Top 10 Video Game Industry Controversies of 2020
2020 has been a wild year for everybody, and the video game industry is no exception. We’ll be looking at everything video game related here. INCLUDING video game-based movies.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, GameStop tried to keep their stores open by insisting they were an essential service. Many reports even insist that some GameStops were made to stay open and fake being shut down when police came by.
GameStop eventually went into shutdown a couple of months later, but rumors speculate that this was done later to avoid damage from the loss of sales of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal.
Video games are essential to nerds... I guess?
The PS5 and Xbox Series X are both showing impressive sales numbers, but many of them are from scalpers (people who mass buy a product and sell the product back at an inflated price). Some of these scalpers are asking for well over $1,000.
Sony and Microsoft wouldn't charge gamers like $2500, so scalpers are greedy, like really greedy for money!
Nintendo stopped The Big House from hosting a yearly Smash Melee tournament, and people involved in the North American Splatoon 2 tournament (happening at the same time) were standing in solidarity with the Smash community. Nintendo then canceled the live-streaming of the finals for the Splatoon 2 tournament.
Nintendo can't take a hint about the difference between good and bad attention. When considering some of the most evil concepts of our modern reality, it all comes down to not giving a crap about the kind of attention it is.
The Game Awards 2020 was a bed of contention between fans of Last of Us: Part 2 and Ghosts of Tsushima, both of which were up for Game of the Year and Player's Choice. Ultimately, Ghosts of Tsushima won the Player's Choice award, but more hardcore fans of Last of Us 2 accused the voting of being hijacked by the alt-right, further alleging an anti-LGBT bias in the voters.
Ghosts of Tsushima is so much better. Really, it's not even a competition. Ghosts of Tsushima is one of the best games I've ever played. The Last of Us Part 2 was a massive disappointment. If you think The Last of Us was better, then you're just wrong.
Epic Games installed a new payment system into Fortnite, allowing for easier payment to Epic Games. However, Apple, who has a notoriously tight grasp on app sales on iOS, pulled Fortnite from the App Store following the implementation. Epic Games then filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging anti-competitive practices and a monopoly on the iOS market.
According to the Wikipedia reception section, a scene in the Chinese version of Monster Hunter was accused of making a reference to the playground chant "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees," and many Chinese people took offense, leading to the film being pulled from circulation in mainland China. An edited version of the film was made to remove the offending scene, but China was not having it. Chinese people were even being encouraged to review bomb the film.
I've heard of that rhyme. I'm really surprised it even got past 1965.
Technically a 2019 scandal, but come on, how can we forget about this? The movie came out in February 2020, and the redesign was incredible! However, let us never forget that Paramount tried to give us a Sonic the Hedgehog that looked more like the "Sanic" meme.
When Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War was released this year, reports began to emerge that it was "bricking" people's brand new PlayStation 5s and Xbox Series Xs. People who had this happen said the game would play a few times and then make the system act up, rendering it unusable. This is what is referred to as "bricking."
The newest installment of the Cooking Mama franchise, Cookstar, was met rather negatively by critics and fans alike. However, it's the accusations that it's being used as a cryptocurrency mine that lands it in infamy. No evidence of this is true, but people speculated it after the game was pulled from Nintendo's eShop. The true reason for this was due to a dispute between Planet Entertainment and Office Create (game publisher vs. game IP holder).
Nintendo released a three-game compilation of Super Mario titles to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the franchise. These games included 1996's Super Mario 64, 2002's Super Mario Sunshine, and 2007's Super Mario Galaxy. They also announced that they were only going to sell the collection (both physical and online digital) until the end of March 2021.
This caused head-scratching and facepalms among many fans, and, of course, scalping. Luckily, the scalping wasn't as bad as later entries.
The existence of this game alone is a controversy because it shows how low Nintendo has gotten in the past years.
Yes, what was the point of this? Were they really that scared of spoilers?
Really, Abby wins best character? A character everyone hated?
Yes, anything with Brie Larson is controversial ever since Captain Marvel.