Worst Publisher of the Decade

Shaymin · Dec 25, 2019

Golden turd: THQ Nordic. One word: 8chan.

Silver turd: Nicalis. They started the decade by fucking over Pixel and it only got WORSE. (Remember, these guys offered a patch for a 2D platformer that broke WALKING. Not just evil, but also incompetent.)

Bronze turd: Konami, for confining pretty much all of their talented game dev staff and Kojima to EROTIC VIOLENCE pachinko or janitorial duties at health clubs.

Zips · Dec 25, 2019

Activision/Activison-Blizzard.

In terms of problematic companies, this one is almost always near the top on a regular basis. This year they went above and beyond this year with the bending of the knee to China. The unjust bans, the failure to correct their mistakes, their woefully pathetic "apology," and so on. Couple that with their constantly garbage business practices.

Some close runner-ups based on some late-decade surges:

THQ for obvious reasons.
Riot for obvious reasons.
Konami because of their near complete abandonment of video game development and publishing. Not to mention the alleged treatment of some employees.
2K because of how prolific microtransactions have gotten in nearly all of their franchises. Add on that they're leaning more and more into EGS exclusives on PC.
Dangen made a big push this year.
EA, if only for how they gutted companies or completely mishandled a number of franchises, studios, and IPs. I feel as though they've gotten better about this in more recent years though.

daegan · Dec 25, 2019

APOEERA said:
- pretty much shoving Ken Levine out the door after BioShock Infinite

FWIW, they let Ken decide what to do with Irrational and he decided to effectively close the studio and lay almost everyone off to do whatever he's been doing since with 2K's backing. He is still a Take Two employee.

Iva Demilcol · Dec 25, 2019

kitchenmotors said:
Oh look, a snarky ass comment trying to downplay Atlus being a shit company. Why am I not surprised.

As others have said to you and the many Era users who downplay homophobia and transphobic, fuck you. Merry Christmas. 🎄

Hashino is the shitty director that created P3, P4, P5, SMT Nocturne and Catherine. That's the one behind said homophobic and Transphobic content in Atlus' games.

Fortunately, he is not the only person that works for Atlus. Atlus as a publisher has released other games as well and they are free of that kind of content. If you want to hate someone in Atlus, Hashino is your man. It's true that he's responsible for the most popular games released by Atlus this decade so I kinda understand people trying to push this narrative that all Atlus games are homophobic and transphobic even if that's not true.

Fuck that piece of trash.

Deleted member 60729 · Dec 25, 2019

Iva Demilcol said:
Hashino is the shitty director that created P3, P4, P5, SMT Nocturne and Catherine. That's the one behind said homophobic and Transphobic content in Atlus' games.

Fortunately, he is not the only person that works for Atlus. Atlus as a publisher has released other games as well and they are free of that kind of content. If you want to hate someone in Atlus, Hashino is your man. It's true that he's responsible for the most popular games released by Atlus this decade so I kinda understand people trying to push this narrative that all Atlus games are homophobic and transphobic even if that's not true.

Fuck that piece of trash.

Atlus is in a position of authority over him. They made the call to publish his bigoted material multiple times, as well as the call to continue working with him instead of cutting ties. That means the company is a problem, not one man.

XaviConcept · Dec 25, 2019

Virtualoso said:
EA, seriously fuck these guys.

Harsh

Gibson · Dec 25, 2019

Silver-Streak said:
I mean...the decade isn't over yet (decades start on 1, not 0, as there is not a 0 AD), but yeah it's probably either EA or Activision, I guess we'll see if something magically changes over next year.

Wrong.
A decade begins from 0 and ends with 9.
2000-2009
2010-2019
2020-

The 0 year is counted as the first year, so the thread is totally valid.

Horo · Dec 25, 2019

From a personal perspective: Gearbox.

Aside from the whole 'stealing money from sega in order to make borderlands' bit, Replacing bulletstorm with a full price 'remaster' rather than fixing it or letting existing owners upgrade their legaly unplayble game was inexcusable.

Also: Randy Pitchford, do i need to say more?

Deleted member 56752 · Dec 25, 2019

Shaymin said:
Golden turd: THQ Nordic. One word: 8chan.

Silver turd: Nicalis. They started the decade by fucking over Pixel and it only got WORSE. (Remember, these guys offered a patch for a 2D platformer that broke WALKING. Not just evil, but also incompetent.)

Bronze turd: Konami, for confining pretty much all of their talented game dev staff and Kojima to EROTIC VIOLENCE pachinko or janitorial duties at health clubs.

I don't see the hate for Konami. First of all, they don't publish anything. They also haven't done anything wrong. Most people don't even know they were a publisher.

Iva Demilcol · Dec 25, 2019

Ahsoka said:
Atlus is in a position of authority over him. They made the call to publish his bigoted material multiple times, as well as the call to continue working with him instead of cutting ties. That means the company is a problem, not one man.

That's like saying a whole school is rotten because we have a racist teacher there.

I respect your position but don't agree with it.

Van Bur3n · Dec 25, 2019

Iva Demilcol said:
That's like saying a whole school is rotten because we have a racist teacher there.

There are cases where one racist teacher has led to the discovery of a whole school full of racists. Perhaps not the best example.

Delusibeta · Dec 25, 2019

It's a difficult question, not least because nobody ITT can agree on a definition of "publisher", or the distinction between publisher and developer. Certainly, I personally don't think Riot counts as a publisher, since they haven't (yet) published a game that's not from the League of Legends team. Likewise, everyone's beef with Bethesda and Altus is largely isolated to a single team within their respective stables (Bethesda Game Studios and P-Studio respectively). If we were talking about Worst Developer, then I think that would be valid.

I'd probably give Nicalis my vote, for continuously screwing over indie developers through dodgy contracts and seemingly deliberate lack of communication. Honorable mention to Konami, for dismantling most of their console development in order to chase the pachinko yen.

Deleted member 60729 · Dec 25, 2019

Iva Demilcol said:
That's like saying a whole school is rotten because we have a racist teacher there.

I respect your position but don't agree with it.

Yes, a school is rotten if they don't fire the racist teacher. Did you think you were making a point here? Harboring racism is racism.

This man didn't self-publish his games, Atlus saw his bigoted content and said "sure, we'll put that out!" Then gave him more money to do it again multiple times.

There's no way to argue the publisher isn't complicit here. Are you like 10 years old?

Romanithegreat · Dec 25, 2019

I wanna say EA for what they did withh Mass Effect but I'm not sure if it was them or Bioware who ruined Andromeda

TheChrisGlass · Dec 25, 2019

If in terms of disappointment, assuming I had faith in them to begin with, Activision probably fell the hardest.

They went from having some of the top IPs of the entire industry, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Skylanders, Transformers, Spider-man, X-men, to literally being just Call of Duty and Remasters in 2019.

List of Activision video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sort the list on this page by year and see how quickly each year diminishes into smaller releases.

Horo · Dec 25, 2019

BoxingIsCool said:
I don't see the hate for Konami. First of all, they don't publish anything. They also haven't done anything wrong. Most people don't even know they were a publisher.

People are simply mad that they found a more lucrative bussiness than video games. Which actually makes their anger kinda ironic since being no longer their target audience, they have no reason to listen to any of our complains.

Weltall Zero · Dec 25, 2019

Competition was fierce this year alone:
- Blizzard sided with an authoritharian regime.
- THQ held an AMA on 8chan.
- Atlus doubled down on transphobia and homophobia.
However, if we take the whole decade into account, and especially in terms of games themselves, it's probably Konami. They have (for all intents and purposes) buried more IPs this decade than many publishers have ever created.

Chaos2Frozen · Dec 25, 2019

BoxingIsCool said:
I don't see the hate for Konami. First of all, they don't publish anything. They also haven't done anything wrong. Most people don't even know they were a publisher.

They published Metal Gear Survive and lots and lots of yugioh and PES. And that one new Contra game or something.

Secondly they treat their employees like shit, and I don't mean just Kojima.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami#Treatment_of_employees_and_ex-employees

In August 2015, The Nikkei criticized Konami for its unethical treatment of employees.[68][69][70] In June 2017, The Nikkei further reported of Konami's continued clashes with Kojima Productions, preventing the studio's application for health insurance, as well as Konami's actions in making it difficult for former employees to get future jobs; they are notably forbidden to mention their work in Konami on their résumés.[71][72] Konami also started filing complaints against other game companies that would hire ex-Konami employees, leading to an unspecified major game company warning its staff against doing so. A former employee of Konami stated: "If an ex-[Konami employee] is interviewed by the media, the company will send that person a letter through a legal representative, in some cases indicating that Konami is willing to take them to court"; they also pressured an ex-employee into closing their new business.[72]

Also, any developer on their shit list gets posted as a janitor.

Jinfash · Dec 25, 2019

Tunesmith said:
Toss a coin between Nicalis and Dangen.

Oh man, it's been a minute since I checked the Dangen thread. What's the lastest tee?

Deleted member 19702 · Dec 25, 2019

Konami. They pretty much imploded themselves and killed one of the most beloved franchises in the game. They might have some other lucrative businesses but downgrading their gaming division was a short-sighted and dumb move. Sure, there were other japanese companies who doubled down on smartphones, but only Konami chose to do what they did. I'm sure they regretted choosing this direction.

weekev · Dec 25, 2019

EA release shit games, Konami no longer release games. CD Project Red have a questionable record on trans rights but THQ Nordic signal boosted paedos and murderers. THQ Nordic gets my vote even though in terms of gaming output they aren't the worst.

Linkura · Dec 25, 2019

It would be easier to list publishers that aren't total shit.

Nintendo
Capcom
Devolver Digital
Sega if you ignore that they own Atlus

I honestly can't think of any other major publishers that aren't total shit off the top of my head.

Rommaz · Dec 25, 2019

Aren't Atlus a developer and not a publisher? Lol. Anyway for me it's Konami. They've been dead to me apart from MGSV these past 10 years

NattyBo · Dec 25, 2019

Konami.

Linkura · Dec 25, 2019

Rommaz said:
Aren't Atlus a developer and not a publisher? Lol. Anyway for me it's Konami. They've been dead to me apart from MGSV these past 10 years

They are both.

sredgrin · Dec 25, 2019

Rommaz said:
Aren't Atlus a developer and not a publisher? Lol. Anyway for me it's Konami. They've been dead to me apart from MGSV these past 10 years

They are both. Atlus publishes Vanillaware's games, for instance, and a handful of indie games in the west.

OneBadMutha · Dec 25, 2019

Konami. EA did some dumb shit but they still own talented studios that make high quality shit. Konami didn't even try.

Rommaz · Dec 25, 2019

Linkura said:
They are both.

Oh yeah forgot about Dragons crowna and the like, my bad lol. Loved that game. Carry on then.

weekev · Dec 25, 2019

Hayama Akito said:
Considering their legacy and importance in gaming history, yeah... Konami and by far. As a huge Konami fan back in the eighties and nineties this really hurts.

Still, the worst publisher of all time will always be Titus.

EDIT: I remember Nicalis still exist, so... yeah, that's my second place.

The fact your Nicalis comment ended up being delayed has a certain poetic irony.

Ohri-Jin · Dec 25, 2019

EA. Hands down...

Chaos2Frozen · Dec 25, 2019

SyndicateWars said:
Konami. They pretty much imploded themselves and killed one of the most beloved franchises in the game. They might have some other lucrative businesses but downgrading their gaming division was a short-sighted and dumb move. Sure, there were other japanese companies who doubled down on smartphones, but only Konami chose to do what they did. I'm sure they regretted choosing this direction.

Erm, unfortunately they've been making profits.

Konami just had their most profitable year ever, again.

Last year's thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/konami-just-had-their-most-profitable-year-ever.41550/ Earnings release for fiscal year ending March 2019: https://www.konami.com/ir/en/ir-data/statements/2019/en0509_ge7nwz.pdf Slides...

www.resetera.com

weekev said:
EA release shit games, Konami no longer release games.

Why do people think this? They still got their card games, sports games, and mobile games.

Beatle · Dec 25, 2019

Have to go with EA as they are easily best known and biggest bad publisher

KtSlime · Dec 25, 2019

Sega owns Atlus, they should really put an end to Atlus letting Hashino make homophobic jokes.

Avitus · Dec 25, 2019

EA.

All the bad parts of other publishers that would qualify, but without the good games.

weekev · Dec 25, 2019

Chaos2Frozen said:
Erm, unfortunately they've been making profits.

Konami just had their most profitable year ever, again.

Last year's thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/konami-just-had-their-most-profitable-year-ever.41550/ Earnings release for fiscal year ending March 2019: https://www.konami.com/ir/en/ir-data/statements/2019/en0509_ge7nwz.pdf Slides...

www.resetera.com

Why do people think this? They still got their card games, sports games, and mobile games.

Ok I retract my statement. Konami no longer release high quality AAA games despite having a huge delicious stable to choose from.

Siresly · Dec 25, 2019

THQ Nordic
The worst other publishers tend to get up to is release bad games or provide bad support or find creative ways to suck money out of customers.
Behavior that's not unique to any one publisher, it's relatively common. So THQ Nordic stands out.

Blizzard
Doubt they're the only publisher who would, but Blizzard kowtowed to the Chinese government, and so gets to be runner-up.

Linkura · Dec 25, 2019

KtSlime said:
Sega owns Atlus, they should really put an end to Atlus letting Hashino make homophobic jokes.

Absolutely. It's even more glaring since they are generally pretty good about the issue in their own recent games.

lazerface66 · Dec 25, 2019

Activisiom-Blizzard. Fuck Bobby Kotick.

Iva Demilcol · Dec 25, 2019

Ahsoka said:
Yes, a school is rotten if they don't fire the racist teacher. Did you think you were making a point here?

This man didn't self-publish his games, Atlus saw his bigoted content and said "sure, we'll put that out!" Then gave him more money to do it again multiple times.

There's no way to argue the publisher isn't complicit here. Are you like 10 years old?

Hashino is in a position of power, he won't get fired because of said scenes since most of the games that he directed contributed a lot to Atlus' success today. I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt anymore but I also understand that he's not a low profile employee who can say something vile on Twitter and get punished because of it. He recently got his own new studio so that says a lot of what you can expect from them.

It's the same with Sugiyama being crap and he being a core element to Dragon Quest. In cases like these you have to pick your fights, especially with Japanese publishers. I really understand the position that some of you have taken but I seriously can't blame the whole company for the output of this man.

Piscus · Dec 25, 2019

Silver-Streak said:
I mean...the decade isn't over yet (decades start on 1, not 0, as there is not a 0 AD), but yeah it's probably either EA or Activision, I guess we'll see if something magically changes over next year.

No one born in 1990 says "I was born in the late 80s." I'm pretty sure a new decade is starting next week.

I'd love to hear some of the reasons why people are posting the companies that they are posting. I'm not sure I'm familiar with why publishers like Atlus might be considered the worst.

Kerotan · Dec 25, 2019

Microsoft. Mid way through the 360 gen they were top dog and the envy of many publishers. Then they completely dropped the ball for the end of the gen and basically skipped this one. Plenty of promises for years now and top notch PR but we'll have to wait at least another year to see if things will turn around again.

Their 2 big shooters gears and halo haven't hit the heights of last gen. They defined the 360 in terms of stellar exclusives.

Silver-Streak · Dec 25, 2019

Piscus said:
I'd love to hear some of the reasons why people are posting the companies that they are posting. I'm not sure I'm familiar with why publishers like Atlus might be considered the worst.

I think the Atlus thing might be because of their handling of gender and sexuality based issues in the games they put out over the past few years. However that's less Atlus the publisher and more Atlus the developer.

Grimsey · Dec 25, 2019

I have to go with EA. Some of my friends' careers were directly affected by their tomfoolery. And I hate them for other obvious reasons.

lowhighkang_LHK · Dec 25, 2019

Mattakuevan said:
They're mad about a scene in P5 and Catherine Full Body. Its enough to invalidate the entire company for some users.

The problem with this is that those scenes are witnessed by the millions of people who play them.

Whereas a lot of behind the scenes things that go on that may be controversial actually go largely overlooked. For instance, not many people even know or care to know who Randy Pitchford is.

This is why many people here are upset at Atlus.

My choice would be Activision Blizzard. They had a good year from a publisher/developer standpoint, Crash, Sekiro, CoD Modern Warfare. Announcements of Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. But their stance on the growing dynamic between China, Honk Kong and the rest of the world was in extreme poor taste. I never played Persona 4 (apparently far enough) or Catherine to witness those problematic scenes first hand.

SirNinja · Dec 25, 2019

Konami.

From their E3 2010 "conference" which spawned a thousand memes, to transforming all their once-legendary franchises into pachislot machines, to cancelling Silent Hills and giving Kojima the boot, and all the countless other things in between.

In summary:

Flame Lord · Dec 25, 2019

Sekiro was the only thing Activision did of interest to me all decade.

newmoneytrash · Dec 25, 2019

Horo said:
From a personal perspective: Gearbox.

Aside from the whole 'stealing money from sega in order to make borderlands' bit, Replacing bulletstorm with a full price 'remaster' rather than fixing it or letting existing owners upgrade their legaly unplayble game was inexcusable.

Also: Randy Pitchford, do i need to say more?

Yeah. Gearbox has gone from an exciting place for me to being almost toxic. If you had told me that I had no desire to play Borderlands 3 like five years ago it would have seemed insane to me

lowhighkang_LHK · Dec 25, 2019

Flame Lord said:
Sekiro was the only thing Activision did of interest to me all decade.

Sekiro was probably the most money people on this forum ever gave to Activision Blizzard for any one thing in such large scale at this forum. Other than maybe CoD which is pretty popular here.

don't answer that · Dec 25, 2019

I think Electronic Arts is a far worse publisher than EA.
Also Konami.

fontguy · Dec 25, 2019

Put EA, Konami, and Blizzard in a dumpster.

Worst Publisher of the Decade

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