I Have no company boycotts in effect like so many on this site seem to but I haven't been burned (if people really were) by so many either. I haven't loved everything every company has ever done but I would never say never. I also believe a lot of folks would go against their company boycotts if a game that came out really seemed that great to them.
Their track record is more than enough. Still can't understand how a company having a portfolio like Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies can always suck like that. Smedley has destroyed this company since he took over and yet this bastard has still a job, while dozen others have lost them ccause of him and his stupid suits.
One of the worst customer services I've ever experienced, dumbing down Everquest and SWG plus adding p2w shops on top of monthly fees.
CCP
Months ago my absolute top company and one of the only ones I would have bought a game blindly but after the big "fuck you" to the EvE community and their crap named Dust 514 combined with p2w shops in EvE, not gonna trust them again.
Looked forward to WoD but right now I don't think they'll deliver a deep, complex Vampire game.
EA
I hate them more than SoE the day this modern sweatshop will finally be gone, should be a good one. Utilizing tons of great companies and slaying great IPs (Ultima, C n C, Battlefield, NFS...) and still no goverment has taken action against them.
Activision/Blizzard
Kotick is emperor Palpatine no doubt about that. Their games are all utter stupid crap, his idea of taking the fun out of gaming and creating an enviroment filled with fear is just wow. Since Blizzard partnered with the pest named Activision their company has gone downhill. Some examples:
Diablo 3 not even a shadow of its former self a braindead game for mindless Blizzardzombies who think, they are still the company they once have been.
Call of Duty started out as a nice game but we all know how that ended. Too bad IW didn't get their IP back.
Starcraft 2 cut into 3 pieces so they can cash in 3 times.
Funcom
low quality products. I respect them for choosing different IPs but their antics of dumbing down things and cash shops are not something I'm looking for.
Cryptic
Still pissed someone bought their poor excuse of a gaming company. I've been playing MMORPGS for a longtime but never ever had to delete a beta after 3hs of playing cause I felt bored to death. They are charging top $ (15 $ + cash shop) for their games although they aren't even worth a monthly fee.
I still feel sorry for you Neverwinter Knights would have loved playing ya bu t not with this crappy company behind it.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
The two companies that have proven risky to trust with credit card numbers--SoE and Funcom.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Activision / Blizzard - for their recent microtransaction / RMAH ideas , for dumbing down their games and catering to other type of players I am. Really diffrence between WoW Vanilla and what was done with later expansions is astounding.
For their GREED - see S2 as 3 full pirced games instead of 1 game + 2 expansions priced liek expansions , not to mention how Diablo 3 look , high level armors like from WoW merged with Mu Online. Just not company creating products for me + nauseing greed tactics = black listed.
Well and last but not least , big reason = Kotick
SOE - ruining good games , with their decisions and bad managment , see SWG and Vanguard. Recent F2P shift don't help either.
Turbine - for LYING repeadetly about how Item Shop will look like in Lotro, recent shady silencing of polite critiques on forum, general change on marketting strategies , baiting and deceiving people like making big sale of TP points few days before they release very high prices for expansion in TP points ,etc - they are just shady now and caught lying few times. Don't have time and patience to deal with that kind of approach to customer and doing business.
SV - Mortal Online is emm , sorry just terrible , support is bad , game is bugged and unfinished. There are indie companies that do very good work , well SV is not.
Funcom - First bad thing I experienced was AoC , what state it was released , and all other things. What sealed blacklist deal was double dipping business strategy for TSW + their overall bad support also with processing payments. Really don't want to waste anymore time on them.
Cryptic - do I really even have to explain?
Edit:
+
Not blacklisted totally , but very reserved and I am avoiding:
- companies that put f2p / freemium in mmorpg's. F2P is okay in Moba games or similar, but in mmorpg's it ruin game experience for me totally.
Kotick is emperor Palpatine no doubt about that. Their games are all utter stupid crap, his idea of taking the fun out of gaming and creating an enviroment filled with fear is just wow. Since Blizzard partnered with the pest named Activision their company has gone downhill.
Just an FYI ~ Activision and Blizzard have never partnered up on anything{as far as I know} and have nothing to do with each other, nor do they effect each others games. Vivendi Universal owns both the companys, and for the most part, lets them make their own decisions, assuming there is profit being made and its very clear there is always a profit being made by both of them.
Kotick is emperor Palpatine no doubt about that. Their games are all utter stupid crap, his idea of taking the fun out of gaming and creating an enviroment filled with fear is just wow. Since Blizzard partnered with the pest named Activision their company has gone downhill.
Yeah, Activision and Blizzard have never partnered up on anything and have nothing to do with each other, nor do they effect each others games. Vivendi Universal owns both the companys, and for the most part, lets them make their own decisions, assuming there is profit being made and its very clear there is always a profit being made by both of them.
Pleasse not this again here is the company structure BEFORE and AFTER their relationship.
So no one should be surprised ot the direction change Blizzard has taken since the merger.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
All of them recently for not advancing well-used templates to try and do something new that we haven't seen before a million times. I would dearly love to be wrong with the new wave of releases but I doubt I will be. Can't say I entirely blame them though, game development is an expensive business and failure in subscription numbers is not an option if you want to survive in a recession. So generic mush will be the order of the day until money is plentiful enough to play around with formats again.
I can't help but laugh at your statement .These companies are certainly poor, i pity their billions.
No company has money to throw about on potential game fails...or if they did, would they wish to.
In my humble opinion, there are two types of game failures:
a) ones that are badly reviewed by general concensus/peer review for e.g. predictability, lack of innovation, poor coding bugs/animation/content but importantly still turn a profit (or at least break even) - this is still a game fail if you view innovation as being important in the advancing history of the game making as an art or even a science, which I do.
b) games that fail turn a profit or break even - these can even be made uncynically with the best intentions, they could even be good by peer review but fail to catch the target audience (or even overestimate the size of said target audience or their willingness to part with a monthly sub) or they can be just plain bad.
These are by no means mutally exclusive either.
I reckon even the largest sized game developer can buffer one maybe two financially 'failed' games (I'm amazed Cryptic hasn't already crumbled from a string of relative duds). That is, a game that fails to break even or make a reasonable profit, after all no profits, no reinvestment in game number +1. Even if they do break even they'll likely sack a goodly number of the people involved in a game that failed to make profits.
Now, if you have a wife and kids and a mortgage (and in the states, benefits) and you're in charge of making decisions on planning a new game are you really gonna risk that on a gamble? You'd go for option (a). Generic mush likely won't make huge profits and as we've seen with Rift et al but they'll float for a certain lifespan. However, the diminishing returns of this format are mounting as people get more and more intollerant at a lack of innovtion. With repetition, what you're really banking on is either a very forgiving or undemanding audience or a fresh supply of young new gamers who are not yet sick of the format.
Do the jaded players outnumber the tolerant ones or new ones? It certainly seems so from reading forums but is this representative of the whole? I have high hopes for something better I just think there are stagnant periods where samey ruts take precedence over novelty for various reasons.
Mythic, Funcom, Squire Enix, Sony Online Entertainment, CCP, Cryptic - I wouldn't buy anything from them without play testing it for free myself and waiting a month or two for the reviews to poor in.
this is a complicated question. I think it should be split into 2. publisher and development studio. they arent always the same(often arent) for example, I have no problems with bioware, but really hate how EA is ruining bioware with their practices. there are alot of good games out there that are ruined by publisher practices like SoE ruined their share of games even tho it's develped by someone else.
so for now, i'd say most of the fault lies in the publisher and i'd avoid SoE, gpotato, perfect world, and EA
Blizzard, for turning the MMORPG industry into what we see today
G1, for ruining Fallen Earth
UBIsoft, for thinking that punishing legitimate customers with DRM is a good way to do business
Valve was on this list for years, but have finally redeemed themselves. I purchased HL2 right before my breakup with my ex-wife, and during the ugliness that followed lost access to the e-mail account that I had used to register Steam. They basically told me "sucks for you, buy a new game", and I boycotted them until a couple months ago, when I decided to give them another chance.
I have to say, they have really turned it around.
I don't care how great a game looks / is....if the company pisses me off, I vote with my wallet.
I'm not going to specifically avoid any game company. I'd rather select by games. Like people, companies can learn and improve. The CS representative that botched your in-game report or wouldn't help you when you were stuck have probably moved on. A billing / account glitch can be fixed. There are simply too few companies making MMORPG games for me to be ignore any companies offerings due to an idealogical difference. If I don't like a specific game, I'll simply move on.
Unless the company in question did something intentionally disreputable, dishonest or injurious towards me, I won't avoid them. Like an injured raccoon, I will approach them with caution in the future.
Who knows? Their next game might just be the one that fits my personal vision of an MMORPG game perfectly.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Microsoft and Sony, most evil and destructive duo in history. MS for making one of the worst softwares in history(GFWL) and them both for consolisation of mosltly everything.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed: And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!" ~Lord George Gordon Byron
I am still willing to play games from any company providing they are good but here is my shit-list:
EA - for ruining Ultima Online, cancelling UO2 and cancelling UXO
NC Soft - for canning Tabula Rasa WAY too early, among other stupid shit
Square Enix - for calling FFXIV a game
Activision/Blizzard - for massively dumbing down the mmorpg genre and just being greedy (mainly Activision but Blizzard aren't saints either), and for cashing in on COD by re-releasing it every year
SOE - ruining SWG, nuff said.
Like I said I will still play a game from any of these companies if its a good game but you can bet I would never buy stock in them or sing their praise like a lot of the delusional fanboys on the web.
Comments
SOE.
Star Vault.
Cryptic.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
NC Soft - we no care about costumers/ big promises no realization
EA - $$$$$$ €€€€€€€ we need moooar
SOE
Their track record is more than enough. Still can't understand how a company having a portfolio like Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies can always suck like that. Smedley has destroyed this company since he took over and yet this bastard has still a job, while dozen others have lost them ccause of him and his stupid suits.
One of the worst customer services I've ever experienced, dumbing down Everquest and SWG plus adding p2w shops on top of monthly fees.
CCP
Months ago my absolute top company and one of the only ones I would have bought a game blindly but after the big "fuck you" to the EvE community and their crap named Dust 514 combined with p2w shops in EvE, not gonna trust them again.
Looked forward to WoD but right now I don't think they'll deliver a deep, complex Vampire game.
EA
I hate them more than SoE the day this modern sweatshop will finally be gone, should be a good one. Utilizing tons of great companies and slaying great IPs (Ultima, C n C, Battlefield, NFS...) and still no goverment has taken action against them.
Activision/Blizzard
Kotick is emperor Palpatine no doubt about that. Their games are all utter stupid crap, his idea of taking the fun out of gaming and creating an enviroment filled with fear is just wow. Since Blizzard partnered with the pest named Activision their company has gone downhill. Some examples:
Diablo 3 not even a shadow of its former self a braindead game for mindless Blizzardzombies who think, they are still the company they once have been.
Call of Duty started out as a nice game but we all know how that ended. Too bad IW didn't get their IP back.
Starcraft 2 cut into 3 pieces so they can cash in 3 times.
Funcom
low quality products. I respect them for choosing different IPs but their antics of dumbing down things and cash shops are not something I'm looking for.
Cryptic
Still pissed someone bought their poor excuse of a gaming company. I've been playing MMORPGS for a longtime but never ever had to delete a beta after 3hs of playing cause I felt bored to death. They are charging top $ (15 $ + cash shop) for their games although they aren't even worth a monthly fee.
I still feel sorry for you Neverwinter Knights would have loved playing ya bu t not with this crappy company behind it.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
The two companies that have proven risky to trust with credit card numbers--SoE and Funcom.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Just one: Funcom.
Activision / Blizzard - for their recent microtransaction / RMAH ideas , for dumbing down their games and catering to other type of players I am. Really diffrence between WoW Vanilla and what was done with later expansions is astounding.
For their GREED - see S2 as 3 full pirced games instead of 1 game + 2 expansions priced liek expansions , not to mention how Diablo 3 look , high level armors like from WoW merged with Mu Online. Just not company creating products for me + nauseing greed tactics = black listed.
Well and last but not least , big reason = Kotick
SOE - ruining good games , with their decisions and bad managment , see SWG and Vanguard. Recent F2P shift don't help either.
Turbine - for LYING repeadetly about how Item Shop will look like in Lotro, recent shady silencing of polite critiques on forum, general change on marketting strategies , baiting and deceiving people like making big sale of TP points few days before they release very high prices for expansion in TP points ,etc - they are just shady now and caught lying few times. Don't have time and patience to deal with that kind of approach to customer and doing business.
SV - Mortal Online is emm , sorry just terrible , support is bad , game is bugged and unfinished. There are indie companies that do very good work , well SV is not.
Funcom - First bad thing I experienced was AoC , what state it was released , and all other things. What sealed blacklist deal was double dipping business strategy for TSW + their overall bad support also with processing payments. Really don't want to waste anymore time on them.
Cryptic - do I really even have to explain?
Edit:
+
Not blacklisted totally , but very reserved and I am avoiding:
- companies that put f2p / freemium in mmorpg's. F2P is okay in Moba games or similar, but in mmorpg's it ruin game experience for me totally.
Add Mythic/Bioware a division of EA to that. I'll still play their games though, but with a store bought card.
SOE For obvious reasons. I think that's it.
Just an FYI ~ Activision and Blizzard have never partnered up on anything{as far as I know} and have nothing to do with each other, nor do they effect each others games. Vivendi Universal owns both the companys, and for the most part, lets them make their own decisions, assuming there is profit being made and its very clear there is always a profit being made by both of them.
Pleasse not this again here is the company structure BEFORE and AFTER their relationship.
Morhaime
-- Pardo
---- Lead Designers
-------Devs
....
Kotick
-- Tippl
---- Morhaime
..................................
See the difference ? Morhaime IS reporting to Kotick and Tippl who are saying how things have to get done. http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/31/report-activision-reshuffles-execs-in-us-uk-layoffs-result/
So no one should be surprised ot the direction change Blizzard has taken since the merger.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
No company has money to throw about on potential game fails...or if they did, would they wish to.
In my humble opinion, there are two types of game failures:
a) ones that are badly reviewed by general concensus/peer review for e.g. predictability, lack of innovation, poor coding bugs/animation/content but importantly still turn a profit (or at least break even) - this is still a game fail if you view innovation as being important in the advancing history of the game making as an art or even a science, which I do.
b) games that fail turn a profit or break even - these can even be made uncynically with the best intentions, they could even be good by peer review but fail to catch the target audience (or even overestimate the size of said target audience or their willingness to part with a monthly sub) or they can be just plain bad.
These are by no means mutally exclusive either.
I reckon even the largest sized game developer can buffer one maybe two financially 'failed' games (I'm amazed Cryptic hasn't already crumbled from a string of relative duds). That is, a game that fails to break even or make a reasonable profit, after all no profits, no reinvestment in game number +1. Even if they do break even they'll likely sack a goodly number of the people involved in a game that failed to make profits.
Now, if you have a wife and kids and a mortgage (and in the states, benefits) and you're in charge of making decisions on planning a new game are you really gonna risk that on a gamble? You'd go for option (a). Generic mush likely won't make huge profits and as we've seen with Rift et al but they'll float for a certain lifespan. However, the diminishing returns of this format are mounting as people get more and more intollerant at a lack of innovtion. With repetition, what you're really banking on is either a very forgiving or undemanding audience or a fresh supply of young new gamers who are not yet sick of the format.
Do the jaded players outnumber the tolerant ones or new ones? It certainly seems so from reading forums but is this representative of the whole? I have high hopes for something better I just think there are stagnant periods where samey ruts take precedence over novelty for various reasons.
Mythic, Funcom, Squire Enix, Sony Online Entertainment, CCP, Cryptic - I wouldn't buy anything from them without play testing it for free myself and waiting a month or two for the reviews to poor in.
Currently only Blizzard...well SoE is teetering on the edge too.
Funcom
Cryptic
Starvault
SOE
Square Enix
Starvault
this is a complicated question. I think it should be split into 2. publisher and development studio. they arent always the same(often arent) for example, I have no problems with bioware, but really hate how EA is ruining bioware with their practices. there are alot of good games out there that are ruined by publisher practices like SoE ruined their share of games even tho it's develped by someone else.
so for now, i'd say most of the fault lies in the publisher and i'd avoid SoE, gpotato, perfect world, and EA
SOE.....'nuff said.
Turbine, for destroying LOTRO
Blizzard, for turning the MMORPG industry into what we see today
G1, for ruining Fallen Earth
UBIsoft, for thinking that punishing legitimate customers with DRM is a good way to do business
Valve was on this list for years, but have finally redeemed themselves. I purchased HL2 right before my breakup with my ex-wife, and during the ugliness that followed lost access to the e-mail account that I had used to register Steam. They basically told me "sucks for you, buy a new game", and I boycotted them until a couple months ago, when I decided to give them another chance.
I have to say, they have really turned it around.
I don't care how great a game looks / is....if the company pisses me off, I vote with my wallet.
I'm not going to specifically avoid any game company. I'd rather select by games. Like people, companies can learn and improve. The CS representative that botched your in-game report or wouldn't help you when you were stuck have probably moved on. A billing / account glitch can be fixed. There are simply too few companies making MMORPG games for me to be ignore any companies offerings due to an idealogical difference. If I don't like a specific game, I'll simply move on.
Unless the company in question did something intentionally disreputable, dishonest or injurious towards me, I won't avoid them. Like an injured raccoon, I will approach them with caution in the future.
Who knows? Their next game might just be the one that fits my personal vision of an MMORPG game perfectly.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Funcom and sadly CCP.
Both for adding cash shops to sub based games.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Microsoft and Sony, most evil and destructive duo in history. MS for making one of the worst softwares in history(GFWL) and them both for consolisation of mosltly everything.
Funcom, SOE, Square Enix, Cryptic, Turbine
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
Square Enix - horrible horrible horrible FFIV
Nexon - They shit on Europeans, nuff said.
Turbine - Greedy Greedy "F2P" conversion.
I have to echo SOE, the reasons why is a thread in its own.
Also EA in general gaming
I am still willing to play games from any company providing they are good but here is my shit-list:
EA - for ruining Ultima Online, cancelling UO2 and cancelling UXO
NC Soft - for canning Tabula Rasa WAY too early, among other stupid shit
Square Enix - for calling FFXIV a game
Activision/Blizzard - for massively dumbing down the mmorpg genre and just being greedy (mainly Activision but Blizzard aren't saints either), and for cashing in on COD by re-releasing it every year
SOE - ruining SWG, nuff said.
Like I said I will still play a game from any of these companies if its a good game but you can bet I would never buy stock in them or sing their praise like a lot of the delusional fanboys on the web.