10 Times Publishers Sabotaged Their Own Video Games

2. The Sequel To Fall Of Cybertron Becomes A Movie Tie-In - Activision

While fans today have a wide selection of genuinely great licensed video games to choose from, that wasn't the case at the start of the decade.

Movie tie-ins were still the norm and franchises like Transformers had only ever seen a couple of decent efforts. That's why it was such a pleasant shock when the developers of High Moon Studios turned in such a great Transformers game in 2010's War for Cybertron, a title that divested from the Michael Bay movies and acted as an official prequel to the original eighties cartoon.

It was a competent third person shooter, but the most important thing about it was that it was clear the game was made by actual Transformers fans. It also had a great story, which was improved upon in a sequel that released in 2012 and ended with a cliffhanger where the Autobots and Decepticons finally head to Earth. It even included the Dinobots!

Annoyingly, fans would never get to see High Moon's third game. Activision (in true Activision fashion), booted the studio off the next title and replaced them with Edge of Reality, who released a movie tie-in for Age of Extinction, the latest Bay movie, instead of the threequel fans were expecting.

Needless to say, the title didn't resonate, and Activision then decided to waste High Moon's talents assisting development on Call of Duty. Because of course they did.