A lot of video game studios brought a couple of these upon themselves. Gamers feel entitled, since they bought an expensive product and developers feel screwed, because there are so many pirated copies. But somewhere between 2005 and 2010, a whole generation of video game studios would start creating inferior work. The overall quality of their work sank significantly. I am not talking about your average 20€ shit game advertised on TV and being some comic / movie adaption. I am talking about blockbuster-level games sucking immensely. I have played games since 1996 and since 1998 I would read a monthly journal about games and developers, so this is purely anecdotional, however feels true enough for me to post it. In part, I talk about
:
- Severe bugs on release, in part game-breaking
- Bad story mode. Okay, creating a good story is immensely difficult, but creating a mediocre one is managable
- Severely flawed balance
- Bringing out addons as stripped content of the original.
These 4 points do not seem all that big, but put them in the big picture and I can understand the frustration player's and myself had for a couple of years now. Incidentally, most of the big ones in the business are those making these games. Pirating can also be a way of trying out a product.
Ubisoft:
- AC 1 was horribly bugged on PC
- Anno 1404 had self-destroying save-games for a lot of users until Venice came
- Far Cry 2
- Rainbow Six Vegas 1 / 2
- Splinter Cell Double Agent
EA:
- Dragon Age 2 for its feeling of rushedness overall
- Dragon Age 1 for needing mods for a proper class balance. (though I will probably take heat for that one^^)
- Second and third generation Need for Speed titles except Hot Pursuit, Shift 1/2 and Underground 1/2
- C&C 4
- The Sims, in case people forgot about the game
I know, the examples barely fit in the timeline since they are at the backend of it and surely, there are more producing companies like Activision, but it would get out of hand and in older examples, the feeling persists, even though I couldn't point out single games.