Most hated video game companies?

[Prowler]

Hate is a strong word maybe but you get my point.

I personally can't stand EA. They acquired Maxis and murdered Sim City. And from what I understand, every company that gets bought by EA goes through pretty much the same process.

Oh and the FIFA series is just a brainless money making machine. PES from Konami was better than FIFA for a long time, and when FIFA overtook it it was because Konami dropped the ball and stopped making great PES games. Not because FIFA upped its game much. I played a bit of FIFA at display stands in stores some years ago... the game still plays the same as it did in 2005. What makes FIFA relevant still is the ultimate team mode.

The biggest game series for the world's most popular sport is an EA IP. Truly tragic.

What about you? Any gaming companies you hate or dislike? And why?

[Andrew NDB]

I don't believe there is a Devil, but if there was, it would be Electronic Arts. Yes. Every acquisition deal they've ever made turned out to be an actual deal with the Devil in pretty much every way you could think of.

[Prowler]

I don't believe there is a Devil, but if there was, it would be Electronic Arts. Yes. Every acquisition deal they've ever made turned out to be an actual deal with the Devil in pretty much every way you could think of.

To add further insult to the injury, they might as well get the TMNT video games license someday. :lol:

[Andrew NDB]

To add further insult to the injury, they might as well get the TMNT video games license someday. :lol:

Well, given the TMNT games to date that'd be more like a mercy killing.

[Prowler]

Well, given the TMNT games to date that'd be more like a mercy killing.

Say whatever you want about the Fred Wolf series and era, but it still had the best TMNT game adaptations overall. Even if most of them are basically Final Fight clones. But at least they're entertaining enough. Plus, Turtles in Time is a rather quick game to go through.

SNES Tournament Fighters is also a very solid 2D fighter. Certainy one of the best Street Fighter clones from that era.

Honestly, I think the older TMNT games are indirectly to blame for a lot of people misremembering what the FW series was like. Those games are packed with action. I feel like a lot of people remember the FW series as being like a Turtles in Time level pretty much. They seem to forget that, after the 1st season, weapon usage by the Turtles started to phase out. And they also seem to remember the show as being way more action heavy than it actually was.

[superstaff]

Most of the major ones nowadays, really. :(

[Prowler]

Most of the major ones nowadays, really. :(

Well Capcom and Konami have seen better days, indeed. But they both have such storng legacies that I cannot bring myself to dislike them. Especially Capcom. So many series and games they've made that I love. In the 80s and 90s, if you saw the Capcom logo on a box art cover, you knew it was most likely a quality game. Same goes for Konami for the most part.

Sega... well I haven't played a lot of their modern games. And when I do it's usually a game they publish or develop in collaboration with another company. Like Football Manager for example. That's owned by Sega, but Sports Interactive are the ones who actually make the game. Sega only owns the series.

Nintendo is still pretty good though. No one looks at Nintendo and thinks they've lost their touch. Even if sometimes their creative and business decisions aren't to everyone's liking. The frustrations people have with Nintendo are more about their prices and then being out of touch when it comes to online gaming and such.

[superstaff]

Nintendo is still pretty good though. No one looks at Nintendo and thinks they've lost their touch. Even if sometimes their creative and business decisions aren't to everyone's liking. The frustrations people have with Nintendo are more about their prices and then being out of touch when it comes to online gaming and such.

I dislike how 'safe' Nintendo's games are. Most of their output is essentially re-skins of past games, maybe adding in some new-ish but also safe elements to them. I get it. They're games for kids, and hardcore fans. It's just, I feel they could try to go out of their comfort zone more often than they do. I also think GameFreak (affiliated with Nintendo) has gotten super sloppy with Pokemon...though maybe that's another topic altogether.

And yeah, their prices are out of hand, and I hate that you now need Nintendo Online ($$) to connect with other players outside your immediate radius. It's one of the (many) reasons I dropped Pokemon after SuMo.

[Prowler]

I dislike how 'safe' Nintendo's games are. Most of their output is essentially re-skins of past games, maybe adding in some new-ish but also safe elements to them. I get it. They're games for kids, and hardcore fans. It's just, I feel they could try to go out of their comfort zone more often than they do. I also think GameFreak (affiliated with Nintendo) has gotten super sloppy with Pokemon...though maybe that's another topic altogether.

And yeah, their prices are out of hand, and I hate that you now need Nintendo Online ($$) to connect with other players outside your immediate radius. It's one of the (many) reasons I dropped Pokemon after SuMo.

Well, actually, I'm not sure that applies any longer. Breath of the Wild is a big departure from the Zelda formula we've known since A Link to the Past. That was a huge risk they took.

Nintendo also took some risks during the GameCube era. But since the console sold rather poorly, I guess they figured it would be best to mostly play it safe from the Wii era on.

As for Pokémon... the most recent generation I've played was 6. And I just couldn't get much into the game. It's odd because the mechanics are fine and all, but something about it just did not click for me. I own Pokémon Sun, but never got around to play it. Will have to do it someday.

I own the Gen 4 remake for the Switch, and I think it's fine. But then again, I didn't play DPP back in the day. People who did think it's a lazy remake that didn't include the stuff from Platinum.

Sword and Shield did not look that interesting to me. I'm willing to play Arceus and Scarlett/Violet though.

Perhaps Game freak got a bit sloppy with Pokémon because they know it will seel like hot cakes either way. Plus there's no competition. Pokemon fills in a niche that no other series can fill. The closest would be Yokai watch or Digimin games maybe. But those games don't come anywhere close to Pokémon in terms of sales and mainstream attention.

Pokémon is way too big of a money making machine to full. It's essentially running on autopilot at this point.

[neatoman]

EA
Microsoft (and by extension Activision and Zenimax)
Square Enix
Konami
SEGA
Tencent
Capcom
Ubisoft

Probably more out there.

[Prowler]

EA
Microsoft (and by extension Activision and Zenimax)
Square Enix
Konami
SEGA
Tencent
Capcom
Ubisoft

Probably more out there.

I do t own any Microsoft systems or games, so can't say I have any experience with them really. It's sad they bought Rare form Nintendo, though.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

EA
Microsoft (and by extension Activision and Zenimax)
Square Enix
Konami
SEGA
Tencent
Capcom
Ubisoft

Probably more out there.

I hope you are speaking about recent years, and not the late 1980's and early 90's. Most of those companies were once great.

[Prowler]

I hope you are speaking about recent years, and not the late 1980's and early 90's. Most of those companies were once great.

He most likely is. No one hates Capcom, Konami and Sega in their prime.

[neatoman]

Yeah, recent years. Admittedly Microsoft has been hated for a very long time, not necessarily because of the gaming division, but the monopolistic practices have been a problem regardless.

[Prowler]

Yeah, recent years. Admittedly Microsoft has been hated for a very long time, not necessarily because of the gaming division, but the monopolistic practices have been a problem regardless.
I've never owned a Microsoft console. So I don't have anything to say about them when it comes to games. I've heard good things about the 360 though.

[IMJ]

As a kid if an NES game had LJN on it, you knew that you were in for a ridiculous platformer bordering on torture either from poorly licensed programming or the worst of level design. And then the SNES days came around and they released "Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge" and after that I made sure I never bought another LJN game again.

:oops:

[Prowler]

As a kid if an NES game had LJN on it, you knew that you were in for a ridiculous platformer bordering on torture either from poorly licensed programming or the worst of level design. And then the SNES days came around and they released "Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge" and after that I made sure I never bought another LJN game again.

:oops:

I was lucky. Only LJN game I've ever owned was Incredible Crash Dummies for the Super Nintendo. It was mediocre but playable enough. I don't think it's one of their worst games.

I wouldn't even remember the company's existence if AVGN had not reviewed all of their games :lol:

I did grew up with a few crappy games though. Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Bart vs. the World and Top Gun 2.

I'm guessing those infamous unlicensed NES games such as Action 52 didn't make it outside of the US. I never heard of them until I read about them online.

[Leo656]

Spider Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage and the SNES WWF games all carried the LJN label and those were all good games.

"The sun even shines on a dog's ass, sometimes."

[Prowler]

Spider Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage and the SNES WWF games all carried the LJN label and those were all good games.

"The sun even shines on a dog's ass, sometimes."

It seems like LJN was better off making toys than publishing video games.

Akklaim was another company with more lousy games than good ones. They're responsible for all those bad 80s and 90s Simpsons games, for example.

[Leo656]

Well, yeah, they were primarily a toy company. When video games became the hot new "toy" in the 80s, it was only natural that several toy companies would jump into the ring and try and reap some of the profits. None of them were experts in that field but it made sense to try and find a way to get involved. Mattel, for example, took things much farther with the development of their own console, the Intellivision, and of course Coleco with their Coleco-Vision. Those companies had some success but jumped out with the crash once it seemed like video games weren't going to be profitable anymore.

At least LJN knew enough to get involved only as a publisher. And it must be repeated, for as bad as their gaming reputation is they didn't actually make the games, they only published them. The fact that their label generally did signal something bad on the horizon is unavoidable, but was also something of an accident. I'm sure they didn't get into the business with the intent to only publish poorly-programmed software or work with shoddy developers, but that's what ended up happening. It's easy to understand why they get all the heat, since their name is the one common denominator amongst all of those games, but it's also just a little bit unfair and inaccurate.

They actually ended up being sold to Acclaim and thus the two companies are pretty deeply comingled during much of that time period. It seems like Acclaim mostly used the LJN branding on things they expected to not do well or otherwise weren't especially proud of, but that's just me speculating. Unlike LJN, Acclaim actually did have a hand in some development over the years, having purchased a few studios to do things in-house. Their output was definitely a mixed bag as well. But every so often you'd get something playable.

Nintendo seems like the only developer/publisher with a truly consistent track record. I mean yeah, they slapped that gold "Nintendo Seal of Quality" on everything back in the day even if it was junk, but that's because they still got a percentage of every game sold for the NES even if they had nothing to do with it, so obviously they'd still want those bad games to sell some units. As for the stuff they themselves actively had a hand in, though, you really can't go wrong regardless of era. I don't think it's any surprise that their products tend to be massively delayed as a rule, whereas with lots of other companies they stick to hard release dates and commonly ship games unfinished with the intent to "fix" them later. Nintendo's attitude seems to be like, "It'll ship when it's ready", whereas everyone else is more "It's time to ship it, so it's ready", and that probably makes a world of difference.

[Prowler]

Well, one of the companies that developed games for LJN was Rare. Rare has made a lot of classics throughout history. Yet all of the games they made for LJN seem to be considered crappy. But when they made games for Nintendo they put out classics after classics. So there seems to be a denominator here.

LJN probably didn't give developers enough of a budget or time to make good games.

[Leo656]

Yeah, that's always a factor. Such as the case with E.T., infamous for being "terrible" but it's surprisingly not-that-terrible for a game that was slapped together in two weeks or so by primarily One Guy. It's impossible to know how it would have turned out if it had a proper development cycle.

The strict adherence to "ship date" is a consistent problem in the industry. I know budgets are a factor but in many cases it seems like companies are more interested in quarterly dividends and holiday windows than anything. And that never bodes well for the actual game itself. "It'll be out by Christmas" is usually a red flag. It's an indicator of misplaced priority.

[Prowler]

Many years ago I read a comment on an AVGN video where someone suggested James to make a "What we're you thinking?!" series where he interviews people who worked in some of the bad games he reviewed. But someone else replied "why? All of them will just say the same thing. They were under time and budget constraints."

The video game industry sounds stressful for developers. And if you put them under a time constraint nothing good will come out of it.

There are some good games that have managed to be good despite such setbacks, but you can still tell they were rushed in parts. Wind Waker is a big example.

[Nickokapo]

Hi-Tech Expressions
Capstone Software
Titus Interactive

[oldmanwinters]

For me, HudsonSoft and Acclaim, because they got a license to publish console ports of arcade games and started to act like they made everything themselves or even tried to rip off the idea into their own IPs.

[Andrew NDB]

We haven't all agreed it's Electronic Arts yet? Because it's Electronic Arts.

[Nickokapo]

I've read that Acclaim's license for the simpsons for consoles was a possible reason why the simpsons arcade game was never ported to the Sega genesis or SNES =_=;
Oh, also...

Edge Games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games
For being sue-happy trademark trolls and following hi-tech expression, titus and capstone's tradition of releasing crappy licensed games, such as "Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal" and "Snoopy: The Cool Computer Game"
We haven't all agreed it's Electronic Arts yet? Because it's Electronic Arts.
Yeah, for sure. Tho it seems Activision is competing for the title of most hated video game company pretty fiercely.

[serpentnight]

Hate is a strong word maybe but you get my point.

I personally can't stand EA. They acquired Maxis and murdered Sim City. And from what I understand, every company that gets bought by EA goes through pretty much the same process.

Oh and the FIFA series is just a brainless money making machine. PES from Konami was better than FIFA for a long time, and when FIFA overtook it it was because Konami dropped the ball and stopped making great PES games. Not because FIFA upped its game much. I played a bit of FIFA at display stands in stores some years ago... the game still plays the same as it did in 2005. What makes FIFA relevant still is the ultimate team mode.

The biggest game series for the world's most popular sport is an EA IP. Truly tragic.

What about you? Any gaming companies you hate or dislike? And why?

I liked Electronic Arts back in the day. EA Games, not so much.