Most Evil Company

[SoulBlazer]

Poll of the day time, being done partly for research and partly for curiousty:

Which company do you think has done the most damage to the video game industry as a whole? Which one praticed the most underhanded and frustrating tactics? Which company have gamers loved to hate, even as they swear by their systems or games?

Knowing how this board thinks, I think I know what the answers are going to be. ;)

[zmweasel]

Poll of the day time, being done partly for research and partly for curiousty:

Which company do you think has done the most damage to the video game industry as a whole? Which one praticed the most underhanded and frustrating tactics? Which company have gamers loved to hate, even as they swear by their systems or games?

Knowing how this board thinks, I think I know what the answers are going to be. ;)

The only question here is by how many votes Sony will "win."

-- Z.

[classicb]

Poll of the day time, being done partly for research and partly for curiousty:

Which company do you think has done the most damage to the video game industry as a whole? Which one praticed the most underhanded and frustrating tactics? Which company have gamers loved to hate, even as they swear by their systems or games?

Knowing how this board thinks, I think I know what the answers are going to be. ;)

The only question here is by how many votes Sony will "win."

-- Z.

LOL how true

[Cauterize]

...sony all the way!

[SkiDragon]

Im no expert, but it seems like EA is always buying out smaller companies. And often ruining their games in the process.

At least when it comes to Westwood and Command & Conquer.

I dont like Generals much at all.

[Push Upstairs]

<Finds asbestos suit>

I voted Nintendo. I can't applaud thier use of the "my way or the highway" ideal. I know some will say that thier "seal of quality" brought about better games, but there are still some games that are crap stuffed in a cartridge sporting that seal.

But more importantly...i dont care much for censorship. I realize that other companies do this as well, but only Nintendo would go to great lengths to neuter "Wolfenstien 3D".

[Daria]

I'd vote Sony, not for their promotion of the so called casual gamer, but rather because I despise SCEA's stance on 2D gaming.

However, I don't think any comapny can really be considered evil. They all exist for the purpose of turning a profiet, although some companies are certainly more ruthless then other. But by no stretch of the imagination are any of them saints.

Consequently I reserve my tally.

[Berserker]

What with how many impromptu rants I've often went on, I don't think I need to explain which one I voted for ;)

...but in terms of sheer evil-ness, I just couldn't believe that Sony could even be considered in the same league as Microsoft.

oh my god! they turned laypeople back on to gaming! they don't want to make those 2d-style games that everyone was really into about 10 years ago! and their products... sometimes... they BREAK! @_@ such... such unadulterated EVILLL!

folks like zmweasel who have always given an opposing view to the whole anti-sony thing... even though the delivery of it has probably been akin to being hit with a bucketfull of cold water for some people, I'm going to have to say I agree with him. I'd be interested to see what the results of this poll would be if put to a wide variety of different forums... wait, no, I really wouldn't, because I'm pretty sure most of them would agree with me.

But I do like how you give reasons for hating each company in the poll :D

[klausien]

Was goingto vote for Sony, but the presence of EA among the choices was too hard to resist.

God I hate sports games.

[anagrama]

*yawn* :roll:

[Ruffie]

Origin Systems Inc...the software giant responsible for the Ultima series, and many other incredible titles. Every title they make in the 1980s and early 1990s is a massive hit and pushes state of the art further.

EA purchases them in the early 1990s. Things go very bad.

Ultima 8 is rushed out and for the first time an Ultima is not that good. The same thing happnes later with Ultima 9.

Ultima Online launches and is a massive hit, but EA offers poor support in terms of financial backing and promotion.

Richard Garriot, the mastermind behind the Ultima Series, begins work on UO2. Millions of dollars are poured into it, time and talent that could have been used to improve the original UO. Then, EA pulls the plug.

Garriot quits, goes off to form his own company and make a new game. The UO2 designers that stay return to UO and promise a new golden age for UO. That age turns out to be UO:3D, a crappy and buggy version of the client that no one wanted and almost no one, to this day, has embraced. It offers a mishmash of bad 3D sprites over the same old 2D terrain and objects.

Again, UO designers start disappearing. Something is in the works. Then, last August, EA flies a bunch of folks from the UO community and the gaming press (myself included) to San Francisco to unveil Ultima X : Odyssey, a new massively multiplayer Ultima which is true to the Ultima roots and offers a more action-oriented gameplay than UO. The game is 75% complete and very playable, and the designers are stoked - they know they've got a winner on their hands.

Enter EA. In February they decide to close the Austin Texas offices of OSI and consolodate all their software houses to Redwood California. Both the UO and UXO teams are offered jobs if they move. Most of them resign.

UXO is still to be worked on, though. We were strung along on that until a few weeks ago when the plug on it was pulled. The few remaining UXO team members are again reassigned to UO.

Origin's motto used to be "We Create Worlds"....EA's should be "We Destroy Worlds".

Ruffie

[Nez]

EA there games have NO personality. Plus they release sportts games with just updated graphics and rosters. Sony and Microsoft really arn't that bad especially when you consider this monster lurking in the dark. :vamp:

[PhoeniX]

Now this is an interesting topic, very difficult to say which I hate the most. But, of course, this isn't a question of which most deserves my dislike or in some case emnity, it's a question of (raises pinky to corner or mouth) EVIL... As such I have to dash Atari which I hate in its current incarnation shamelessly cashing in on the laurels of its past--now ancient success. Nokia is stupid, but I can't really say it's evil; that distinction would go to those damn cell phone providers locking me into senselessly long contracts. Square, though I'm pretty pissed off that they merged with their principle RPG competition Enix, a move which I fear will make them hopelessly complacent and eventually lead to unoriginallity; but evil this is not. Microsoft... well thats just too easy, but as much as Bill Gates may be the devil incarnate (it's always the quite geek types) I still really like the Xbox. Nintendo, man they're not evil, I love Nintendo; they release hands down the best first party titles (not to mention best first party peripherals [the wave bird]).

This leaves in my mind the only real choices for EVIL companies: EA and Sony. At first I would like to say EA, I can't stand the erroneously large segment of the video game playing community who refers to themselves as "gamers" when the only games they own or play are Madden, Madden 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, and have had 05 (and likely 06) on pre-order at their local (yuck) EB or Gamestop which is invariably located in some generic subburban mall somewhere. But, does this really make EA rise to the level of evil? I say it's not so much them who are evil but their rabid fans, EA is just what I like to call an "enabler" the pimps of the videogame industry selling their cheap base assanine thrills ad neuseum in dull uncreative yearly releases.

This Leaves SONY!!! the winner!!!
Sony came on the scene and through some black magic or other trickery ran the wonderful Saturn out, later the release of the PS2 pretty much hearalded the demise of the infinately superior Dreamcast; Sony was pretty much the final nail in Sega's coffin. While accomplishing the de-throwning of long term video game juggernaut, Sega, Sony was actively thwarting creativity. At first they wouldn't realease Mega Man on their system, that is of course until sega was going to, and then they demanded it but only under their terms, special packaging and a promise to release a 3-d mega man--Legends which was a peice of crap. Sony in its current wisdom is continuing to ruin video games by driving the industry in the dirrection that it thinks it should go by refusing to release the highly original Veiwtiful Joe on their system, but begging for it (with the addition of special exclusive fearures of course) not that it got rave reviews on the Game Cube. And, who could forget them shafting the US market by indefinitely delaying the release of Metal Slug 3; we will of course see what they will do not that microsoft has it.

Sony is continuing to use its vast inscrutible power to drive the industry in its interest, not the interest of gamers; sure the system has seen great inovation and boasts some very unique and wonderfully creative titles (I mean Mr. Mosquito-- how cool it that), but this creativity is forcibly made to be on Sony's terms and not the terms of video game lovers.

SONY IS EVIL!!!

P.S. Their hardware is built terribly too!

[Darth Sensei]

Enron

D

[Lemmy Kilmister]

I'd vote Sony, not for their promotion of the so called casual gamer, but rather because I despise SCEA's stance on 2D gaming.

As do i. Not only do i find sony to be evil but square now a days aswell. Square was once the king of rpgs and in the past made some of the best rpgs ever on the snes. Nowadays though (ever since FF7) they just release these pieces of shit with no stories or gameplay to be seen anywere.

[BHvrd]

"This program has preformed an illegal operation"

Can you guess who I voted for? :angry:

[Captain Wrong]

*yawn* :roll:

Indeed.

[Richter Belmount]

I'd vote Sony, not for their promotion of the so called casual gamer, but rather because I despise SCEA's stance on 2D gaming.


Consequently I reserve my tally.


Yeah I also hate their stance on 2d games and remakes of older games,
thats why I wont see Ys Eternal in the usa :(

[Jibbajaba]

Hasn't this topic been discussed to death?

I didn't bother to vote. :roll:

[Tank]

Sony

[Crush Crawfish]

SONY!!!!! If it wasn't for them, I'd be playing Megaman Battle & Chase!!!!!!! And they almost killed 2D games!!!! RAGE SWELLS WITHIN ME!!!!!!!! :angry:

[oesiii]

I voted Sony for the reasons mentioned and after GT2 I haven't liked the way the PS and PS2 have been headed gamewise. Also I don't think Atari caused the crash, the 3rd party software did that (altough most people believe that crappy PacMan and ET caused it so if you do that's fine :) ) Atari could be evil but more post-crash with poor marketing and bad business decisions.

[-hellvin-]

SQUARE

[Querjek]

Just because Nokia is stupid, it isn't "evil".

Oh, and eBay is the worst company of all, even eviler than Sony and stupider than Microsoft.

[Blendo75]

Yeah, I voted for Atari. I should be specific and say I'm referring to the Warner Brothers era. I think they were worse than Sony or Microsoft. Nintendo had some strong-arm business tactics but they knew (and continue to know) games inside and out. With Warner Bros there was no love of games there at all, they had no clue what was going on, treated programmers like shit, set impossible deadlines that lead to crappy games, created a horrible work environment which lead many of our favorite programmers to quit, called their remaining programmers "high-strung prima-donnas" - these guys really had no clue and NO LOVE for games, corporate scandals such as insider trading which chased away investors who were already scared further leading to Atari's downfall, etc., I could definitely go on. The one good thing that came out of them buying Atari was the creation of Activision..

[tholly]

Sony....cuz they are the devil

[Jorpho]

Im no expert, but it seems like EA is always buying out smaller companies. And often ruining their games in the process.

Yeah, what he said.

After all, the Playstation is just a console. EA's tactics strike more directly at what makes games enjoyable. Or something.

[musical]

Microsoft - because instead of innovating, they just steal ideas from other companies

- Macintosh Desktop (Apple PAID Xerox for the GUI OS. Microsoft just stole it...everything from the traschcan to the "shutdown" feature)

- Commodore Amiga & UNIX-style Multitasking

- Netscape web tags & browser



Microsoft - vice-versa, Microsoft often encourages stagnation

- We didn't get a decent GUI until nearly 15 years after Mac, Atari, Commodore, and Amiga had it. We had to deal with memorizing MS-DOS text commands, built-in speakers that went "beep-beep", and crappy 16-color graphics.



Microsoft - and where possible, Microsoft will drive companies out of business

Rather than compete with Netscape fair-and-square, Microsoft GAVE away their version. "Dumping" is the legal term, and quite illegal.




Microsoft is slow to innovate, quick to steal, and ruthless in driving companies out of business.

I hate them.

[/b]

[spoon]

EA. If they screw up the Burnout series, I will make a house call.

They are already pissing me off by making it online only for PS2. Guess everyone else will get a break from my Burnout dominance.

Sony and Square wuld follow closely on my list.

[petewhitley]

They are already pissing me off by making it online only for PS2. Guess everyone else will get a break from my Burnout dominance.

I'm almost positive it's XBox Live-enabled. At least according to the latest XBN.

[demented-yoshi]

Well seeing as how they are all evil atari by causing the market crash nintendo by ruining little compainies the last good Rpg square made was FF8 in my opinion x-2 is just pathetic Ea games with their boring sports games. sony by kicking out smaller companies and sega. Nokia is just a joke.But in the end anyone with half a brain would agree that microsoft's the worst if they win control of the videogame market say goodbye to choice
they already have computers.

You people should get over sega to I like their systems and games but I will not throw my ps2 out the window because sony destroyed sega I like sony's games but hate the company i hate all compainies If you hate sony your no better then those sony and final fantasy fanboys.

[Jorpho]

- We didn't get a decent GUI until nearly 15 years after Mac, Atari, Commodore, and Amiga had it. We had to deal with memorizing MS-DOS text commands, built-in speakers that went "beep-beep", and crappy 16-color graphics.

Come now. There are thousands of Linux users out there who would question your intelligence if you asked for a friendly, powerful, useable GUI.

[musical]

- We didn't get a decent GUI until nearly 15 years after Mac, Atari, Commodore, and Amiga had it. We had to deal with memorizing MS-DOS text commands, built-in speakers that went "beep-beep", and crappy 16-color graphics.Come now. There are thousands of Linux users out there who would question your intelligence if you asked for a friendly, powerful, useable GUI.

Did Linux exist in 1990? I think not.

[Dreamscape]

I picked Sony because they destroyed 2D gaming, have shitty hardware, and they killed Sega. This was also posted on the Assembler forums, and on both Assembler and Digital Press Sony is the most evil company.

[Daria]

I may have to take back what I said about Sony... Namco is finally releasing Tales of Destiny 2 (ps2) in the US. Woohoo! 2D gamimg may not be completely dead afterall.