6 Biggest Gaming Industry Controversies Of The 2020s (So Far)

Yup, all that GameStop stuff happened THIS YEAR.

Gamestop Margot Robbie
wiki

Video games have given us much over the years. The whimsical escapism of the Zelda series, bombastic sci-fi action of Halo, and gritty realism of The Last Of Us are brought to us by industry giants.

We tend to think of these behemoths as creative geniuses, but what of Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony's business practices, and those of everyone in between?

It’s easy to assume that fictional wonder is in constant flux at the headquarters of our favourite developers and publishers.

Talks of innovative design over coffee? Donuts between playtesting? Maybe… but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to the process of designing, developing and shipping a game.

Crunch culture, money (mis)handling or questionable marketing and creative decisions, any of these can cause quite a stir in the community! Not only that, but the community itself is not innocent of questionable behaviour.

Gamers feel a lot of feelings, and they love to share those feelings... loudly and angrily. Let’s dwell on that, shall we? Here are the recent video game industry moments left us dumbstruck, furious, or in a frozen state of cringe.

6. Crunch Culture

Gamestop Margot Robbie
Rockstar

"Crunch culture" is understood as unpaid overtime in which staff work insanely long hours to meet development milestones.

Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last Of Us Part 2 and especially Cyberpunk 2077 - the common denominator for these IPs is that they are subject to intense levels of crunch to meet deadlines.

The rise in “games as a service” models, annual releases, AAA budget projects and more reports of producer interference mean that a lot of games are facing insanely short timeframes for huge amounts of work. Culture is the key word, as there is not much in the ways of legislation or unionisation regarding the intense work hours faced by dev teams.

This crunch does not seem to always guarantee success either, as seen with the likes of Cyberpunk 2077.

Hopefully as we move forward in the industry, hard and passionate developers can be afforded a healthy work-life balance, with better scheduling and attainable goals.

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Hi! I am an Associate Lecturer for a theatre & performing arts department at University of Chichester. I possess a Master's Degree in Performance Writing, ranging from works of fiction to journalistic and biographical styles. My hobbies include, reading, gaming, listening to and writing music, as well as writing original scripts for live performance.