Over the years, games have pushed the boundaries of fun and emotion and are beloved by millions of players worldwide. There have been so many amazing titles poured out by some of the best in the biz such as, Insomniac Games, From Software, and Respawn Entertainment.
However, there are some companies out there who have shipped out mediocre title after mediocre title and conducted questionable business practices that cause players constant headaches. Here's a list of the worst game studios and how they stand for everything wrong with the game industry.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft is a studio that can put out some really great games. The problem is, it’s hard to find those great games in the pile of mediocre, repetitive titles that Ubisoft loves to ship out. Ubisoft is one of those companies that will constantly come back to a classic money maker IP, instead of pouring their energy into new IP’s. They’re a lazy studio that focuses only on what they know fans have enjoyed in the past rather than branching out into new territories.
Take the Assassins Creed franchise, for example. For a while, Ubisoft was putting out annual AC titles each one more mediocre than the one before it. The combat was barely advanced at all, the characters we’re dull and unrelatable, and the overall narrative of the AC universe became less and less important, until it was inevitably thrown out the window.
Ubisoft just stayed with the same formula for years offering only brief moments of innovation in their titles before they returned to their repetitive behavior. Ubisoft knows if they slap a familiar title like Assassin's Creed or Far Cry on the cover of their games it will be enough to get people interested, so they don’t try too hard to change things up. In fact, they’ll often take the easy and cheap way out to get another entry in their series out on the market as soon as possible.
The last few Far Cry entries are especially guilty of this. Far Cry 4 was received well when the PS4 was still fresh off the boat in 2014. However, instead of Ubisoft focusing all of their energy on creating Far Cry 5 and other titles, they decided to come out with Far Cry Primal, a game set in the prehistoric era.
You would think that playing as a caveman during the dawn of man would be a great addition to the series, but if you look more closely at the game you’ll realize that the map from Far Cry 4 was just copied and pasted into this new game. It’s essentially Far Cry 4 stripped of all buildings and replaced with vast amounts of empty overgrowth taking over the landscape and a few mammoths and saber-tooth tigers thrown in.
Far Cry New Dawn does the same thing. New Dawn is just Fary Cry 5 with an apocalyptic filter over it. The same weapons, buildings, and landscape are nearly identical to Far Cry 5. The only difference Ubisoft really made was a new loosely strung together campaign and some grungier textures over everything.
Far Cry Primal and Far Cry New Dawn didn’t add anything to the series and it was clear Ubisoft just put these games out because they were easy to throw together and to also get a quick buck from unsuspecting fans.
EA
Come on, we all knew EA was going to be on this list. EA is notorious about being the one thing wrong with the game industry and has even been named the worst company in the U.S. two years in a row.
One of the things that makes EA such a bad name among the gaming community is their commitment to be greedy and suck as much money from gamers as possible. Season passes, deluxe editions of games, and micro-transactions grossly saturate games EA games. EA’s prime focus is clearly to rack in funds.
They dangle extra content in front of players to bait them into opening their wallets time and time again for one title. This can be taxing for a lot of players who enjoy EA titles because they can end up paying double or even triple the amount of money they originally paid for the game to bask in the spoils.
Take the Sims franchise, for example. The Sims is a great game and has stood the test of time, but my God! I have never seen a game have so many expansion packs before in my life! Ever since the 3rd title in the series, EA has been pushing out countless add on content to enhance the Sims experience.
I think it’s great that they’re offering a lot of variety in how people can create their virtual lives, but damn it’s expensive! Each pack cost between $20-$40, and since there are so many of them out there, a person would have to dish out hundreds and hundreds of dollars to experience all that the Sims has to offer.
When you’re throwing that much money towards a single game that’s when you know there’s a serious problem. EA doesn’t even bother to make any of this extra content free to balance it out either. They know true fans will pay big money for a great game like The Sims, so they just sit back and watch the money flow right on in. The same goes for other titles with the EA logo stamped on it.
Honestly, the only thing keeping them from being completely hated on is Respawn Entertainment who have put out great titles like TitanFall, Apex Legends, and Jedi Fallen Order. Let’s just hope Respawn is enough to keep EA from being awarded the worst company in America for a third time.
Konami
Anyone who is a fan of Hideo Kojima and his revolutionary titles such as, the Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid series, will know exactly why Konami belongs on this list. But, for those of you who may not know why, let me run it down for you.
Basically, Konami fired and ousted Hideo Kojima, one of the greatest game designers in videogame history, and shut down his studio, known as Kojima Productions pretty much kicking Kojima to the curb. Why? Well that’s still a question begging for some answers even to this day.
In 2015, Konami announced they were restructuring their organization development in creating future games, so we can only assume that Kojima’s and Konami’s breakup had something to do with this new change. Later on that year, Konami ended Kojima’s contract in December, just long enough for him to finish what would be his final game with the studio, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Along with this, Konami cancelled Kojima's highly anticipated Silent Hills reboot with director Guillermo del Torro and star, Norman Reedus and took Hideo Kojima’s name and studio off the website and cover art of the awaited Metal Gear Solid game, effectively disassociating Kojima from Konami.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, Konami made Kojima sign a contract that forbade him from attending the 2015 Game Awards where Metal Gear Solid V was up for two awards. The game was critically acclaimed by the gaming community and won the award for game of the year, yet Hideo Kojima could not accept the award causing a wave of disdain and sadness across the gaming community.
But, it doesn’t even stop there. What is arguably the worst thing that Konami has done to Kojima is release a new title in the Metal Gear series called, Metal Gear Survive. Konami announced the title in 2016, showing that they were going to continue the series even without Kojima leading the project.
The game was meant to be a zombie survival adaptation of the stealth series. To put it plainly, it was horrible. The game was buggy, boring, and lacked any innovation and magic that Kojima put into the Metal Gear series. It was a complete slap in the face towards his legacy and was the final straw for many players and stopped them from supporting the game studio any longer.
NetherRealm
At the top of the list lies NetherRealm studios, the creators behind the beloved Mortal Kombat and Injustice series. NetherRealm wins the worst game studio award solely for how badly they treat their employees.
If you read one of my past articles about crunch culture in the videogame industry, the name NetherRealm will sound familiar to you (if not, check it out here! Trust me, it’s a good read!). Many NetherRealm employees are in a constant state of crunch culture, working tirelessly to create over the top titles for high anticipating fans.
NetherRealm often has them work 100 hour weeks on the regular to get titles like Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2 completed before their release date. Due to mismanagement of deadlines and poor communication, some employees have even resorted to sleeping at the studio to keep up with the continuous build up of crunch time.
But, the people who suffer the worst from this crunch culture are the contractors. NetherRealms contractors are typically people trying to break into the game industry and make their full time career in making games. However, these contractors are expected to work the same 100 hour weeks as regular, seasoned employees, are grossly underpaid, and are treated horribly from the studio’s higher ups.
Contractors are in constant fear of losing their position and therefore losing their way into the industry if they cannot measure up to the studio’s standards. They’re treated as expendable in the worst possible fashion with superiors threatening to give their contract to someone else who will “appreciate” it if they don’t put in their “fair share” at the company. They are even yelled at and treated as less than human if something goes wrong or a deadline isn’t met.
If this wasn’t bad enough, many of the contractors who manage to survive under these harsh conditions and help ship a game like Injustice out don’t even get a free copy of the game to keep for themselves. Yep, these guys work their asses off for months maybe even years pining for that full time position in the game industry just to hopefully get their contracts renewed for a few more months and they don’t even get a free copy of the game they poured blood, sweat, and tears over to make.
But wait, there’s more! On top of this, game devs at NetherRealm have even reported many instances mean comments exchanged between supervisors and employees, along with sexist behavior against women directed at their appearance and worth as an employee due to their gender.
Testimonies from NetherRealm devs have reported that male employees and supervisors will call women names, such as “Silver Fox” and “Dyke Bitch” along as prevent any raises or opportunities for growth in the company just because they are women or identify as anything else besides a straight man.
How NetherRealm is able to get away with so many of these workplace conditions is beyond me. It’s not only unjust, but also disgusting how NetherRealm’s employees are treated on a daily basis and it personally makes me sick to know such companies exist.
This studio has one of the most toxic workplaces that I’ve heard of in the game industry. NetherRealm is truly the worst and deserves the top dog prize for worst game studio in the industry.
Do you guys agree with this list? What some other game companies out there that you think are the worst? Comment below and I’ll look forward to next time!
Dean Willms
~Gamer. Designer. Friend
