In your opinion, what was/were the worst year(s) of gaming?

[Shoggoth2588]

Definitely 83. Nintendo kinda pulled our asses out of the fire on that one.

This one does kinda win by default I guess...Thank you Nintendo for the save

---

Every year Monolithsoft work on something that isn't the sequel to Attack of the Saiyans is a bad year.

In all seriousness I'm gonna agree with OP in the 2013/2014 were somewhere between wasted and bad. Most big online releases were absolutely terrible, Watch_Dogs was a lie, Ass Creed 5 was a lie, the gamer-gate thing started...Not to mention every big release on the PS4/Xbone was also on the PS3/360...like...all of them. It's past the midpoint of 2015 and there are only a couple of games on either system that I can ONLY get on those platforms. This time last gen all three consoles had their own distinct titles and draws...Who'd have thought Sony and Microsoft would have copied Nintendo by squandering their new console's first year on the market?

 

[renegade7]

I don't think 1983 was actually as big a deal as people are saying it is. The industry wasn't really at risk of dying because at the time the industry basically consisted of 2 companies, and one of them was making games exclusively for the other's platform, and one of them made some very terrible business decisions. There's a documentary on Netflix called "Game Over" that goes into a lot of detail about this which everyone should watch, I think. Basically "The Smartest Guys in the Room" but with video games.

 

[the_great_cessation]

I really think 2014 was a much better year than what many give it credit for being. Smash Bros, The Wolf Among Us, South Park, Far Cry 4, Sunset Overdrive, New N'Tasty, Bayonetta 2, Valiant Hearts and Shovel Knight were all fantastic titles that gave me hours of enjoyment.

For me, I'd personally say 2008 was a pretty sparse year. The only titles of note I can recall from that year are Smash Bros Brawl, Braid and the Prince of Persia reboot.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Every year! Gaming is dead!

All jokes aside... Recently the most disappointing for me was 2013. I didn't like a single of the top 10 games on metacritic released that year. I liked a few other games though like Anti-Chamber. And Pax Aus was that year which was nice.
Not too excited about this year either really.

Don't understand the hate last year got, especially in regards to Destiny. It seems like they finally gave us some games we could just play and relax with rather than some story I'm expected to take notes. I've been missing the action stuff. Raids on Destiny are probably the best thing released in the past few years.

 

[someguy1231]

From an objective point of view, 1983 is the only answer. The entire video game industry nearly went under. Doesn't get much worse than that.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, I can't say 1983 because I didn't physically exist back then... So, I guess I'll say this year only because I haven't really bought any video game that has came out this year yet...

Other than that, I can't think of worst years subjectively speaking... Just bad moments in gaming... like Operation Raccoon City...

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

I have to agree with Gundam. At the time, gaming was this quirky new thing that people were still unsure about. The mishandling of it could have killed it for good like the Beta Max or Disco, just a fad. No, that was the worst time, because even the people doing it didn't know how to manage it.

Unless of course we go with 'the time before video games existed'. I accept that as a valid and clever answer that somoene totally already said.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't know, I remember some of the awful, broken, shitty games of the 80s and 90s. Ones where you had no recourse, ones where they were broken beyond completion, ones where they were just a quick buck...people make arguments and cases for why recent years are so awful, but it's just same crap, different year.

Purge? Try "The entire industry crashed and burned"

And it needs to happen again? Yeah, everyone is more than willing to talk about how willing they are to tear things down, but people rarely seem to remember that after you tear it down you need to have a plan for what you build to replace it.

The irony being that the people who seem to want gaming to crash so badly are likely to be the ones "purged" should they get their way.

 

[EMWISE94]

Aside from '83.. uh, for me the worst years of gaming I'd say were that stretch of time when CoD:MW came out and pretty much boomed the slurry of modern war shooters trying to catch the mythical money fairies CoD was getting. I mean, yeah there were other games coming out then as well and not everything was trying to be CoD, but its the years that most memorably come to mind cause it was during that span of time that I started to actually look more in depth into gaming; rather than just playing games for fun, I started to analyse em too, look up articles other than reviews, etc.

But other than that, I'd say gamings getting better every year! Sure you might have you're terrible games getting shoved out the door, but there's also the good get games that get let out too.

 

[Callate]

1983? Pfft! Pfft, I say!

Look, I was there- there were a lot of great things for gaming in 1983 if you look past the console markets. In the arcades, Mario Bros. was born. The classic Star Wars vector coin-op was released. Crystal Castles came out. Don Bluth put out Dragon's Lair, making arcade watching more of a spectacle than ever and giving birth to the quick time event, for good or ill (okay, mostly ill.) Computers got Ultima III and M.U.L.E., and Bomberman was created.

Atari mis-handled things, and yeah, that kind of sucked- though it was great to get cartridges on the cheap, for a while, there. And Nintendo's relatively rapid takeover of the industry was arguably the first step to video games in the home being something more than a fad, gimmick, and toy.

I'd say the worst year is 2018. I mean, when ads and freemium tactics killed off the promise of the new wave of VR? Really, we should have seen that coming.

But in all seriousness, the glut of "free-to-play" crap on mobile devices, the junkpile of amateur development on view on Steam, the increasing preponderance of the notion that games should be free and disposable, the skyrocketing development costs in the AAA sector, the mis-use of social media... I'm far more worried about what's going on right now than I ever was about the 80s. The slide into oblivion of Atari never made me fear for the medium itself. Arcade games were visibly getting better before my eyes, and mad geniuses were making fantastic games for computers like the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Sinclair, often all by themselves. Now it sometimes seems like rather than garage geniuses, we have amateurs without any standards and bean-counters, and little in between. Rather than "make a great idea and it will make you money", it's just "...and it will make you money, and fast."

Nintendo stepped in pretty quickly to rescue us from the console crash. Who's going to step in to save us from all of this?

 

[Hero of Lime]

On a personal level, I remember 2008 being pretty lame. I remember Nintendo had nothing for the entire year except Wii Sports Resort and maybe a Kirby game. I think Sony just had Little Big Planet and maybe a Killzone for their exclusives. Nothing really exciting from Microsoft and third parties in general. I'm sure some really good games came out, I just can't remember a single one.

I know a lot of people are down on 2014, but I loved it. There were a bunch of games I really enjoyed, which is the most important aspect for determining whether a year was good for gaming in my eyes. 2015 has been OK so far, but kinda dry, but Splatoon makes it a decent year by itself. :3

 

[Erttheking]

Then again, gaming is totes only fun if it's non white tranny aliens, right folks?

...I'm sorry, was I supposed to laugh at that? Because I don't find it particularly funny.
I just don't see the humor in dropping transphobic slurs because someone wrote a mild post that you disagree with.

 

[wizzy555]

I'd say 2013.

BTW I actually consider GG a good thing.

 

[major_chaos]

It's hard to place the exact year, but I think it was somewhere around 2012-2013. That was when the gaming community finally stopped giving a shit, the last vestiges of civility and humility were shrugged off and the "kids sharing secrets around a TV" atmosphere of places like old GFAQS was totally dead, elitism became more rampant an repulsive than ever before (best represented by "PC master race"'s transformation from a ironic self deprecating term to shorthand for "Yes, I do think I am a superior specimen to you because my toy cost more"), the community fragmented into radicalized entrenched cults with no interest in doing anything other than flinging poo at each other, "things I don't like don't deserve to exist" because a common mindset, and liking things went from the standard to a totally unacceptable sin.

I will always fondly remember the old days of the community, and its transformation into a toxic mire of negativity and arrogance will forever upset me far more than EA having to gall to try and make money or whatever unforgivable nontroversy people are writing the UN human rights commission angry letters about this week.

Also I liked Titanfall and Destiny, cometh at me bro.

 

[Erttheking]

Then again, gaming is totes only fun if it's non white tranny aliens, right folks?

...I'm sorry, was I supposed to laugh at that? Because I don't find it particularly funny.
I just don't see the humor in dropping transphobic slurs because someone wrote a mild post that you disagree with.

Saying tranny does not equal "transphobic". If you're going to throw labels around, atleast don't use the same one that's lost all meaning because people like you don't actually use it's correct meaning.

Which is also pretty goddamn funny coming from the guy who had a mental break down and actually cried because of the name of a class in a Final Fantasy game? You're the exact kind of person that shouldn't be gaming if you're that worried about the most trivial shit in the medium that it causes you to burst into tears.

You're right, saying tranny doesn't equal transphobic. Saying tranny when showing anger at someone who isn't that happen about representation in gaming, that, however, is rather transphobic. If it quacks, I call it a duck.

Uh...what are you talking about? I have had issues with depression I do admit it (And I'm glad you think that apparently that means I shouldn't game, gee, you are one CLASSY guy) but I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

 

[Nazulu]

The release of the Wii till now for me. Since then there have been hardly any games that really grabbed me that's new, if even being aimed at me. Plus around then it seemed bad business practices became more rampant so I have to research more than usual.

I started gaming in 93' so I really have no experience what it was like before that.