10 Ill-Fated Choices That Wrecked Video Games Instantly
Just one bad decision can destroy a gaming company - but which ones did the most damage?
We love to pile on a gaming corporation or two when they make a massive blunder these days, but what happens when a company makes a choice so horrendous, it devastates their reputation and releases for years to come?
The gaming industry has been known to make some utterly baffling decisions over the years, including many that have lingered on decades after they were made. From the disaster of Atari's abysmal E.T in 1983 that practically killed the entire market to the modern onset of crunch in the biggest developers, it seems one of our favourite hobbies is never too far from controversy. It could be a console, game or an entire company going down in flames due to the actions of a few individuals that live in infamy.
Some decisions ruined entire games based on a number of major changes, others utterly killed the momentum of a company that had previously been doing so well. Getting into the list from the 1990s to the present, let's take a look back at some of the biggest - and most costly - mistakes made in gaming history.
10. Microsoft: Making Kinect And Forcing It Into The Xbox Brand
It's hard to deny that this generation, Microsoft has been on a losing streak with the Xbox brand. Despite improving their horrid leadership and providing better value with backwards compatibility and Xbox Game Pass, the Xbox One has fallen foul of failing exclusives and the fallout from a terrible launch. Most would say the decline of Xbox began in 2013 with the bland and tone-deaf console reveal, but it really began three years earlier.
I'm talking about the Microsoft Kinect, a now infamous peripheral that snatched the company away from their loyal fanbase and tossed them into useless gimmick-chasing garbage. The gaming community couldn't believe their eyes as humiliating E3 conferences, awful motion controlled titles and baffling decisions piled up. Star Wars: Kinect, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armour and Fighters Uncaged were just some of the many titles that proved how unresponsive and irritating the camera really was. Laughing it's way to the bank, Microsoft continued to force the device down people's throats as their exclusive line-up began to suffer.
Kinect ultimately became a ball-and-chain tied around the console's ankle that held the Xbox brand back. After years of angry backlash, Microsoft finally relented in 2014, releasing an Xbox One without Kinect and the device was abandoned quickly, causing Microsoft to slowly phase out support and discontinue it completely as of January 2018. While it may have scooped a high profit for the company, the Kinect remains a defining feature of Xbox's fall from grace over the last decade.