Top 10 Video Game Controversies of 2022

When Google Stadia was announced in October 2018, some people thought that this could change gaming forever. And well, it could've. Sadly, a lot of mismanagement pretty much doomed the system from the start.

For starters, you obviously need an internet connection to play Stadia, and a good one too. Otherwise, you can expect framerate drops, lag, and even lost connections. What really put people off was how it was a subscription service and store rolled into one. You had to pay-to-play.

Then there were missing features when it launched, which I won't go into too much detail about. Finally, it didn't have any exclusive titles that made people go, "I wanna play that!" After three years, Google finally announced that Stadia was shutting down.

Another layer of controversy is that this came completely out of the blue as developers were caught completely off-guard. Google announced that it would refund people's money, and they expect to be mostly done by January 2023. While it's nice that people's money would get refunded, it won't make up for the hundreds if not thousands of hours people put into games like Borderlands 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Cyberpunk 2077. Money is something you can always give back, but time is something no one can ever get back.

Have you ever heard the old saying, If something's not broken, don't fix it? Sadly, this is a lesson the video game industry in general has forgotten. Companies are remaking past games, putting them on newer platforms, and charging people full price.

The Last of Us Part 1 for the PlayStation 5 is a prime example of how to lose favor with your fanbase. It's basically a PlayStation 3 game but with better bells and whistles. Personally, I'd recommend just getting the PlayStation 4 version as it has the full game and the Left Behind DLC, but at a cheaper price.

Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2 are actually looking awesome, but when you start pumping out unnecessary remakes like this, they sabotage the chances of the remakes that actually deserve to succeed.

The Gran Turismo series has been one of the most beloved PlayStation franchises since the first game launched in Japan on December 23, 1997. Even though it has had its ups and downs, the series has remained beloved by many.

At least until the launch of Gran Turismo 7 on March 4, 2022. Even though the game received favorable reviews from critics upon launch, Polyphony Digital introduced an update that added microtransactions and made grinding for in-game currency even longer. Polyphony president Kazunori Yamauchi stated that the cars should reflect their real-world value and rarity, which drew some major criticism.

Even though changes were eventually made to rectify this, many people are now iffy about even playing the game. Jim Sterling said it best when he called it "Scam Turismo," and as you can imagine, he didn't pull any punches in his video.

When you release a sequel to a beloved game, you need to make sure it's not just up to par with the original, but that it surpasses it in major key areas. When Overwatch was released in 2016, it was a cultural phenomenon. There was merchandise, people were cosplaying as their favorite characters, and even Tracer made a cameo in the movie Ready Player One.

Sadly, Overwatch 2 was launched in such bad shape it had no right to be mentioned in the same breath as the original. You've got the usual laundry list of launch bugs, glitches, and whatnot: servers going on the fritz, connection issues, missing content, and this battle pass nonsense. People also needed a phone with a contract to connect, as pay-as-you-go plans wouldn't cut it.

But there were also some very unique bugs, and not in a good way. One such bug would make players accidentally buy skins with the in-game currency, and there were no refunds. There were also issues with Mei-Ling Zhou's trademark Ice Wall not being able to give her allies the boost it used to.

Another layer of controversy is that the original is now completely unplayable. It doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. Sometime in June 2022, it was announced that it would happen once Overwatch 2 launched, so you'd think Activision Blizzard would do everything in their power to make sure the launch was as smooth as possible. Sadly, that wasn't the case, and they should've delayed the game to make sure it was at least up to par with the original.

How would you react if a video game developer offered you between $15,000 and $20,000 to record a character's voice? You'd probably jump at the chance regardless of the caveats involved. Well, not Hellena Taylor.

To cut her some slack (but not much), she did voice the titular Umbra witch in the last two titles and probably got a bigger paycheck. But here's where things get ugly. She went on Twitter and told fans that PlatinumGames was only giving her $4,000 in total to voice Bayonetta. However, it soon came to light that PlatinumGames was offering her $3,000-$4,000 per session for up to five sessions. And that was more than what her union would offer.

She apparently got greedy and wanted $100,000 plus royalties and whatnot. PlatinumGames wouldn't give her the requested ludicrous sum, and Jennifer Hale was picked as her replacement. Therefore, Taylor went to Twitter with this sob story and left out key information which actually violated her Non-Disclosure Agreement.

At first, people got behind her and threatened to boycott the game. However, they definitely changed their stance once they learned the truth. Suffice to say, Taylor's career as a voice actress in video games is now over.

At this point, everyone should be aware of how Activision Blizzard's big kahuna Bobby Kotick is the Ebenezer Scrooge of modern times. But even for him, this is an all-time low.

Before Diablo Immortal was launched, people knew that it would take either a long time or a lot of money to max out one character. It was initially believed it would cost $100,000 to get one character to max level. However, Reddit user ShiftYourCarcass stated that it would take $540,000 for a character to become that strong, over five times the estimated amount.

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but Kotick is acting like his consumer base is made of money. Earth to Kotick: some of us won't be able to make that much money in our lifetimes. Make these mechanics reasonable before karma catches up.

When Persona 5 was released outside of Japan on April 4, 2017, it became a cultural phenomenon. Three years later, we saw the release of Persona 5 Royal on PlayStation 4 as well as a Steam port of Persona 4 Golden. Ever since, fans have been clamoring for Atlus to give the other Persona games the same treatment.

While some fans were ecstatic that Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal would be rereleased on modern consoles, as well as Persona 5 Royal being released on Steam, not too many fans were thrilled that the PlayStation Portable version of Persona 3 was the one getting the modern-day rerelease. If you've played this version, it's easy to see why: the anime cutscenes were reduced to pictures, you couldn't walk around freely like you could in the PlayStation 2 version, and The Answer sub-story was missing from this version as well.

So why did Atlus and Sega decide on this version instead? I guess it's so that people can play as the female protagonist. But I've got a better idea: why not just remake the whole game from the ground up? In fact, there's a Twitter page dedicated to such a remake. Let's hope it happens because in all honesty, this game hasn't aged too well.