Christ. What a year. I don’t want to talk about it any more than I have to in this category, let’s just talk about the “winners.”
The Winner… (sigh)
Ubisoft Scandals
This shit fuckin sucks, gang. There’s no other way to put it. Abuse and harassment has been a hot topic in the games industry in recent years. Of course it’s been industry standard for decades: all that’s changed is that a larger percentage of people are calling it out. We are all for believing victims, pushing abusers out of our communities, and trying to make things better.
That’s what makes it so shitty that Ubisoft has effectively gotten away with downplaying their problems so hard. It’s a company-wide culture of management abuse, dismissed with a few firings and kept off the radar of your average game player. We hate it. It’s the Hottest Mess of 2020.
The Runners-Up
Cyberpunk 2077
Can you believe this didn’t win? Damn. It was the right call, that’s just more about how much we’re pissed at Ubisoft than Cyberpunk doing… ANYTHING right. Around these parts we had low expectations given the shitty messaging in the run-up to the game around transphobia, disability, transhumanism, and more. But we, like the rest of the gaming population, had NO IDEA what a train wreck this game was going to be. When you make a Fallout game look stable and bug-free by comparison, holy shit, y’all.
And then even when you put aside technical issues, its writing is mad inconsistent, often downright bigoted and offensive, and it’s just not a fun game to play! Well at least they also treated their staff like shit. God damn.
New Console Launches
PLEASE LET ME BUY A PS5. I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY. STOP SELLING THEM TO A GUY WHO HAS A CLOSET FULL OF NEVER-OPENED YEEZYS TO RESELL AT A 500% MARKUP.
Twitch Meltdown
We all knew this was coming. When YouTube became open season for copyright trolls to sabotage creators, it was only a matter of time before Twitch did the same. These companies, worth billions and billions, refuse to invest any money in protecting their creators. Bury them with their money. All that cash is good for is being dirt on their graves.
parody parody parody, mailing this death threat to myself, etc
—–
dude I’m so glad 2020 is over. I know in all likelyhood 2021 is gonna suck shit as well, but at least for the moment I can pretend. Thank you for joining us for Day Four of the Gimmick Awards. Tomorrow is the final day of award categories! If you’re curious how we came to this conclusion, don’t forget to check out the Scanline Talks podcast feed.
A big thank you to Zwimmy (@zwimmy on Twitter) for our Game of the Year art!
