10 Recent Video Games That Totally Insulted Players
Spend launch day money, get a broken product.
Ideally, video games should be a source of either excitement or relaxation, depending on what you're playing and what you're in the mood for. What they shouldn't ever be is insulting, yet as these 10 recent releases have all proven, sometimes publishers and developers just can't help themselves.
Sometimes the folk making games just can't avoid thumbing their nose at paying customers in ways that make them feel like mugs for buying their game in the first place.
Perhaps they deployed a crass money-grubbing practise after launch, broke years-long promises to the player-base, thoughtlessly included offensive content in the final release, or completely ballsed-up a new entry into a beloved franchise.
Whatever the circumstances, these games all ended up offending players one way or another, no matter how great the core gameplay might've been - or not - otherwise.
In some cases the developers were able to rectify the issue, while in others the damage was already done and the game's rep irreparably tainted forever more, destined to live on with negative Steam reviews acting as a scarlet letter to its name until the end of time...
10. Locking New Game+ Behind A Paywall - Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is quite arguably the greatest game in the entire franchise - a ludicrously entertaining RPG packed to the absolute gills with content.
But because fans apparently aren't allowed too much of a good thing without forking over a little extra, Sega decided to lock the game's New Game+ behind a DLC paywall.
Despite typically being a bog-standard feature included with the base version of just about any game, Sega opted to make Infinite Wealth's New Game+ exclusive to those who spent extra on either its Deluxe or Ultimate Editions.
That's a minimum $15 upcharge simply for the "luxury" of being able to carry your stats over into a second playthrough.
Naturally franchise fans were deeply unhappy about this and made their displeasure vocal on social media, though Sega seemed to largely ignore the outcry.
Given that Infinite Wealth went on to become the fastest-selling game in the series' storied history, gating a basic feature behind a pricey premium edition seems even more greedy in retrospect.