The worst game developer and/or publisher...

**rvg** · 08-21-2014, 00:35

I've been thinking about who deserves such a dubious honor. IMHO Cyanide Studios takes the cake as the worst developer. Their games are consistently buggy, clunky, poorly thought out, with horrible AI etc. It's almost as id the developers simply down't want to put any effort into making a decent polished game. They've even managed to screw up with such a no-brainer licenses as Blood Bowl or Game of Thrones. I won't even mention their "authentic" crap like "Impire" or "Confrontation." A truly horrible developer.

As for publishers, for me Kalypso is the gold standard of crap releases. If there's anything out there released by Kalypso (with rare exceptions), I'm pretty much guaranteed to hate it. It's not the bugs as much as their knack for releasing uninspired, boring product. Ubisoft isn't too bad, but I refuse to buy their stuff solely because of UPlay. Then of course there's EA, but they at least manage to publish some really outstanding titles.

**rickinator9** · 08-21-2014, 02:06

I don't really have any really bad experiences with Game Developers. The worst developers I can name are CA and Relic, which have in my opinion really decreased in quality. Relic's Company o Heroes is one of the best RTS games I have played, but CoH2 doesn't even deserve the name. CA hasn't released a good game since Medieval II and I admit I shouldn't have pre-ordered Rome II, since I have had zero enjoyment out of it since it was released.

I personally haven't had any trouble with Kalypso. Tropico 4 worked like a charm.

Paradox Interactive is a publisher that I don't really like. Don't confuse this with Paradox Dev Studio, whom make good games(although they seem to have gone down the dark path of 'casualization'). The few games I have bought that were published by PI(but not made by them) were either buggy, not entertaining or didn't have much replay value. My second issue is based on their policy to have devs talk to the fans on the forums. While it is very kind of them to do this, the devs aren't as good and professional in communicating as they should be. Fans ask serious questions, but often they get answered with 'Yes' or 'No'. The devs also tease the hell out of their upcoming DLC.

My biggest issue with PI is trying to appear the publisher that isn't like the other, dlc-festing, bad supporting, buggy-releasing publishers. However, PI does this itself. Just check the DLC page for CKII and EUIV and you will know it is DLC-festing. Paradox recently appointed a User Mod Coordinator, but he secretly spends lots of time on other projects as well. Some of their rules are also a bit absurd. You can't post external links on their forum. Modders aren't allowed to earn any money from their mods(not even donations) while Youtubers can monetize their video's even while playing a mod.

**Fragony** · 08-21-2014, 06:02

Why the hate, EA really doesn't deserve it. The games the publish are always polished to a mirror shine, mostly the games I am not interested in but that's just a matter of taste.

Worst is Eidos I say, crappy releases, but they also kinda killed Lookinglass. Unforgivable.

**rajpoot** · 08-21-2014, 06:19

EA deserves hate because over the years it's been buying up decent to good gaming studios that had made some good games. Then EA buys them out and tries to turn the series into cash cows effectively ruining them or at least sacrificing their potential in favour of mass appeal. Bioware is the latest example I know of.
EA has also been ignoring its fanbase. There have been so many

ups lately....the SimCity online offline thing comes to mind.
Its not without reason that they got voted worst company two years in a row.

**Greyblades** · 08-21-2014, 13:13

There are many who deserve the honour and all could be considered to deserve it equally, the only difference is the specific flavour of corproate idiocy you find most abhorrent.