10 Cruel Tricks Video Games Played On Wrestling Fans
Wrestling fans have had to deal with a LOT over the years.
To be a wrestling fan is to be a glutton for punishment, and to be a wrestling game fan is something else altogether.
Wrestling video games have certainly been big business for decades, though players have had to put up with their fair share of turmoil, drama, and frustration over the years.
It goes without saying that WWE has aggressively cornered the market on licensed wrestling games, and though you'd expect a consistent level of polish from products overseen by a billion-dollar corporation, that's never really been the case.
Wrestling games as a whole have ranged from entertaining to downright insulting, the latter a result of publishers who want to wring as much money out of players as possible, and developers whose often-ambitious ideas end up falling flat.
Long-suffering wrestling game players have had deal with more than their fair share of chicanery and trickery over the years - being duped out of their hard-earned cash, getting misled in marketing, and then left with an end product which falls far short of the mark.
Of all the times we've been hoodwinked, though, these are the most egregious and infuriating...
10. Selling An "Accelerator" To Speed Up Unlocks - WWE 2K
Like most other long-running video game franchises, WWE 2K has attempted to cash-in on the microtransaction boom, and has typically done so in the laziest way possible - that is, making the grind so unbearably long you'll "gladly" splash out cash to speed it up.
For years now, the various Deluxe Edition releases of WWE 2K games have come packaged with an "Accelerator" - or, in its most recent iteration, "SuperCharger" - which allows you to unlock gated content at launch and also change the overall rankings and attribute levels of all superstars.
Most WWE 2K games have also allowed players to purchase the Accelerator separately for around £5, which while hardly a bank-breaking figure, is nevertheless a cheeky way of squeezing extra money out of people who've already thrown down a full retail whack for the game.
2K is far from the most egregious publisher doing things like this, but it's still depressing that the in-game grind is so egregious that many will be encouraged to throw a few extra bucks their way.
The money is understandably worth less than the time for many, but handing over more cash also reinforces 2K's nickel-and-dime approach, so it won't be going away anytime soon - if ever.