Naughty and Nice ’20 No. 1: Gaming news

1. Ubisoft’s behind-the-scenes issues

Damning reports from multiple press outlets this summer detailed an epidemic of sexual harassment that occurred behind the scenes at Ubisoft, which higher-ups within the company turned a blind eye to for years. The reports resulted in the perpetrators being fired, but the victims and witnesses shouldn’t have needed to go to the press for repercussions in the first place. The higher-ups who allowed this behavior to fester largely remain in their positions, and it’s unlikely that anything will happen to them as the anger has simmered. The company, of course, suffered no setbacks despite a good amount of vocal gaming types making noise about it when they had their Ubisoft Forward E3 replacement event in July.

2. COVID-19 wrecked the industry

For as good as game sales were and for how quickly companies adjusted to virtual presentations, the Covid-19 pandemic made it difficult for them to continue their daily jobs. Development teams had to quickly adapt to working from home, an inadequate replacement for teams that need to maintain contact with each other, and the manufacturing district was disrupted. We still haven’t felt the effect this will have on upcoming game releases, but the release schedule for the first half of 2021 suggests that we soon will — especially for next-generation consoles.

3. $70 Games

Oh, we’ve arrived, baby. Now that a new generation has started, publishers believe the costs of individual games have to increase to compensate for the ever-rising development budgets. Thus, the prices for some games have jumped from an already-high $59.99 to $69.99, enough to make anyone think even harder about whether they need to purchase particular titles right at launch. There’s also no telling whether the extra money will be going into the pockets of developers, or if the execs are using it to make them even richer. (Don’t be surprised about what actually happens here.) A number of publishers who haven’t raised their software prices indicated that they might as the new generation progresses, so we’re in for a fun time.

4. Mixer Goes Bust

Was Mixer ever that great? No. Did I use it for much? No. The streaming service from Microsoft never took off, and not even giving ever-popular streamer Ninja an exclusive contract could save it from demise. Yet, it is nonetheless bad that a service that could have grown to become competition to the likes of YouTube, Facebook Gaming, and Twitch has evaporated. The three of them need competition, or they’ll implement experimental nonsense because they can get away with it. Just look at what Twitch has done over just the last month, through adding considerably more ads and even an option for streamers to PAY to become affiliates. This is from a service owned by Amazon, of all companies. Hopefully viable competition arises soon, or we’re really in for a time.

5. Gamers keep being losers

There is always one event or release that will involve the worst types of gamers melting all the way down over the dumbest shit. This year’s example happened to be The Last of Us Part II, which dared to have two female protagonists, one of whom happens to be very muscular. There’s also a trans character, making this game the most “political” of all. This isn’t to say there aren’t justifiable criticisms for TLoU Part II, but it couldn’t have been more obvious as to why these people were very mad. The game released in June, but there are still people incredibly upset about the game to this day. They’ll never get over it, and it will make merely discussing this game and others torture in select internet corners for months, if not years, to come.

1. There’s a new generation of consoles

It’s always an exciting time when new video game consoles launch, even for those of us who can’t afford them yet. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launched this past November, and their reported sales thus far suggest that a sizable portion of the gaming audience has been awaiting the start of this new gen for a while. There aren’t many meaningful differences in terms of the graphics the games are showcasing just yet; the biggest current innovation involves the loading times, thanks to all the systems having SSDs. It’s a big deal when games that took (and take) more than a minute to load on last-gen consoles do so in seconds now. We’ll get the chance to see more innovations for new console games over time.

2. Microsoft dares to be different

When a company usually acquires a developer, they tend to have them exclusively release games for their platform regardless of how much of a multiplatform powerhouse they were. Not so for the new Microsoft, which is taking an even more open and PC-centric approach with their newest big acquisition: Bethesda. Thus far, they’ve heavily suggested that their games will still release on the competition’s platforms, including the PlayStation 5. There’s no guarantee that Sony or Nintendo would have done the same if they acquired such a large developer, so Microsoft deserves props for their future intent to share.

3. Sorry, I’m liking the virtual presentations

Events that were previously live and held in front of a large audience have needed to switch to virtual presentations this year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m not going to lie here: I like the new format. It allows for presenters to move from one announcement or reveal to another seamlessly, without constantly being interrupted by overly enthusiastic crowds. This could just be me getting old, but I’m over all the crowds full of types who need to cheer and woo for every little thing, though I’m not cynical enough to suggest that the crowds entirely consist of them. Some presentations will stay virtual even after our pandemic hell largely ends, but I’m going to miss it when many of them switch back to live events once a vaccine is widely available.

4. Video games are selling great during the pandemic

There’s no glossing over how the pandemic has wrecked everything in its path, as you can see if you read my “Naughty” column. But in addition to having nice virtual events, the other benefit for the gaming industry is how video game sales have been through the roof. Those of us who don’t wish to endanger people have been spending more time at home, which has left more time to play video games. Sales of newer titles and gaming hardware have been splendid since, and should continue to be for at least the next few months.

5. They Made a Good Sonic Movie

The mere thought of a live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film was one of the most mockable things around. Previous attempts to adapt Sonic into live-action have been hilarious failures, the biggest being the kiss with a very human lady at the end of the Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) title. (No, this is not a spoiler anymore.) But to the surprise of nearly everyone, the movie was actually entertaining. In this case, it’s actually good not to have something Sonic-related to make fun of.

1. Coronavirus Affects the Industry

In late March it became clear that rising COVID-19 cases around the world would be a problem. The first signs of trouble were the sheer amount of companies allowing their staff to work remotely from home. Next came the cancellations of major events. E3 2020 was canned in March, with other events making similar decisions. In terms of hardware, supply chains were shut down or crippled worldwide leading to hardware shortages. Mostly notably, the Switch became difficult to find anywhere for months and prices on second-hand markets were high. Other planned console releases such as the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, Valve Index, and Atari VCS were delayed by a few months. Game releases themselves were not spared, even though developers could work from home with mixed results. Numerous title launches, DLC updates, and ports were pushed back by several months. Even game retailers took heat, as many major players tried to keep stores open despite lockdown orders.

2. Scalpers Gone Wild

When new consoles launch, shortages aren’t uncommon as demand often outpaces a limited supply. In 2020 this concept has been taken up to eleven with the global pandemic causing delays in manufacturing and most stock being limited to online sales. Enter the rise of scalpers and their bots. When the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 graphics cards went up for pre-order, they sold out almost instantly. Subsequent offerings post-launch have been difficult for regular consumers to buy because of said scalpers and bots. Very few humans stand a chance when a script can buy hundreds of consoles in mere seconds and cause websites to crash. Then those products are resold on second-hand markets for double, triple, and sometimes quadruple the original price. Even though the spotlight has been on the new gen consoles, issues popped up earlier this year. For example, the last batches of the Xbox One X sold out before anyone could buy one at official retailers and the Analogue Pocket was notoriously difficult to purchase. In the case of new gen hardware, don’t fall into the temptation of paying the outrageous markup in prices. Also, watch out for scams.

3. Mixer’s Demise

Remember when Mixer was the talk of the town in 2019? It even made my Nice list from last year’s Naughty and Nice. Who knew that six months later Microsoft would announce the shuttering of the service, and that a month after that Mixer would shut down forever? No one knew, especially after Ninja made the jump from Twitch to Mixer, followed by other big name streamers. Of course there were signs of trouble earlier this year. The biggest one was when live-streaming services saw record growth during the first waves of the pandemic and people searched for new things to watch. Twitch broke viewership records to gain 91% of the live streaming market, with YouTube at distant second, Facebook Gaming in third, and Mixer barely made a blip, despite seeing record growth. As the end crept closer, it became clear that Microsoft’s decision to buy streamers and influencers was not a great investment. Sure, celebrities can be lured away with lucrative contracts, but that does not mean their audience will follow in droves. Combine that with not doing the hard work of making the case why audiences and streamers should try Mixer instead of Twitch, and you have a recipe for eventual failure. Hindsight is 2020.

4. CD Projekt Red’s Woes

This year CD Projekt Red got hit with a double whammy of negativity. First, it had promised developers would not be subject to crunch. Then the company backpedaled and said crunch would be mandatory to meet Cyberpunk 2077’s November deadline. Cue the debate on if crunch is really that bad and if the working conditions were really overblown. A favorite line from fans of CDPR being that “I’ve had to do mandatory overtime at my job, so why should I care if some developers suffer?” Nevermind that working up to seven days a week for 12 or more hours a day for months at a time isn’t healthy and often leads to burnout– which is why there was originally a backlash. It turns out the mandatory crunch couldn’t save Cyberpunk 2077 from being delayed until December. That in turn caused a backlash from some of the very same fans that defended the crunch. Members of the development team received harassment and death threats over the one month delay and senior members of the team responded on social media. It’s not surprising the game encountered delays due to it making the jump to new gen systems. Still, some fans felt angry and lied to or were just fed up with the constant delays. It’s been a hell of a year for CDPR indeed.

5. Crucible Falls

Chalk this one up as another example of not being able to brute force your way into a market with money alone. Amazon is a company with deep pockets. So when it decided it wanted to jump into the multiplayer shooter market with its free-to-play title, Crucible, what could go wrong? Everything apparently. The game spent years in development and finally launched in May. Crucible received middling reviews from both critics and users with complaints ranging from the game being boring, maps being too large, performance issues, and it being difficult to communicate with other players. In July, Crucible was returned to closed beta with developers promising to work out the issues. In October, Amazon cancelled the game and moved its staff to other projects. Hopefully Amazon has learned a meaningful lesson from this experience.

1. Gaming’s Surge in Popularity

There were a number of upsides in the gaming market during a global pandemic. Many people were forced to stay at home thanks to lockdown orders or being able to work from home. As a result, people turned to gaming in droves. Hardware and software sales were up compared to last year. This is before the launch of a new console generation. All of the console makers, PC, and mobile saw huge gains. Overall an overwhelming majority of consumers played games within the last six months, with growth coming from older segments of the population looking for entertainment. On the software side, a variety of games set sales charts on fire in 2020 including Animal Crossing, The Last of Us: Part II, Final Fantasy VII: Remake and even reliable favorites like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. In short, gaming has gone mainstream and it’s awesome.

2. It’s Time to Say Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter movement has been around for several years, but it roared back in a huge way with the death of George Floyd and the worldwide protests his murder sparked. The movement spread from the streets to other aspects of life with major companies finally speaking out against racial injustice. Sony was one of the first gaming companies to speak out, followed by others making statements, donations, or pledges to diversity in hiring. Donations to the Black Lives Matter organization, the Innocence Project, bail funds, and the ACLU rose. The most notable contribution was the $8.1 million raised by the Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. Will the moment of reckoning we saw over the spring and summer months lead to lasting change? It’s hard to say as progress has a pesky habit of taking one step forward and two steps back, but recognizing the problem is a huge first step.

3. Final Fantasy XVI is Happening

During the PS5 gaming showcase in September Square Enix shocked and awed everyone with the official unveil of Final Fantasy XVI. With the release of Final Fantasy XV and its development hell, combined with the release of Final Fantasy VII: Remake (part one, anyway), it was easy to forget about FFXVI’s existence. Not that anyone doubted there would be a Final Fantasy XVI, but the development hells of Final Fantasy XIII and XV have taught fans to be wary of Square announcing these titles far too early into development. Fortunately, Naoki Yoshida is in the director’s chair this time around, opposed to Tetsuya Nomura which means we’ll probably see this game within a reasonable few years instead of a decade or more. 2021 is even looking up with Square promising to release more information on Final Fantasy XVI.

4. Indies Go Viral

Two of the biggest games of 2020 were of the indie variety. One was a breath of fresh air in the battle royale scene. The other was a two year old mobile and PC game that saw a huge resurgence thanks to word of mouth among streamers. Of course I’m talking about Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout from Devolver Digital which landed hard in July and August. This intriguing cross between a puzzle game and a battle royale was so popular that it temporarily dethroned Fortnite as the most viewed game on Twitch. It being offered as a PlayStation Plus game in August also helped its popularity, though plenty of people were willing to buy the game on PC as well. August also saw the rise of Innersloth’s Among Us, a 2018 free-to-play social deduction game inspired by The Thing. Twitch views for this game went from hundreds to over a hundred thousand by the end of August. Among Us even had U.S. House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playing with big name streamers in late October. Her stream alone garnered 400,000 views. The explosive popularity of Fall Guys and Among Us show that it doesn’t always take a AAA budget for games to make it big.

5. Scott Pilgrim is Back to Take on the World

When the 10th anniversary of Scott Pilgrim vs The World came around, fans lamented that the video game, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game was removed from digital shops by Ubisoft in 2014 when the license expired. Since then fans had sought work arounds to redownload previously purchased copies of the games. Comic book series creator, Bryan Lee O’Malley weighed in earlier this year by imploring Ubisoft to bring the game back. Amazingly, Ubisoft replied and in August O’Malley revealed that he had been in talks with the developer about the game. Fast forward to September and Ubisoft’s announcement Scott Pilgrim would be returning in a complete edition for Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia. All of the DLC and online play would be included. Ubisoft promised a holiday 2020 release, but it hasn’t happened as of yet. No word on a physical release, but having digital options on a variety of platforms is certainly great news.

1. GameStop Again This Year. Video Games Are Essential Now, I Guess

So the biggest news in 2020, bigger even than Donald Trump being fired by the American people after only four years in office (the first one term President of the United States in the 21st Century!) has been the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, one which inspired many bloggers to post their lists of things to binge watch on Netflix and which inspired us here on Damage Control to post weekly binge watching recommendations. Initially, the idea behind these posts was to help readers stave off the boredom of self-isolation but in recent weeks, it’s looking like everyone’s just going to ignore the virus completely and go on with their lives, so the point of these posts seems to be lost.

When it comes to ignoring the virus, GameStop led the way during the first wave by forcing its workers to keep their stores open in defiance of police and the law in order to sell as many copies of spring’s biggest releases as they could before they were forced to comply with the lockdowns. The company has been operating in desperation for a long while now, losing money year after year. In defying the lockdown, GameStop was demonstrating that their workers are nothing more than sacrifices they were willing to throw away in pursuit of money. If you’re wondering why retail workers like me feel expendable more than essential, this is why.

GameStop at one point tried to claim that since they also sell computer keyboards, and computer keyboards can be used to work from home, they should be classified as an essential business. Never mind the fact that the keyboards they sell are expensive gaming keyboards that light up with various colours to aid in the playing of MMOs, when most home offices can get away with a $15 Microsoft Wired Keyboard 600.

In the end, GameStop seems to have gotten away with it and are surprisingly still alive at the end of 2020. YouTuber Camelot331 has been predicting their demise for a couple years now and somehow GameStop has managed to survive against all odds. So far, anyway.

2. PlayStation 5’s Horribly Handled Launch

Do you have a PlayStation 5? Probably not. Well, that’s why it’s on this list. Set aside the notion that you really shouldn’t be buying them day one for a number of reasons, there are still people who don’t mind owning one as soon as possible. Good luck getting one, though. From bots snapping up as many as possible to scalp on eBay, to supply being trickled out too slowly to really meet demand, the chances that Paul Saunders is going to be able to film a Five PS5s video this year like he did during the launches of the PS3 and PS4 are very slim.

It should also have been apparent from the start that Sony was going to drop the ball with the PS5 almost as hard as they dropped the ball with the PS3. They sat on the price announcement for a long while and then when they set a time for pre-orders to begin, the pre-orders ended up being bought out early and those fans who took the time at face value and waited weren’t rewarded for their patience.

Now that the system has been out for a while, there are plenty of people who want one but who don’t yet have one. COVID-19 can only be blamed for so much, not everything that went wrong is its fault. Some of this is Sony’s doing, too, especially the horrible way the consoles have been slowly trickled out after launch. You’d think they were Nintendo.

3. A Reckoning For The Gaming Industry.

So it came out this year that Ubisoft has been covering for abusers in its company. It was probably one of the biggest pieces of gaming news out of the entire year, and there’s a Jimquisition video that addresses it which is probably one of the most important videos Jim Sterling released this year. Geoff has briefly mentioned this as well, so I’m going to move on to my next item.

4. I Thought A Mobius Strip Never Ends

In past years, I’ve let many temporary games come and go without so much as a passing glance. If a mobile title went belly up, it usually did so in a silent vacuum as far as I was concerned. Kingdom Hearts V-Cast? Never even knew it existed. Final Fantasy Tactics S? Good bye. The Tales of Phantasia mobile game? Good riddance.

This year I noticed. I sat up and noticed, for one such mobile game — one that had been treated internally by its developer like it was a AAA game for consoles — shut down this year. Mobius Final Fantasy had a name that suggested a never-ending permanence and which turned out to be just as ephemeral as everything else we used to be able to play on our mobile devices.

I get it, nothing in gaming is designed to last any more. Final Fantasy XI is destined to eventually go to the same place as Mobius, and even Final Fantasy XIV is going to disappear someday. This year was a reminder that a lot of modern gaming is intended to be temporary and even if I do get to experience it, there’s a time limit to how long I can play some of these games.

5. If You Thought $70 Was Bad…

With a new generation of games always comes the speculation that prices are going to rise. Games on the PlayStation 2 typically cost $50, then the price tag went up to $60 for games on the PlayStation 3. The price didn’t change for games on the PlayStation 4, but now that the PlayStation 5 is out, games will now cost $70. All prices quoted so far are in United States Dollars. Here in Canada, games had been approximately $10 more expensive, given the lack of strength of the Canadian Dollar, so we’ve had $70 games for two generations. I figured this meant we’d be transitioning to $80 games when I heard about the price hike, but a quick check at Amazon.ca shows me that this generation is going to cost $90 per game here.

The only possible argument you can make for games costing more with a new generation that would hold any kind of truth to it would be the inflation angle. Money just isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Trouble is, a lot of people are still making now what they made when the PlayStation 3 was released. Here in British Columbia, wages have gone up in the last few years, but that doesn’t mean everything else needs to increase in price as well. Us having more money does not entitle companies to decide they can charge more, just because they think that we can afford it. I’ve held off on buying the first part of the Final Fantasy VII remake because I didn’t think it was going to be worth $70 CAD. I imagine I’ll be holding off on PlayStation 5 games until the $90 price tag goes down, with the possible exception of Final Fantasy XIV expansions, depending on how long Square-Enix supports the PlayStation 4.

1. The Custom Switch Controller That Changed a Young Girl’s Life

Although 2020 was rocky for nearly everyone, it had a fantastic start for a girl in Jersey. It was reported in January that Rory Steel, head of the Digital Jersey Academy, built a custom Nintendo Switch controller so that his daughter, who has a condition known as hereditary spastic paraplegia, can play video games. The controller was built from joysticks and buttons that were hooked up to a Microsoft Xbox controller. Once completed, both his daughter and her younger brother were eager to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Despite being a project designed for playing on a Nintendo console and perhaps due to the technology he used to build it, some of his tweets were retweeted by one of the inventors of the Xbox controller, Bryce Johnson. Bryce also tweeted suggestions and advice to help improve the device.

The timing couldn’t have been better, too. Rory’s children probably got a lot of enjoyment out of the Switch if they were put into lockdown due to the virus, and it just goes to show the ingenuity of a parent who wants their children to have the same opportunities for fun that everyone else has.

2. Sony’s Unexpected Generosity

After news broke about a potential pandemic that could sweep the world, it quickly became apparent that it was not going away like SARS did and that life as we knew it was going to change for a while. No one truly thought it would last quite this long, even though people often compared it to the 1918 outbreak that cancelled the Stanley Cup Playoffs that year and nearly derailed the war effort entirely.

As hinted over on the left column, a lot of people (apart from workers deemed essential, whether true or not) suddenly found themselves with a lot of time on their hands. What to do? Streaming services probably had their best months ever in the spring. As for gaming, services like Steam and the PSN probably saw higher than usual sales. So it’s no wonder Sony decided to temporarily make digital copies of both Journey and The Nathan Drake Collection completely free for everyone.

These games were not chosen randomly. The Nathan Drake Collection is actually three games in one, it consists of HD versions of the first three Uncharted games and is perfect for those gamers who bought a PS4 bundle that came with the fourth Uncharted game. Journey, meanwhile, is known to give its players a very emotional and moving experience aiding a fellow player through the relatively short game, with blogs that were created so that players could talk about the connections they made. Journey is a game that we needed more than ever in a year that seemed to conspire to keep everyone apart. Unlike the time when the PSN was hacked and Sony’s “generosity” was a cynical means to advertise newer, full price games, Sony showed that they’d moved on from the PS3 era and were trying to do right by their users. Granted, this was likely because they were planning on releasing the PS5 this year and any good will they could generate would go a long way toward strong next generation sales, but it was still a good feeling to know that Sony wanted to take care of their users.

3. Crafting a Free Experience

Minecraft got in on the freebies, too. Given how the game is often seen as an educational tool, Microsoft added an Education section of the Minecraft Marketplace and added a bunch of free stuff with the intent to educate and inform players, especially young players.

Although initially announced as temporary content that was going to be free until the end of June, if you head over to the Minecraft Marketplace right now, most of the content is still available for free. You can role play as a marine biologist, go on a safari, visit Mount Olympus, the International Space Station and Inspiration Island and play a block puzzle game called Sub 0, among other free content. There is a lot to do and many fun places to explore, so if you’re home schooling your children this year, why not download Minecraft and add some of its free content to your science curriculum?

4. Netflix Makes It Onto The High Score List This Year

When the mini-series High Score was released on Netflix this year, it brought the history of gaming to an audience of millions, and explained in an entertaining and concise way the origins of gaming as we know it today, from the early days when people were beginning to discover what computers were capable of, to the “Video Game Crash” and all it entailed, Nintendo’s contributions to bringing video games back as well as the origins of Sega’s mascot Sonic, (most of) the origins of the Japanese RPG genre, the early days of licensed sports games and more, and eventually leading up to the cusp of 3D gaming with the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation.

While not perfect (most Dragon Quest fans noticed High Score eschewed the series entirely in favour of Final Fantasy, even though the former released two games before the latter came to the market), High Score delivers enough of an introduction to gaming for those who might not have been properly exposed to the medium, and if anyone’s curious and wants to dive deeper into the subject, there are various video essays on the history of gaming that they’d be able to find on YouTube if they wanted to. It was a surprising and awesome addition to the Netflix library this year, even as they make it increasingly known that they don’t have any interest in keeping their scripted shows going for more than a year or two any more.

5. The Retrospectives Begin

And finally, I’m going to pat myself on the back for finally starting a massive project I plan on returning to soon. A Kingdom Hearts retrospective project I tried to start in 2019 grew into a Square-Enix retrospective project this year and aside from being derailed a bit due to covering the final days of Mobius Final Fantasy, I finished the NES era and will soon embark on a trip through the SNES era of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Admittedly I’m finding myself wanting to be more thorough with my Final Fantasy IV analysis than I was with my analysis of any of the previous games, but the game is a bit bigger in scope than previous games were. I do not yet have a date for when the SNES-era retrospectives will run, but I look forward to sharing them.