Destiny and Titanfall
When you think about games that were monumentally disappointing in 2014, these two titles stand out the most. Let's start with Titanfall.

The game itself was a ton of fun on whichever platform you played it on. Yes, it was exclusive to Origin on the PC and yes, the Xbox 360 version came out well after the PC and Xbox One versions, but the core gameplay was still very enjoyable. Despite having a tacked on single player component, the multiplayer more than made up for it. It was fast-paced and added in some interesting gameplay mechanics that other shooters lacked. It was one of the first games to really utilize vertical movement and wall-running effectively in an online game. It featured giant mechs that were completely optional and who doesn't love giant mechs?

The problem is that the game's community disappeared. Just a few months after release, it was next to impossible to quickly find a game on the PC version of the game. As DLC continued to come out and fragment what little of the community was remaining, that was it for Titanfall. It is a game that I would probably still be playing to this day if the community was still around. Sitting around waiting to find a game eventually took longer than the actual matches. That isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Rather than have 40GB taken up by a game that has a ghost town for a community, I reluctantly uninstalled the game from my machine.


Then we have Destiny, a game that was hyped up beyond belief prior to release. It was a game where I actually bought into the hype, something I try not to do. I played the alpha and the beta periods on the PS4 and wasn't really impressed with either of them but man, that hype. So, I bought the game.

Content that was shown off in the Bungie ViDoc videos was cut from the final release. The playable areas were small and lacked content. PvP is a massive step back from the incredibly enjoyable PvP experience Bungie gave us with their Halo franchise. All of those amazing actors and actresses that were brought on as voice actors for the game? Wasted. Story? Virtually non-existent with a bulk of it showing up only through a website outside of the game itself. Then they release DLC for $20 that features what is arguably far less than $20 worth of content.

The game's only redeeming factor is that the gameplay itself, the shooting part, is really well done. The game would be completely dead if it wasn't for that. It probably helps that the only other major "looter shooter" released this year was Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and the longevity of that one ended up to be incredibly disappointing. I'm honestly ashamed to admit that I still play Destiny almost every day. Why? I have no idea. It certainly isn't for the fantastic story. It certainly isn't for the variety of missions. It certainly isn't for the varied locations and vast environments. (The joke is that Destiny doesn't have any of those.) Maybe it's because I like looter shooters and this is the only one where the shooting aspect is still enjoyable even if the rest of the package sucks. Maybe it's because the friends I play games with still play Destiny every so often as well and have also moved on quickly from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

I will say that I refuse to pay such a high price for the DLC when it offers so little. I learned my lesson from buying the base game. Bungie will have to work some serious space magic to get me to even think about playing Destiny 2.

GamerGate
Come on, you knew this was going to make the list.

GamerGate may have single-handedly set the public image of gaming and the gaming industry back years. Originally, I had toyed with the idea of making every single word and use of punctuation in this section a separate link to high profile media pieces that condemned GamerGate or links that showed just how truly vile these people are. I started to do that, but as you can tell that's not how this section ended up. It certainly wasn't for a lack of links. There are more links showing how terrible they are than there are words in this section alone. I have a wealth of bookmarks that I've been collecting for quite some time now. The thing is, when I started to sort through it all, it just became incredibly depressing.

Time after time I kept reading how GamerGate harassed and threatened someone else in the gaming industry, usually a woman or a transgender individual. Time after time I read how GamerGate released private and confidential information about someone (doxxing) in the industry, usually a woman or transgender individual. Time after time I read about how GamerGate tried to push people to try killing themselves that were already expressing suicidal thoughts and tendencies, usually a woman or transgender individual.

Do you notice a pattern here?

Publicly speak ill of GamerGate and they will fight you tooth and nail even when they are wrong. They will hit comment pages hard on YouTube to counter any claim made in the video against them. Likewise, they will do the same in the comments of written media articles that paint them in a bad light. They do so blindly believing that the rest of the world is wrong any time it says just how bad GamerGate is. Most recently, they decided to go after Wikipedia's Co-Founder, Jimmy Wales. For a group that claims to be against harassment, they sure have harassed him quite a bit through social media and even through email. That began after a Wikia piece about GamerGate and written by GamerGate was deleted after it was deemed to be an attack page that lacked credible sources. Go figure.


It really became too depressing to go through everything that they have done and that they continue to do to people. It's become frustrating and tiresome calling them out on their horrific behavior through social media because they still have people that blindly defend the actions of those in their toxic group. They still have people saying it's about ethics in games journalism, when it never really was. They still have people saying it's a consumer revolt, when it never really was. They lie about how they accomplished change when they never have. One such example being how they believe they got the FTC to revise their rules and guidelines after one of their numerous email spam campaigns. They didn't. All the FTC really did was re-word what is essentially their FAQ, something that they publicly stated they were doing anyway even without GamerGate bothering them.

They defend the heinous actions of people in their group while pretending to take some sort of a moral high ground. They say how they reported a GamerGate member that was dishing out harassment and "isn't really a part of GamerGate" while retweeting harassing messages from others in GamerGate. They claim that harassers aren't a part of GamerGate but that's the problem from being a disorganized group filled with harassers. "They aren't a part of GamerGate," they cry. Yes, they are. Anybody can join and instead of those few well intentioned members of GamerGate leaving the toxic group, they stay and make up flimsy excuses. They are as much a part of the problem as those directly doing the harassing.

These same people use an avatar that shows their support of a failed game developer turned doxxing creep that was banned multiple times from Twitter for harassing multiple people in the name of GamerGate. They openly welcome neo-Nazis to their group. They have had multiple bans from social media for harassment. Patreon campaigns run by GamerGate have been shut down for illegal activities. They have attempted extortion and blackmail. One Patreon set up by the founder of 8chan, GamerGate's current "go to" site after being banned from 4chan, was previously shut down over the disgusting nature of the content hosted on that site. 8chan founder, Fredrick Brennan's "solution" is to say his Patreon is now about making videos of his cat with all excess funding going elsewhere. If Patreon tries to remove it again, GamerGate plans to say it's discrimination due to his disability. Yes, those scum are already planning to play the disability card if and when it comes to pass.

They concoct new conspiracy theories on a regular basis dealing with fabricated plots that aim to discredit them (as if they ever had credibility to begin with). They welcome the support of people like Jack Thompson, a man who actually made strong pushes to outright censor and ban games. They pretend that this is some sort of a war, complete with mass email spam "operations" and poorly made propaganda posters which often make very little sense or feature outright lies.

It's not an "us vs. them" type of situation as they would like to believe it is. The only side in any of this is GamerGate. The opposition that they keep saying exists isn't anti-GamerGate, it's not "social justice warriors" (SJWs), it's not a handful of women in the industry, it's not the media, nor is it any particular group. It's literally the rest of the world. It is literally billions of well adjusted, well meaning people of all ages and races that are the "opposing side" going against GamerGate. They don't understand this. It's a game to them. What they do and what they say mean nothing at all to them. They don't see human beings on the other side of the screen. They don't see the repercussions of their harassment, threats, or in publicly doxxing individuals. Maybe they do. I can't tell what is a more chilling thought: That GamerGate can't understand the repercussions of their actions, or that they actually do realize what they're doing and yet they continue to do it all because they feel like their hobby is somehow threatened.

I won't dive into the origins of GamerGate again as it's been said time and time again now. Nothing has changed. The only good that has come from all of this is that GamerGate is getting precisely the opposite of what they want. People like Anita Sarkeesian have been thrust into the spotlight. Many articles have been written about industry women and their ordeal with GamerGate, with some of these harassment targets making television appearances.

To call GamerGate a hate mob of disorganized, leaderless, misogynistic, inhuman, like minded shitstains would be a kindness to them. They are easily some of the most god-awful people I have ever seen, and this most certainly includes their various figureheads. The only comforting thought in all of this is the fact one day GamerGate will eventually just shut the fuck up. However, as recent as this week, GamerGate continues to write articles explaining why their first target was a woman in the industry, Leigh Alexander. The reason they provide? GamerGate claims it's because she said that gamers are dead. She didn't actually say that. In fact, nowhere in her article was the word "dead" ever used. GamerGate continues to be that incredibly dense for four months and counting now.


GamerGate live in their own little bubble outside of reality, an echo chamber full of hate. You tell them they're wrong, they refuse to believe it. You provide documented facts, they ignore them. You tell them just how horrible the rest of the community thinks they are, they respond by mocking.

Almost since I first saw just what that group for what it really is, I have tried my hardest not to use the term "gamer" in any of my news posts here. They have tarnished that word. In my mind, GamerGate have made the term gamer synonymous with every disgusting act GamerGate has done these past four months. They have again done the exact opposite of what they wanted to see happen. They keep getting upset over something that was never actually said, so let's just go ahead and say it now. "'Gamers' are dead" and GamerGate are the ones to blame.

I'm also calling out developers and publishers in the industry on this one. They have remained almost completely silent, refusing to make any official statement against GamerGate. They see what is happening. They see what these people have done and continue to do. Sometimes, profit isn't everything and the point has come and gone where it is no longer acceptable to remain silent.

If you really want to know more about the heinous trash that GamerGate has done or the origins of it without any unncessary sugarcoating, I suggest you read through the Rational Wiki entry for GamerGate. For an added bonus and perhaps a free chuckle, check out that entry's "Talk" page. However you should be warned, there is an abundance of salt to be found there.

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There you have it, my list of the biggest disappointments for 2014. I'm sure there were some issues or events that I completely overlooked. Feel free to leave a comment below if there is something else that sticks out in your mind as the worst of 2014.

The rest of the week? Well, the rest of the week will focus on the good that came from 2014! I'll go over some of the games, events, news, and studios that managed to shine in spite of what has largely been a disappointing year for the entire industry.