Who is the Worst AAA-Game Developer?

[CriticalGaming]

I was talking about Deathloop in the General Gaming News thread and something occurred to me. What AAA-developer is the worst games maker in the industry. I'm not talking about the business practices, and internal struggles or any of that stuff. I mean strictly from the video game stand point of things.

Which AAA-developer do you guys think makes the absolute worst games?

I brought up Bethesda for Deathloop, even though it's developed by Arkane specifically Arkane itself is not very good either. Deathloop runs like absolute ass goblins, broken AI, bugs, it's like a normal Bethesda release. And Jim Sterling put out a video a long time ago with 6 big examples of Bethesda just sucking dick at making games.

Then you have EA and the only reason I would consider EA is the Sports games, which are buggy, rushed, copy and paste games from previous years over and over again. However admittedly EA does put out good stuff in other areas. Jedi Fallen Order for example.

I wonder who you guys would put out as the worst AAA-games developer out there today.

 

[laggyteabag]

Well, this thread is going to be a salt mine, isn't it?

I'd probably give another vote for Bethesda. They make boring worlds, with boring quests, boring characters, and boring combat, and to top it all off, the games barely work.

I found it absolutely hilarious that when they outsourced Fallout New Vegas to Obsidian, they completely outshone Bethesda's own Fallout 3 in every regard.

The only saving grace of Bethesda, is that they are very mod friendly, so that someone else can actually make their games worth playing.

I have no idea how they have the positive reputation that they do.

My runner up is probably Ubisoft. Their games are often perfectly well made, but they are just so dull. They are experts at finding a working formula, then just exploiting that formula to its breaking point. If you have played one game in any of their recent franchises, you have effectively played the rest.

Every now and again they somehow manage to produce something worth remembering, but most of the time they are just seemingly obsessed with homogenising all of their different franchises, into a single beige genre.

 

[BrawlMan]

As far as I'm concerned, unholy Trinity all suck just about equally. Though we're talking about the worst of worse, just game wise, I have to go with Activision. They don't even try anymore. EA will occasionally put out something different or give something to the smaller and indie devs. Activision on the other hand is called the Call of Duty mines for a reason. Every developer they swallowed up just makes Call of Duty games now. Remember when Raven Software did more than Call of Duty? I sure as hell do when they actually made unique games and shooters. The runner-up will be Ubisoft. They just make games that are so fucking! boring! They pretty much killed the Rayman franchise, because of their own neglecting idiocy. And the fullest decision to release the game two weeks before GTA V when they already had a nice winter release date. You went from February of 2013 all the way to September 2013 when GTA V was just 2 weeks from release. How and why the hell would you do that? With something like that, it's as if they almost wanted it to fail.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Any company that is owned by T2.

Rockstar has been going on a rampage on purging mods, fan projects, and anything that might slightly have impact on their sales. 2K and Randy Pitchford are greedy mofos. They recently announced the Tiny Tina Woderland game will be Epic Exclusive. Not sure if these decisions are made by the individual companies or T2 is pressuring them, but I'm surprised they seem to not get any mention whenever the topic of "Worst gaming companies" gets brought up.

The upcoming Marvel Midnight Sun is also published by them. Although made by the same guys who did XCOM reboot, I am seeing some major red flags for microtransactions, via both cosmetics and the card system

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

As far as I'm concerned, young holy Trinity all suck just about equally. Though we're talking about the worst of worse, just game wise, I have to go with Activision. They don't even try anymore. EA will occasionally put out something different or give something to the smaller and indie devs. Activision on the other hand is called the Call of Duty mines for a reason. Every developer they swallowed up just may Call of Duty games now. Remember when Raven Software did more than Call of Duty? I sure as hell do when they actually made unique games and shooters. The runner-up will be Ubisoft. They just make games that are so fucking! boring! They pretty much killed the Rayman franchise, because of their own neglecting idiocy. And the fullest decision to release the game two weeks before GTA V when they already had a nice winter release date. You went from February of 2013 all the way to September 2013 when GTA V was just 2 weeks from release. How and why the hell would you do that? Witg something like that, it's as if they almost wanted it to fail.

AFAIK Activision doesn’t do any actual game development though and are just publishing.

I would have to also choose Bethesda just because they are like the Jabba the Hutt of videogame development. Whenever I see how a game of theirs turns out or what’s been in the news, what fans think, etc. that’s pretty much the image I’m left with, as they’ve been pushing rereleases of Fallout and TES like gangsters the last couple generations. Bonus point go to Microsoft for spending billions on them to keep spamming the industry with bloated, sluggish, derivative entrails of mediocrity.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Snip

This whole post gets my vote

 

[Catfood220]

Outside of the ones mentioned, Konami maybe. Sitting on a treasure trove of IP and letting it rot while they make Pachinko machines. And the games they do decide to release are piles of steaming shit. They aren't even releasing their yearly football game anymore.

 

[BrawlMan]

Activision doesn’t do any actual game development though and are just publishing.

There is the reason why I called them to Call of Duty mines. They don't make the games, but they force others just to make that and almost nothing else. So same difference at this point.

 

[BrawlMan]

Outside of the ones mentioned, Konami maybe. Sitting on a treasure trove of IP and letting it rot while they make Pachinko machines. And the games they do decide to release are piles of steaming shit. They aren't even releasing their yearly football game anymore.

You win.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Outside of the ones mentioned, Konami maybe. Sitting on a treasure trove of IP and letting it rot while they make Pachinko machines. And the games they do decide to release are piles of steaming shit. They aren't even releasing their yearly football game anymore.

Well you have a point, but I would argue that Konami doesn't count in that regard because that gets into the business practices which I stated are technically off-limits.

However Contra Rogue Corps happened so......yeah maybe

 

[BrawlMan]

because that gets into the business practices which I stated are technically off-limits.

However Contra Rogue Corps happened so......yeah maybe

It's hard not to since they hate video games and themselves so much. Rogue Corps only further proves the point.

 

[Adam Jensen]

Square-Enix

They don't even pretend to care about designing a game to be primarily fun. They insist on microtransactions no matter how bad the game ends up because of it. Even EA knows not to do that.

Just look at what they did with The Avengers. If there was ever a title that could have been a huge success, it's the fuckin' Avengers. But they don't know what they had in their hands. Their shortsightedness and their stupidity made them insist on creating a live-service microtransaction piece of shit game, instead of just creating a fun Avengers game that would have sold like hotcakes.

 

[CriticalGaming]

They don't even pretend to care about designing a game to be primarily fun. They insist on microtransactions no matter how bad the game ends up because of it. Even EA knows not to do that.

There was no microtransactions in the Dragon Quest games, or Final Fantasy 7, or any of the pixel remasters, or anything the Japanese side of the company does outside of FF14.

The microtransactions are strictly done by the Western studios like Eidos and Crystal Dynamics.

 

[Piscian]

Well I was gonna say this controversial, but yeah I agree with with Adam FUCK Square-Enix. Every game they've developed in last ten teams has come with some fuck you to gamers (baring Dragon quest I suppose). It depends on if we're ranking insidious vs jackassery. If we're saying Jackassery Square takes the cake for me. Konami would be on my list if they actually existed anymore.

 

[09philj]

I mean it has to be Konami, the game company that doesn't want to make games. Do they even count anymore?

Square-Enix

They don't even pretend to care about designing a game to be primarily fun. They insist on microtransactions no matter how bad the game ends up because of it. Even EA knows not to do that.

Just look at what they did with The Avengers. If there was ever a title that could have been a huge success, it's the fuckin' Avengers. But they don't know what they had in their hands. Their shortsightedness and their stupidity made them insist on creating a live-service microtransaction piece of shit game, instead of just creating a fun Avengers game that would have sold like hotcakes.

Square do put out quality games, it's just that for every good one there's another one that was fundamentally ill conceived and another one churned up in development hell, and even the great ones are often a bit wonky. (FFXIV is great, but wasn't at launch. Bravely Default had some *terrible* baked in microtransactions.)

I was talking about Deathloop in the General Gaming News thread and something occurred to me. What AAA-developer is the worst games maker in the industry. I'm not talking about the business practices, and internal struggles or any of that stuff. I mean strictly from the video game stand point of things.

Which AAA-developer do you guys think makes the absolute worst games?

I brought up Bethesda for Deathloop, even though it's developed by Arkane specifically Arkane itself is not very good either. Deathloop runs like absolute ass goblins, broken AI, bugs, it's like a normal Bethesda release. And Jim Sterling put out a video a long time ago with 6 big examples of Bethesda just sucking dick at making games.

Then you have EA and the only reason I would consider EA is the Sports games, which are buggy, rushed, copy and paste games from previous years over and over again. However admittedly EA does put out good stuff in other areas. Jedi Fallen Order for example.

I wonder who you guys would put out as the worst AAA-games developer out there today.

The games that are released by Bethesda's subsidiaries are often afflicted with jank but that doesn't stop them being great games. Arkane in particular made some of the most interesting and well designed AAA games of the 2010s in the Dishonored games and Prey, and I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on Deathloop. However Bethesda's own games are the jankiest of them all and often lack the inventiveness of the games published under them, which is of course best exemplified by the differences between Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. (And then the differences between Fallout 3 and New Vegas and Fallout 4)

 

[Piscian]

Square do put out quality games, it's just that for every good one there's another one that was fundamentally ill conceived and another one churned up in development hell, and even the great ones are often a bit wonky. (FFXIV is great, but wasn't at launch. Bravely Default had some *terrible* baked in microtransactions.)

Bravely default? Like the DS game? What are the microtrans? Its been on my backlog but I dont wanna play it if theres Like Dead Space 3 level microtransaction.

 

[09philj]

Bravely default? Like the DS game? What are the microtrans? Its been on my backlog but I dont wanna play it if theres Like Dead Space 3 level microtransaction.

They would like you to pay real money to get access to the Bravely Second mechanic, which lets you make additional actions at any point during combat. It's not required at all, it's just an ever present option that feels very grimy. I love Bravely Default but that's one of two things I'd happily remove from it, the other thing being the sexual """comedy""".

 

[Piscian]

They would like you to pay real money to get access to the Bravely Second mechanic, which lets you make additional actions at any point during combat. It's not required at all, it's just an ever present option that feels very grimy. I love Bravely Default but that's one of two things I'd happily remove from it, the other thing being the sexual """comedy""".

Well I can get on board with the first part.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

EA, Ubisoft and Bethesda are kind of shoe-ins for the prize, so here's my nominee: Gearbox Software. Led by a egomaniacal lying shithead abuser; their few releases that haven't been their flagship franchise have been almost universally utter garbage, and they outright slaughtered a highly-anticipated game so that they could leech its funds for their own projects.

 

[Gergar12]

All of the above with the exception of Square-Enix

They Put Microtransactions In Deus Ex

Why!