The biggest shitstorms of the year: These 10 video game scandals shaped 2020

When it comes to venting their dissatisfaction, the fans of the gamer scene feared by Horst Seehofer prefer to use the same tried and tested method as the residents of the ape house in the zoo. Only with less consideration for bystanders.

Regardless of whether a publisher was once again too greedy, a release date was postponed or someone noticed the inclusion of marginalized groups in a video game: The criticism is supposedly responsible via Twiter then tossed around the ears in heaps. In our video special, we look back on ten exciters that, in our opinion, made the biggest waves and are exemplary for the gaming year 2020.

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Table of Contents

Page 1 The Biggest Shitstorms 2020, Page 1 - Crunch Culture and the Worst Game of All Time 1.1 CD Project RED, Naughty Dog, and much more: Crunch 1.2 Blizzard: Warcraft 3: Reforged is going to be the worst game of all Times Page 2 The Biggest Shitstorms 2020, Page 2 - Muscular Women and Disgusting Men 2.1 The Last of Us 2: Abby creates anger and tears 2.2 Ubisoft: Years of Sexual Abuse of Employees Page 3 The Biggest Shitstorms 2020, Page 3 - Epic Vs. Apple and the next-gen false start 3.1 Epic Games: Mud battle with Apple 3.2 Next-gen consoles: cancellations and pre-order chaos page 4 The biggest shitstorms in 2020, page 4 - Nasty advertising surprises 4.1 EA surprises children with advertising for loot boxes 4.2 2K Games: Complete commercials in NBA 2K21 Page 5 The biggest Shitstorms 2020, Page 5 - Twitter opinions and psychopathic fans 5.1 Google Stadia: Creative Director thinks streamers should pay developers 5.2 Cyberpunk 2077: Release postponed again, send "fans" Death threats Page 6 Image gallery for "The biggest shitstorms of the year: These 10 video games ... Recommended editorial content At this point you will find external content from [PLATTFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you click on" All Load external content "confirm: Load all external content I consent to external content being displayed en transmitted personal data to third party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration.

CD Project RED, Naughty Dog, and much more: Crunch

Beginning of the Shitstorm: Every year

Cyberpunk 2077 Source: CD Project Red Whenever a project is imminent, due to poor planning or external circumstances it is no longer on The planned release date to be ready is mostly ordered crunch in the tech, software and games industries. This means that the developers have to work massive overtime over a period of several weeks. Often the executive suite also orders weekend work. The increased workload combined with the already extreme pressure from deadlines has been proven to lead to psychological stress disorders such as burnout or even trauma. Again this year, numerous games were released that were created without regard to those who create them. Including Naughty Dog's The Last Of Us 2, Activision's Call of Duty franchise, and Project Red's Cyberpunk 2077 CD.

No video game is worth sacrificing - and buying - a person's mental and physical health to get shouldn't feel like buying blood diamonds - which is why the crunch culture in the game industry regularly causes shit storms. However, many fans also defend the practice as necessary and simply accept that employees will be broken down so that they can get their game earlier. In the case of CD Project Red, members of the development team even received threatening letters from impatient gamers (more on that later).

When CDPR CEO Adam Kicinski publicly announced the 100-hour weeks required by the company in this chaos which, according to the current state of knowledge, had to be carried out over and over again for several months in a row over the entire development phase, are not so bad, he exposed his ignorance of the conditions his own employees are exposed to. A shitstorm prompted him to apologize to his development team.

Blizzard: Warcraft 3: Reforged becomes the worst game of all time

Start of the shitstorm: January 29, 2020 - Release of Warcraft 3: Reforged

Warcraft 3 Reforged Source: PC Games Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos including the expansion Frozen Throne is one of the most popular strategy games with its balanced gameplay and grandiose story. When Blizzard announced a new edition of the classic with Reforged at its own marketing event Blizzcon in 2018, the audience was delighted - also because the game was the last excursion to Azeroth for single players and WoW scoffers and the fan base for almost two decades Successor is waiting.

The disappointment was all the bitter when Warcraft 3: Reforged turned out to be the most annoying kind of improvement. In our test, the real-time hustle and bustle got off relatively lightly, but the fan base reacted mainly with shock, ridicule and finally anger at the numerous poorly implemented features, the brazen, modding-unfriendly terms and conditions and the buggy multiplayer mode. The fact that owners of the original version of Warcraft 3 were forced to upgrade their version to the bug-infested Reforged was the icing on the cake. In a very short time, frustrated gamers made Warcraft 3: Reforged the worst-rated video game on Metacritic.

Blizzard's PR department apologized to disappointed fans in the weeks that followed, but the clogged release wasn't the only one that the company's management was ashamed of this year. Blizzard's closure of the office and subsequent dismissal of several employees at the Versailles site led to far less violent reactions from the fan base, but nonetheless to protests. The company, which was already on this list last year with its behavior in the "Blizzchung Affair", now seems to focus mainly no longer on game development, but on developing bad headlines.

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