Top 10 Video Game Controversies of 2023
Well, it's been another year of video game goodness. We got awesome games like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy.However, there have been some controversies in the video game industry. They've basically become as predictable as death and taxes, among other things.
Here are ten to start with, and there are bound to be more.
Probably the biggest controversy of 2023 isn't the video games themselves, but how people perceive the awards ceremonies. That is, as a place to insert ads and give celebrities more screen time than they deserve. During the awards ceremonies, recipients were only allowed 30 seconds for their acceptance speech. When the timer hit zero, loud music played, and they were rushed off stage like on a conveyor belt assembly line. While there were other controversies, the way they rushed through the actual awards left such a bad taste, I doubt anyone will watch the Game Awards next year.
There was a time when Square Enix was the undisputed king of Japanese Role-Playing Games, but it seems those days are long gone, at least for now. The release of Forspoken performed so poorly that it caused Luminous Studios to file for bankruptcy. It forced Square Enix's board of directors to fire CEO Yosuke Matsuda and replace him with Takashi Kiryu. Copies of the game were even found in landfills along with $30 million worth of Funko Pop figures. While Square Enix might be struggling now, here's hoping that the new big kahuna, Takashi Kiryu, will turn things around.
Anyone who's a fan of the Harry Potter books and the franchise in general will probably know about J.K. Rowling's views on the LGBTQ community. They were so offended that they tried boycotting the game. Certain streaming services, like Twitch, were even banning this game outright. Despite this, Hogwarts Legacy has become one of the best-selling games of 2023, which really agitated the LGBTQ community. Anyone who was hoping to see the rags-to-riches author's latest creation bomb was left disappointed.
The latest installments in the long-running Pokémon franchise have seen some very rough spots. However, the update that allows players to connect their games to Pokémon GO or any DLC has been known to render save files unplayable. One player even lost a save file that had almost 600 hours clocked on it. While this only affected a small number of players, it definitely has made the rest of the Pokémon fan community very wary of playing these games for the first time.
While the Wii U might not have been one of Nintendo's best endeavors, it still had some pretty good games for it, such as Super Mario Maker, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pikmin 3, and Splatoon. However, some people who bought a Wii U probably haven't played it in a while, and they'll probably regret doing so. This is because prolonged periods of non-use increase the chances of NAND corruption, and if it's corrupted before a backup is made, you can say goodbye to your system and all the precious software stored on it.
And because Nintendo is no longer offering any kind of service on the system, it's best to start taking precautions now before it's too late.
Ever since the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was announced in 2019, fans have waited with bated breath for its release. Many websites were given early access to review it, but one website that was banned from this early access party was Kotaku. Over the past few years, they have prioritized politics over gameplay and have essentially become an anti-gaming website. Now, they're starting to reap what they sow. But it's not just Nintendo. Other companies have also blacklisted them, including Bethesda, Ubisoft, and the team behind Final Fantasy XIV, among many others. Suffice it to say, Kotaku needs to stop with the politics if they want to survive.
How many readers are alive that still remember the insipid box office bomb of the 1993 Super Mario Bros. live-action movie starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper? If you actually saw that dreck, then I strongly advise you to see the one by Illumination, as it actually delivers what fans want. However, the so-called "professional critics" weren't too kind to this. Even before it was released, critics slammed it for not being diverse enough, and so on.
Even John Leguizamo tried to boycott this, and now, after its major success at the box office, he's willing to appear in the sequel if Nintendo and Illumination 'do the right thing'. Even the Walt Disney Company, one of the titans in entertainment for almost 100 years, is now starting to feel the heat.
One of the most satisfying aspects of the Resident Evil universe, and video games in general, is upgrading your weapons, armor, and whatnot. But Capcom made the controversial move to add microtransactions that take away the fun from that. They introduced the DLC called "Weapon Exclusive Upgrade Tickets," allowing players to unlock a weapon's exclusive perk without fully upgrading the weapon. Fans feel that this not only dumb down the challenge but also note that Resident Evil 4 Remake is already a full-priced game.
With so many zombie apocalypse video games on the market, you really need to do something extraordinary to stand out from the pack. Sadly, The Day Before was extraordinary, but in all the wrong ways. Despite being in development for five years, it felt like it was slapped together in only a matter of months with no regard for quality. To rub salt in the wound, they blamed external factors instead of taking responsibility for their own failures. It's no wonder that Fntastic closed its doors for good.
The Middle Earth games were some of the best video games based on Tolkien's books, as they executed stealth very well. So, when a "Lord of the Rings" game starring Gollum was announced, fans were initially excited. However, their enthusiasm waned once they saw and played the finished product. Aside from looking unpolished, the platforming and stealth sections were just terrible, and the game was riddled with bugs and glitches. Considering this game was announced in March 2019, Daedalic Entertainment had plenty of time to ensure everything was at least up to par. In the words of Sam Pape in his GameStop review: "We Don't Wants It, We Don't Needs It."