Maybe I'm missing something, but Fail of the Year doesn't preclude Vita from becoming a huge hit in 2013.
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GAF Votes FOTY 2012 Thread: Fail Of The Year
- Thread starter mr stroke
- Start date
Maybe I'm missing something, but Fail of the Year doesn't preclude Vita from becoming a huge hit in 2013.
I read shagg's recap of the whole "doritosgate" incident in its thread, and some things still don't make sense to me. I understand the stuff about that Wainwright person and Square Enix; that's certainly some shady shit. But where do Keighley and Doritos come into the whole thing?
As of this moment, I'll think I'll go with Denis Dyack. Fucked up as the whole 38 Studios situation was, at least the mistakes they made in running their business were honest mistakes (if also incredibly mind-boggling), though receiving and blowing taxpayer money and the way they treated the employees certainly sucked. Dyack though pretty much single-handedly destroyed his studio with absolutely embarrassing hubris. Actually trying to sue Epic over Unreal Engine sucking (never mind that dozens of other developers used the engine and made some very impressive games on it), then being forced to destroy all remaining games that use it...damn.
As of this moment, I'll think I'll go with Denis Dyack. Fucked up as the whole 38 Studios situation was, at least the mistakes they made in running their business were honest mistakes (if also incredibly mind-boggling), though receiving and blowing taxpayer money and the way they treated the employees certainly sucked. Dyack though pretty much single-handedly destroyed his studio with absolutely embarrassing hubris. Actually trying to sue Epic over Unreal Engine sucking (never mind that dozens of other developers used the engine and made some very impressive games on it), then being forced to destroy all remaining games that use it...damn.
You might like the news that said they are hiring art directors now. Hopefully that includes UI skills. Review wise I think they did pretty well. Its a solid 7/10 game. Sales wise is the opposite but the small budget (from just the appearance of the game) might help.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
Meta:
Curt Schilling & 38 Studios — Absolute crash and burn, and a tragic story for all of the workers and taxpayers that got stiffed. Definitely the overall fail of the year.
Doritosgate — Gaming journalism exposed for what it has become: a den of sellouts.
THQ — Goodnight sweet prince.
Smaller, but noteworthy fails:
WarZ — Fucking yikes. I hear Steam is starting to give out refunds for it.
Mass Effect 3 ending — Has the ending of any other video game in history ever caused such a complete shitstorm? I can't think of any.
PS Vita — When your competition (3DS) outsells you 47:1, you have failed.
Curt Schilling & 38 Studios — Absolute crash and burn, and a tragic story for all of the workers and taxpayers that got stiffed. Definitely the overall fail of the year.
Doritosgate — Gaming journalism exposed for what it has become: a den of sellouts.
THQ — Goodnight sweet prince.
Smaller, but noteworthy fails:
WarZ — Fucking yikes. I hear Steam is starting to give out refunds for it.
Mass Effect 3 ending — Has the ending of any other video game in history ever caused such a complete shitstorm? I can't think of any.
PS Vita — When your competition (3DS) outsells you 47:1, you have failed.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
My heart says Wii U marketing but my head says Mass Effect 3 ending.
Nintendo E3 2012
E3 as a whole was pretty disappointing this year, but particularly Nintendo's. They were launching a new console this year and just got done having a terrible conference in 2011 (that Wii U reveal, lmao). This was the moment to really blow people away and sell them on the Wii U. Especially the core gamers who they were supposedly going to better capturing after the Wii turned out to be such a bust. But it turns out that all they have to show off is a rather unexiting looking Pikmin game, a creatively bankrupt/borderline recycled 2D Mario sequel, a crappy looking zombie game, and NintendoWasteLand. Then they sneak in some title from Platinum that apparently wasn't worthy of their conference. Smash Bros? 3D Mario? Metroid? Kirby? Donkey Kong? Yoshi? F-Zero? Star Fox? Anything from Retro or Monolith? A new IP that they would actually put the effort into making as iconic as their big franchises? Nope.
Personally, I'd say Ubisoft's conference did a better job at selling me a Wii U, as Rayman Legends looked better than anything that was at Nintendo's show. Aside from that and Stale Super Mario Bros U, I can't think of anything else that had me interested to pick one up in the Fall. I don't keep up with sales-age, but can't say I'm surprised to hear that the system isn't performing as well as it could have. It lacks the casual/non-gamer hook that the Wii had, and its efforts to capture the core gamer audience are laughable.
....and this isn't even taking into account all the issues that arose during the platform's launch. Or the fact that they held another conference just for the 3DS, and it was somehow just as uninteresting.
Really hope third time's the charm. Or else next year is going to be something else.
E3 as a whole was pretty disappointing this year, but particularly Nintendo's. They were launching a new console this year and just got done having a terrible conference in 2011 (that Wii U reveal, lmao). This was the moment to really blow people away and sell them on the Wii U. Especially the core gamers who they were supposedly going to better capturing after the Wii turned out to be such a bust. But it turns out that all they have to show off is a rather unexiting looking Pikmin game, a creatively bankrupt/borderline recycled 2D Mario sequel, a crappy looking zombie game, and Nintendo
Personally, I'd say Ubisoft's conference did a better job at selling me a Wii U, as Rayman Legends looked better than anything that was at Nintendo's show. Aside from that and Stale Super Mario Bros U, I can't think of anything else that had me interested to pick one up in the Fall. I don't keep up with sales-age, but can't say I'm surprised to hear that the system isn't performing as well as it could have. It lacks the casual/non-gamer hook that the Wii had, and its efforts to capture the core gamer audience are laughable.
....and this isn't even taking into account all the issues that arose during the platform's launch. Or the fact that they held another conference just for the 3DS, and it was somehow just as uninteresting.
Really hope third time's the charm. Or else next year is going to be something else.
They've sold 160 million 3DS's?
He means japan.
Is the 3DS even region free? I'm more worried about US and EU sales for my games. I know a lot of you really like Japanese Vita games though and I guess Namco (surely soon),
AppleSmack
Banned
The War Z scandal by far. That was just disgusting and the developer's response even more so. Never could have imagined a company can behave so unprofessionally.
D
Deleted member 81567
Unconfirmed Member
Seems like they got what they deserved. Good riddance.
Open Source
Banned
Star Wars the Old Republic. It launched last year, but failed this year. It marked the move to the exit for big MMO budgets, subscription MMOs, story-based MMOs, WoW-cloning.
Slightly more epic a fail than 38 studios especially since its starting point was a glorious number of copies sold at launch, a proven developer, extremely high expectations, and a bulletproof IP, whereas 38 studios had been foundering for years with no product, a studio move, and corporate welfare.
Slightly more epic a fail than 38 studios especially since its starting point was a glorious number of copies sold at launch, a proven developer, extremely high expectations, and a bulletproof IP, whereas 38 studios had been foundering for years with no product, a studio move, and corporate welfare.
Curt Schilling and 38 studios. He followed a dream that most of us probably share, and there's no shame in trying and failing at that. Unfortunately, the way he failed was so full of hubris, hypocrisy, and downright shameful irresponsibility that 38's failure was by far the worst story of the year.
Pachterballs
Banned
I was going to say RE6
then I read this:
and I agree.
Yup.
then I read this:
and I agree.
Yup.
Pachterballs
Banned
SatelliteOfLove
Member
This one will be tough, both 38 Studios and Doritosgate were high-octane fail. Then there's that War Z thread that I've ignored. I think I must ejumacate myself on this.
He does have the love and money of alot of hateful simpletons who only bought it after hearing him act a fool, so he ain't a complete failure!
PachterBalls said:
He does have the love and money of alot of hateful simpletons who only bought it after hearing him act a fool, so he ain't a complete failure!
I'm gonna have to vote for Diablo 3, if that's applicable. The game everyone had been waiting for for the last ten years or so.
Years worth of hype evaporating over the span of a few days, sometimes even only hours... watching that happen was painful for me. Seriously. I didn't even play. I wasn't even hyped (Torchlight2/PoE worshipper here). I just watched my utterly devastated friends. It was painful seeing them, shocked, betrayed, stunned. That's what hype does to ya, sure, but something about this was different. Shit was personal.
Ignoring Dyacks and Studio 38's meltdowns might seem odd when I say what I'm about to say, but my second vote goes to THQ. It's not all that long ago that they were one of the big guys... it's not every day that we get to see a huge publisher go into selfdestruct mode.
I blame the logo redesign. Everything went down the crapper with that stupid new logo.
Years worth of hype evaporating over the span of a few days, sometimes even only hours... watching that happen was painful for me. Seriously. I didn't even play. I wasn't even hyped (Torchlight2/PoE worshipper here). I just watched my utterly devastated friends. It was painful seeing them, shocked, betrayed, stunned. That's what hype does to ya, sure, but something about this was different. Shit was personal.
Ignoring Dyacks and Studio 38's meltdowns might seem odd when I say what I'm about to say, but my second vote goes to THQ. It's not all that long ago that they were one of the big guys... it's not every day that we get to see a huge publisher go into selfdestruct mode.
I blame the logo redesign. Everything went down the crapper with that stupid new logo.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Doritogate wasn't even the big deal. The Florence/Wainright stuff was the big scandal, in my opinion.
GalacticGravy
Member
Ehh...nevermind. I was going to say something wrong. And now I am editing it away.
I'll vote for the ME3 ending : After ME2 I wasn't expecting much but I was stil expecting better than what was presented. It didn't help I had played both ME1 and ME2 just before the release of ME3. It sure made it worse that Walters and Hudson were saying the ending wouldn't be about space magic or an A,B,C simple path thing.
The usual and poor Bioware damage control was the cherry on the sundae.
-Honorable mentions
Resident Evil 6 : Awful QTEs, Awful chase sequences, Awful vehicle sequences and lame upgrade system
Curiosity : Game was hyped about having 100k players online at the same time and could not even bear having 10k concurrent users time without the servers crapping out. Wasn't very fun either. Dicks everywhere.
Doritos/Wainwright: Terrible people didn't take critics and attacks on their work ethics very well
Dyack's studio implosion : Sad for the employees but I guess Karma can be a bitch. Never been a fan of his studio so I can't really have this as a FOTY.
Indeed
The usual and poor Bioware damage control was the cherry on the sundae.
-Honorable mentions
Resident Evil 6 : Awful QTEs, Awful chase sequences, Awful vehicle sequences and lame upgrade system
Curiosity : Game was hyped about having 100k players online at the same time and could not even bear having 10k concurrent users time without the servers crapping out. Wasn't very fun either. Dicks everywhere.
Doritos/Wainwright: Terrible people didn't take critics and attacks on their work ethics very well
Dyack's studio implosion : Sad for the employees but I guess Karma can be a bitch. Never been a fan of his studio so I can't really have this as a FOTY.
Indeed
D3 guaranteed that I'll never buy another game that Jay Wilson is attached to. "Fuck that loser" is pretty hard to forget considering D2 lasted me a decade while I practically had to force myself to try and find some fun in D3. So much arrogance despite not even being close to the reason the sales were that impressive.
My personal failure of the year is Biohazard/Resident Evil 6. BLUNDER OF THE LAST TEN YEARS, even. How the hell can Capcom screw up a sure thing? Biohazard 6 shows you how.
But anyway, I can see a lot of Mass Effect 3 ending votes and I can agree with those but Bio6 is more important to me so Capcom hopefully got the message from the sales dropping like a rock after a month of release that things need to change. Probably not though.
But anyway, I can see a lot of Mass Effect 3 ending votes and I can agree with those but Bio6 is more important to me so Capcom hopefully got the message from the sales dropping like a rock after a month of release that things need to change. Probably not though.
Randolph Freelander
Member
- SSX - Worst reboot imaginable. Horrible, horrible, horrible game. This one turned into one of the extremely rare games I trade in, and it happened quickly.
- Mass Effect 3 - Worst ending imaginable. Good action game, bad RPG.
- Halo 4 - Guh. 8 levels. I liked one of them.
axisofweevils
Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
PS Vita and Sony's handling of it - Where do I start? The overpriced memory cards. The way they completely ignored the system at E3 and TGS. Paying $12 million for CoD, hyping it for months, only to hand it to a dev with a terrible reputation like Nihilistic resulting in a game with a metacritic of 31. The fact that during the first two weeks of December, the 3DS managed to outsell the entire year's total of Vitas in Japan. It's a shame, because it's clearly a good machine tech-wise, but Sony seem to have no idea what to do with it.
x. The Florence / Wainwright scandal (Doritosgate) - embarrassing for everyone concerned, and showed the seedy underbelly of what we laughingly call "Games Journalism" for what it is.
x. Nintendo's E3 2012 - They hyped us up for a year - a whole year - for that?! They managed to make their Wii U launch games like Nintendo Land (which are actually very good once you play them) look terrible. I was watching in IRC with a bunch of Nintendo fans at the time, and everyone was just angry as hell. Madness when you consider they revealed the 3DS XL and the Namco Bandai working on Smash megatons in the Nintendo Direct just two weeks later.
x. The Florence / Wainwright scandal (Doritosgate) - embarrassing for everyone concerned, and showed the seedy underbelly of what we laughingly call "Games Journalism" for what it is.
x. Nintendo's E3 2012 - They hyped us up for a year - a whole year - for that?! They managed to make their Wii U launch games like Nintendo Land (which are actually very good once you play them) look terrible. I was watching in IRC with a bunch of Nintendo fans at the time, and everyone was just angry as hell. Madness when you consider they revealed the 3DS XL and the Namco Bandai working on Smash megatons in the Nintendo Direct just two weeks later.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Well, I'm glad you know that, I was just thinking that others may not.
Visualante2
Member
Yeah it's hard to know who is voting for what when everything gets bundled into Doritogate.
This quote made me laugh harder than I should have.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I kinda like to think of that as the lit cigarette to the exploding oil refinery that was the later revelations. Still fire, but only led to the real boom.
Although not as serious and job-impacting as other issues mentioned already, I'm going with Mass Effect 3 ending debacle too.
A trilogy-destroying ending became the sad culmination to what a few years ago I was convinced would become my favorite franchise, from one of my favorite studios that could do no wrong. All gone now. Thanks Bioware.
A trilogy-destroying ending became the sad culmination to what a few years ago I was convinced would become my favorite franchise, from one of my favorite studios that could do no wrong. All gone now. Thanks Bioware.
Messofanego
Banned
War Z by a country mile.
Funchameleon
Banned
This thread. The word "fail" as anything but a verb. Poll threads. All threads. The world. You.
Me.
The "-gate" suffix in the hands of this generation.
Journalism in scarequotes.
"Dat"
This industry.
Any industry.
Everything.
Me.
The "-gate" suffix in the hands of this generation.
Journalism in scarequotes.
"Dat"
This industry.
Any industry.
Everything.
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