Dumbest moments in gaming.

[solomani]

Really enjoying this feature at gamespy.

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/june03/dumbestmoments/

[XPav]

Daikatana as #1?

[SimplyCosmic]

If I was to pick a #26, it would have been the moment someone decided that it would be 'cool' to have little cartoon images to identify various editors and writers at places like Gamepro or Gamespy.

I'm sure I'm alone in this, but it's one of those things in the gaming journalism industry that just rubs me the wrong way. :P

[Dr Fear]

If I was to pick a #26, it would have been the moment someone decided that it would be 'cool' to have little cartoon images to identify various editors and writers at places like Gamepro or Gamespy.

I'm sure I'm alone in this, but it's one of those things in the gaming journalism industry that just rubs me the wrong way.
They do this instead of using pictures so that when they grow up and get a job, they can deny they ever worked at a computer gaming website.

[SimplyCosmic]

Feh. Why can't they be like everyone else and insist it was all just their evil twin brother Sven?

[theblackw0lf]

I think the ET debacle should be WAY higher. It basically was one the primary causes of the downfall of Atari and handed the cosole gaming industry over to the Japanese. Imagine how the landscape would be right now if that hadn't of happened

[SimplyCosmic]

While ET definitely hurt American gaming, I'm not quite convinced that it's as much a major cause as just another high-profile symptom of the problems of the time.

It's not like the community wasn't beginning to see the rush by everyone and their brother to release any craptacular game made in a week's worth of development time. Had ET not happened, the shovelware avalance would have eventually killed the Atari in the minds of the populace anyways, IMHO.

Atari's death didn't start with ET, it started with the pressures of being yet another big company that came even before Pac-Man was released, if I'm reading my gaming history correctly.

Also, I disagree with the Indrema being on the list. Yes it was vaporware, but it wasn't exactly the worst idea out there. It was a failed venture, but not really a "dumbest mistake of all time" sort of thing.

[Andrew Mayer]

Sega pulled so many more braindead moves then just hobbling the Saturn controller.

The Sega CD was a bad idea.
The 32X was plain crazy.
So was releasing the Saturn early.

I liked the Dreamcast, but the joysticks were horrible. After the Saturn analog stick nightmare (Into Dreams) I couldn't believe they used that horrible design again!

Your Power Pill (http://www.levelupdesign.com/gamelog)

[ciparis]

ET hurt Atari, but that's not what crashed the entire industry. Like so many things in business history, that initial gaming bubble was rife with speculative production of really questionable projects, and there was just no way the market was going to support it.

Unfortunately, just like with the Internet bust, alot of good ideas went down with the bad, and it took a while before a measure of credibility could be restored. I really missed the early gaming magazines when they went away. The early Electronic Games, and Electronic Fun (with Computers and Games) were two of my favorites. When gaming magazines finally returned, they did so with Nintendo day-glo colors, and I just had no interest whatsoever. It was a long, long time until I picked up another industry magazine.

[Anders Hallin]

I don't see why they have the Staff comments at all. They go through the reasons why something was stupid, and then they let the staff re-write it in their own words? What is this, third grade?

[Alan Dunkin]

Seems perfectly okay with me -- they add their own experiences to some of them (the Virtual Boy being one).

--- Alan

[Lokust]

I like seeing different people's perspective on things. It's a good article and a fun read.

[Luke M]

I'm sure I'm alone in this, but it's one of those things in the gaming journalism industry that just rubs me the wrong way. :P

I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking this. And I hate Daily Victim. I hate the flamboyant animation, and I hate the stupid little stories that go along with it. I think only one of those things has ever been even remotely funny. It just reeks of...commercialism. And it's so contrived. And fake, very fake. It's like there trying to force gaming to be even more of a big business by giving it it's very own dedicated haha funny page every day. 'Cause everything popular and succsessful has it's own haha funnies.

[Bub, Andrew]

I'm not a huge fan of Daily Victim either, but I do like PlanetFargo occasionally. I think BizBuzz is great too. Most of all I admire GameSpy for varying their content. Comics, drawings, humor, interviews, all provide another reason to visit beyond the screenshots/reviews/previews. A lot of Internet magazines ignore or are ignorant of the variety of content you can find in a typical magazine. Every article published is judged by the hit count it gets. People forget that a column might do poorly in numbers, but if it brings in people who might not otherwise vist on a regular basis (who then click on other things), it's probably worth having.

[Gaming-Module]

The Sega CD was a bad idea.


Heathen!

Sega CD was a classic!

[olaf]

It seems like they are really stretching to find 'dumb' moments. A top 10 would have worked better I think. Some of the stuff in the list is like, who cares, and some of the stuff isnt so much dumb as it was just a bad business break or losing a court case.

olaf

[Bub, Andrew]

You mean the one where Universal sues Nintendo over Donkey Kong being too similar to King Kong and then Nintendo discovering that not only did Universal not own the rights to King Kong, they had argued in a previous case, successfully, that King Kong was public domain?

Dude, that was an awesome entry and a really good example of "dumb".

[Dave Markell]

I just wish they'd focus a bit more on games as opposed to the business of gaming. Both are relevant, of course, but I'd rather read about the development of Outpost than a courtroom saga.

[Timemaster Tim]

...but I'd rather read about the development of Outpost...

don't you mean half the development, because that was all that was discernible in the game that I bought. Curse you Sierra!

[SimplyCosmic]

I don't mind the inclusion of such things as "Daily Victim", mostly because it's the sort of thing you can enjoy if you like it or skip it if you don't.

Of course, I realise the irony of being annoyed by the use of gamer psuedonyms and cartoon icons with myself posting using them in most forums. However, I do believe there's something of an invisible line between using "SimplyCosmic" instead of "DerekMeister" on a forum where no one would know me anyways, and the use of a professional publication.

Still, it's not like Gamespy is anywhere as guilty of this as GamePro magazine, nor like any of them are guilty of crimes against humanity for doing so.


http://userpic.livejournal.com/4925917/582507
SimplyCosmic

;)

[runesword forger]

Well, I cannot say there have been a lot of things that I recognized as unbelievably stupid at the time it happened. But there was one: The "Commodore Plus 4," a next gen version of the gaming great C64/128. Only it wasn't compatible. Nor did it have sprites. Or the esteemed SID sound chip.

In those days, I rooted for Commodore because my C64 was so beloved... but I just could not figure out the Plus 4. A next gen machine that was less powerful and incompatible with the predecessor? Huh.

Neither could any of the other bazillion fans of the C64. Despite the market base, the Plus 4 tanked instantly. Maybe Commodore didn't believe in market research.

In a strange twist, this dog of a machine still has a fan club of hackers. It had a built in assembly mon tool that encouraged experimentation.

[Sean Tudor]

Neither could any of the other bazillion fans of the C64. Despite the market base, the Plus 4 tanked instantly. Maybe Commodore didn't believe in market research.

In a strange twist, this dog of a machine still has a fan club of hackers. It had a built in assembly mon tool that encouraged experimentation.

But at the time the Commodore Plus 4 was marketed more as a business machine for the home user. But it was equally as useless as the Commodore 16.

Considering the early Tramiel years at Commodore I am amazed they even managed to release the excellent Commodore 64. At the time it was a fabulous machine. I bought one on the day it was released. It's a real shame my C64 bit the dust all those years ago.

But I still have my fully functional VIC-20 with it's fabulous 22x23 character screen display, LOAD "*",8, PEEKing and POKEing, Sargon II chess, VIC Forth, A.E, 24KB ram expansion ... :wink:

[Luke M]

I don't mind the inclusion of such things as "Daily Victim", mostly because it's the sort of thing you can enjoy if you like it or skip it if you don't.


This is true. I certainly have no right to complain about something I don't have to deal with. I just think it's stupid, and it lowers my opinion of Gamespy overall. But, no deal. I just read other sites instead.

[olaf]

You mean the one where Universal sues Nintendo over Donkey Kong being too similar to King Kong and then Nintendo discovering that not only did Universal not own the rights to King Kong, they had argued in a previous case, successfully, that King Kong was public domain?

Dude, that was an awesome entry and a really good example of "dumb".

No I was actually referring specifically to the one about Data East and Karate Champ. That struck me as more of a bad break than a dumb business decision. I agree with you on the MCA/Nintendo one.

olaf

[Andrew Mayer]

You want dumb?

How about getting your press release picked up by yahoo news (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030617/175750_1.html)
and then
not having a link to the article in question anywhere on your home page (http://www.gamespy.com/)?

[Bub, Andrew]

Look under "Recent Highlights." On the middle of the front page. Your point stands though, most Yahoo readers will probably miss it.

[John Keefer]

It's also in the left hand navigation bar under Special Features.