A few years ago, we started collecting all our cozy, comforting, positive, happy stories under the “warm fuzzies” tag. But we also have another common tag: The “this is why we can’t have nice things” tag is the one we slap on all the posts we write about stories that make us go “what the actual fuck?” and “are you even kidding me right now?” and “can 2020 please just be over?”
Good news: 2020 is almost over. (In fact, if you’re in Australia, it’s already over and it’s tomorrow morning already! Please, my Aussie friendos, tell us better days have arrived.)
Anyhow, for our last non-stream post of this hell year, we’ve once again rounded up all the “why we can’t have nice things” posts from 2020 to offer them as sacrifice to the New Year’s bonfire. (The virtual New Year’s bonfire, of course, since, yeah, social distancing and all.) As we did last year, we’re abandoning all of them, with prejudice, whether they’re stories about pandemic response, endless layoffs, sprawling dramatic lawsuits, Kickstarter games abandoning their backers, or game studios continuing to behave as if they’re frat houses (that last one is eternal). Go ahead and look at the worst things that happened in and around our genre this year – and then leave them in the year behind you where they belong.
Hellion dev rejects YouTuber’s ‘dirty dev’ characterization despite selling abandoned game
Star Citizen SOCS socks promise to revolutionize foot warming in the first quarter of 2020
Escape from Tarkov confirms no playable female characters because of ‘game lore’ and workload
World of Warcraft server blades that were sold for charity arrive to players with various signs of damage
China is cracking down on online games and streaming even more with ‘Healthy China 2030’
Fortnite canonizes content creators with their own in-game skins
The fun when some dude yoinks an airport map screen to play Apex Legends
Presidential hopeful Joe Biden calls out Silicon Valley game devs as ‘creeps’
Chronicles of Elyria dev blog’s ‘mood piece’ turns out to be ‘photobashed stock art’
Riot Games’ $10M settlement could climb to $400M due to California state agency filings
US Court of Appeals upholds decision that a RuneScape player’s muting did not violate free speech
Kentucky high school athletic commission bans Fortnite from high school esports competition
EA aims to mask active user numbers in investor earnings reports
Warcraft 3: Reforged is now apparently offering instant refunds with no official statement from Blizzard
Debate rages over a Fortnite streamer landing out-of-bounds in a charity tournament
Cliff Bleszinski now claims LawBreakers failed because it was ‘too woke’
New French lawsuits accuse EA’s FIFA franchise of promoting illegal gambling
Red Dead Online hackers are attacking with spooky scary two-headed skeletons
Activision-Blizzard has apparently yanked its games from GeForce NOW
Activision is trying to locate its Call of Duty leaker via Reddit subpoenas
The Daily Grind: Which MMO has the most toxic fan-based defense force?
Fallout 76 studio is grumpy more people didn’t PvP
Kickstarted MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria halts development, lays off all employees
Disgruntled Chronicles of Elyria backers seek aid from the Washington attorney general
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace ragequits during an official esports racing event
NASCAR driver botches yet another online iRacing esports event
ESRB starts putting warnings about lockboxes on its game ratings
ROSE Online’s Japanese operator filed for bankruptcy while promising new content
Cartoon Network successfully shut down FusionFall’s rogue servers
Switch owner? Go enable two-factor authentication for your Nintendo account
The Nintendo account compromise was real, affecting as many as 160,000 gamers
Overwatch League team Vancouver Titans loses its entire roster amidst controversy
Guild Wars 2’s EU server cluster suffered a multiday rollback this weekend
Guild Wars 2 has restored the EU servers to Monday morning after multiday rollback
The Culling returns, again, with an eyebrow-raising new business model
Valorant has so far found and banned over 8,000 cheaters, causing sweet cheater tears to flow
Chinese World of Warcraft players beg NetEase to rescue them from RMT bot infestation
Club Penguin rogue server shut down following discovery of explicit content
So ArcheAge Unchained’s Garden of the Gods is not free, and ArcheAge players are not happy
Formula E driver gets caught cheating in an esports race after using a surrogate driver
League of Legends esports matches will now have ads on the battlefield
Ubisoft claims its Trackmania reboot isn’t a sub game – you just pay for access
Lego Ventures marketing guy calls Fortnite the ‘first credible metaverse’
Riot Games places exec on leave while investigating awful social media post
Red Dead Online disables the ability to spawn KKK members via cheats
74,000 WoW Classic accounts just got the banhammer for botting and other cheats
World of Warcraft introduces an Auction House ‘action budget’ that is then immediately removed
Activision-Blizzard shareholders say nay votes constitute ‘rebuke’ of company pay practices
Pokemon Unite is a new MOBA for mobile devices and Nintendo Switch from Nintendo and Tencent
The latest gaming industry #metoo callouts impact Twitch, MMOs, MOBAs, and esports
Elder Scrolls Online doxxing drama ends with one partnered streamer booted
This week in why we can’t have nice things: Method, EA, and Ubisoft
Conan Exiles isn’t going to be free for a week on the Epic Games Store after all
WoW Classic sees another 40,000 accounts banned for botting and RMT as cases surge
Ubisoft promises a ‘structural shift’ in the wake of sexual harassment scandal
Ubisoft devs speak out on their ‘inability to feel safe or protected within’ the studio
Chinese fraudsters posed as a famous chili sauce brand to get free keys out of Tencent — and it worked
Revelation Online adds an elaborate in-game wedding – but not for same-sex couples
Ubisoft sheds another three high-level execs as a result of the studio’s cultural shakedown
COVID-19 roundup: How the pandemic has affected game devs, GameStop’s flip-flopping on mask wearing policy
More Ubisoft employees recount a culture of sexism that propped up offenders and informed game design decisions
Riot Games canceled its League of Legends esports partnership with Saudia Arabia after massive backlash
WoW Classic players squabble over the Ahn’Qiraj Scarab Lord title amidst griefing and bans
Call of Duty gamers ignore pandemic-related safety orders at unofficial esports gathering
Blizzard staffers agitate against poor worker pay as Activision-Blizzard rakes in billions
Yet another Ubisoft executive is out of a job in the wake of ongoing sexual misconduct allegations
War breaks out in WoW Classic as Horde players retaliate for Alliance Ahn’Qiraj Scarab Lord griefing
‘Our mentors are leaving in droves’: Blizzard staff are organizing to demand better compensation
Blizzard staffers confirm ‘honor point system,’ further exposing the company’s wage disparities
New executive order could ban US transactions with Tencent – potentially bad news for gaming [Updated]
Epic Games is suing Apple (and probably Google too) over its payment monopoly
Epic Games could lose almost $50M every month the Fortnite Apple/Google lawsuits go on
Ubisoft ousts its seventh manager in sexual misconduct investigation
Activision takes heat for poor female representation in its games over the last decade
Epic’s new #FreeFortnite Cup promo is another cynical dig on Apple
David Brevik discusses how Diablo 2’s development was marked with a year of crunch
Sony invites you to register to preorder the PlayStation 5 price-unseen
Apple officially terminates Epic’s dev account, cutting Fortnite iOS and Mac players from future updates
Rockstar wipes out characters caught using a money exploit, sending cheaters in to a rage
Kids MMO developer Age of Learning must pay the FTC $10M to settle ‘dark patterns’ complaint
Second Life bans all in-game advertisements that are ‘political in nature’
Star Trek Online’s newest promotional ship in a lockbox angers fans for breaking the developers’ own rules
Google seeks to dismiss Epic’s lawsuit as Epic talks up the Fortnite ‘Metaverse’
Apple’s new countersuit decries Epic’s ‘subterfuge’ and ‘brazen’ rule-breaking with Fortnite ‘Trojan horse’
Albion Online player steals an in-game billion’s worth of assets from a guild in a self-described ‘long con’
Echo of Soul is sunsetting yet again, this time on Steam, and no it’s not giving refunds
EA’s advertisement of FIFA lockboxes in a children’s toy catalogue draws mounting criticism
As US COVID deaths pass 200,000, the LA ComicCon refuses to cancel
CD Projekt Red goes back on its word regarding Cyberpunk 2077 crunch
Rare and streamers tussle over Sea of Thieves community toxicity
Fallout 76 roleplay group had its Facebook account terminated for being mistakenly flagged as a hate group
Activision-Blizzard is reportedly shuttering its Versailles, France, office
‘Boob streamers’ and ‘boys clubs’: Twitch staffers blast sexist, racist corporate culture
Guild Wars 2 studio ArenaNet appears to be suffering another round of layoffs
ArcheAge Unchained offers free trial as Reddit melts down over pay-to-win
Albion Online’s forum database was breached, exposing user passwords and emails
Cliffy B now states he might return to game development after all
Researchers argue Pokemon Go caused a discernable increase in car accidents, injuries, and deaths
World of Warcraft’s new wings have the community in an uproar
Canadian class action lawsuit argues EA’s lootboxes constitute illegal gambling
A Black Desert node war bug dumped quadrillions of silver into the North American servers
Dual Universe bans players who took advantage of an official construct’s poor permissions settings
Phantasy Star Online 2 forms an ARKS League and bans over 10K RMT accounts
No, friendos, streamers should not be paying games studios for licenses
Counterstrike: Global Offensive players in Australia get a year-long ban for betting on themselves
Lawful Neutral: The Epic vs. Apple lawsuit – when titans are tweens
Albion Online bans more than 600 accounts for buying currency
Police evacuate Ubisoft Montreal over what appears to have been a fake threat report
New survey points to increase in hate and harassment in online multiplayer games
Gamers review bomb Monster Hunter World on Steam over Monster Hunter film
PSA: Cyberpunk 2077 includes light sequences known to trigger epileptic seizures
Activision did not really ban a 6-year-old gamer trying to stream Warzone with his dad
CEO of League of Angels and GoT: Winter is Coming dev studio passes away due to suspected poisoning
And hey, when you’re done with these, we’ve also got another fun tag with some overlap: mature adults acting in mature and professional ways. Better yet, just cuddle up in the warm blanket of Massively Uplifting because there’s only so much dumpster fire one person can take. See ya, 2020.
