10 Times Publishers Screwed Over A Video Game

Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is a solid game in the Middle-Earth mythology which doesn’t stick to the safe Frodo/Bilbo/Gandalf narratives. However, publisher Warner Brothers’ push for microtransactions almost completely derailed it.

The Star War: Battlefront II microtransactions disaster could have made the cut here too. However, that game felt like a vehicle for microtransactions more than anything else, so it was really the consumers who got screwed over more than the game.

With Middle-Earth though, it was a good game which just had microtransactions crammed in. Thankfully, the backlash was so severe they were eventually removed, but they initially let a huge cloud gather over the game during its first few weeks of release.

The Nemesis System, where enemies who defeated you rose through the ranks of the Orc army, was hugely praised upon release. It hasn’t been as influential as some speculated, but was a brilliant feature which brought the game to life.

However, if you so wished, you could buy various Orcs in this army to possess and turn traitor. It undermined SoM’s greatest asset, and before long developers Monolith removed it prior to the first DLC release.

The sequel, Shadow Of War, doubled down on microtransactions, proving they hadn’t learned anything.