (and sometimes disagree with) but not have to question their opinions.
 
Man, there SERIOUSLY is a lot to choose from. So many large-scale fails. Not sure anything quite on the scale of the PSN hack, but there's definitely a ton of things that made a lot of noise.

Has anyone mentioned THQ yet? Following them through the slow decline to bankruptcy has been really crazy to watch.

There was a lot of noise about Doritosgate, but in terms of the fail itself, I wouldn't quite put it on the same level as other fails on this list. It's a huge issue, but I think the bigger fail is games journalism itself, and that is by no means exclusive to this year. Doritosgate was just kind of a reminder that we're dealing with a bunch of non-professionals.
 
1. WarZ - I remember drooling over the screenshots before I knew anything. I'm proud I did my small part in actively dismantling that game over the past 24 hours.
2. Mass Effect 3 Ending - The Spiderman 3 of game trilogies.
3. Zynga - Everything wrong with facebook and ios gaming. At least there will be less "Does XXXville mean that console gaming is dead" articles on Wired.
4. DoritosGate - I don't follow games journalism but that was a very interesting thread to read / participate in.
5. Diablo III. I quit WOW a few years back so I had huge interest in playing something substantial. Complete hype fail. I probably won't ever play a game with a real money auction house or hard DRM.
 
Man-is-Obsolete said:
It seem to hit critical mass this year and the curtain was completely lifted on them.
Click to expand...

Sojgat said:
One guy writing an article about this stuff was an epiphany for some people (that photo sure was funny though).
Click to expand...

I understand what you guys are saying. It's just that these practices have been the norm for practically as long as games journalism has been around. It hasn't been some big secret only a select few gamers know about. Game Informer (basically the only gaming mag these days) is owned by Game Stop. Plenty of high-profile games 'journalists' essentially used their career as a stepping stone to land a job inside the dev industry. There are simply plenty of examples where it becomes quite clear the gaming press is little more than another marketing arm for devs/pubs.

But sure, more gamers finally knowing the reality of gaming 'journalism' is a good thing. I just don't see 'Doritos-gate' being a FotY.
 
Lupi_47 said:
My vote goes to Wii U
Click to expand...

With less than 5 weeks on the market in only one region (NA), how exactly can the WiiU be considered the fail of the year for the entirety of 2012? Really, nothing this year has been a bigger failure in your eyes? Nothing at all?
 
I'll take Star Wars TOR.

38 Studios and Dyack seem more like lifetime failure awards, of the two Dyack definitely had the bigger fail this year.
 
My vote is for Doritogate but I feel Phil Fish deserves mention for the failure of the year, according to his own lamentations he ruined his life, lost his girlfriend, lost his health and his wealth, earned international ire for his statements and in the end screwed over those who had supported him all along, leaving no-one who worked with him ever wanting to do so again.
 
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