Top 5 blunders that made gaming giants blush and consider a wardrobe change

There are moments so hilariously cringe-worthy that gaming giants find themselves applying mud masks before the court of public opinion, in a way that couldn't be more comical. Curious about these situations? Let Mytour provide you with the rundown.

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Borrowing a crack to combat cracks

Rockstar Games is undoubtedly a household name for gamers, known for blockbusters like GTA and Red Dead Redemption. Their games have faced criticism, such as Manhunt, a super-violent human-hunting game, and GTA's mature content. Yet, what we're addressing here is a different concern.

Manhunt made its console debut, and it wasn't until 2008 that Rockstar brought it to Steam. To fend off crackers, they layered two DRM protections on top of each other. Indeed, DRM caused real game glitches. To meet the Steam deadline, Rockstar made a pinnacle decision—using Razor 1911's crack to bypass their own DRM. The irony is, while Rockstar tried to erase traces of using Razor's crack, they unintentionally introduced various glitches, creating a perplexing loop of trying to anti-crack using a crack that harmed them.

This secret was later uncovered by the community, and the cracked version of Manhunt persisted on Steam for a long time, becoming a highly embarrassing jest towards Rockstar.

Keeping the watermark in online images

Another gaming giant caught in an embarrassing scandal is Square Enix. The game in question is Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. Despite its decent quality and the relatively hush-hush nature of the scandal, it remains a source of shame. Shortly after the game's release, players reaching chapter 8 and exploring Shinra Mansion noticed a painting on the wall still bearing the watermark of Getty Images.

The in-game painting, depicting a street scene in London in 1881 by artist John Crowther, clearly saw Square Enix's design team 'forgetting' to acquire the copyright. They casually included it in the game without proper authorization. Whoever handled this even went as far as lazily cropping only a part of the image to fit the frame. Luckily, there were no repercussions as both Square Enix and Getty Images remained silent. Nonetheless, this incident was undeniably shameful.

AAA Game Nobody Wants to Play

In the midst of this year, the much-anticipated blockbuster Redfall was unleashed. Gamers had high hopes for this title developed by Arkane Studios (known for Dishonored) and published by the gaming giant Bethesda. Despite being touted as an open-world co-op with epic character building and shooting elements, Redfall quickly suffered a catastrophic flop with outdated gameplay and visuals.

Despite its AAA label, it swiftly earned the title of the worst AAA game in history. There was no salvation for Redfall as the player count plummeted from nearly 2 thousand on the launch days to just a few dozen. The nadir came in early October when Steam charts noted a time when Redfall had only... 2 online players, meaning you couldn't even form a full 4-player party.

The most amusing part is Bethesda's Vice President of Marketing, Pete Hines, claiming there would still be Redfall players in the next 10 years—though one might not bother counting accurately in this scenario.

Bloodsucking to the Core

Despite being the best-selling game at launch, Diablo 4 faced gamer backlash. Blizzard, already criticized for years, reignited hope with the Diablo 4 teaser. Unfortunately, after an impressive first month, Diablo 4's player count plummeted, criticized for being monotonous, lacking endgame content, offering too few character builds, and, most importantly, instead of buffing weak characters, Blizzard focused on finding ways to suck money.

The introduction of Season 1 Battle Pass further infuriated the community. Although Battle Pass items are purely cosmetic, forcing players to spend money is the issue. Upon completing the Battle Pass, you are rewarded with 666 Platinum, but the cheapest item in the shop is 800 Platinum. In other words, you're forced to spend more money if you want to buy anything.

Blizzard, quite understandably, faced severe criticism for this incident. Even bringing Diablo 4 to Steam in an attempt to salvage the situation did little to address the underlying issues.

Apology Letter Composed by... ChatGPT

Another highly anticipated game like Redfall, but what The Lord of the Rings: Gollum delivered was sheer disappointment, receiving harsh critiques for everything from visuals to poorly optimized settings. In a typical turn of events, developer Daedalic Entertainment wrote a rather lengthy apology. However, things took a humorous twist when it was revealed that the apology was written by ChatGPT.

The funniest part here is that Daedalic Entertainment seems unbothered by the apology, as the first sentence had a spelling error, mistakenly reading as 'The Lord of Ring: Gollum' instead of 'The Lord of the Rings: Gollum'. This top-notch apology further solidified why the community believes the game turned out to be a disaster—even its creators didn't seem to care.