Gaming's most hated technology failures

Features
By published

Hardware problems, games crashing, systems on fire - we catalog gaming's biggest eff-ups

The problem: The PC version of GTA IV ships with abig ol’ pile of bugs, ranging fromshoddy textures to the whole thing crashing down around you.

The response: Users in theSteam forumsreacted quickly, compiling a list of everything you’d need to get the bugs out of your $50 triple-A title. Rockstar, on the other hand, let loose a patch thatintroduceda totally new problem.

Hellgate London busted on day one

The problem: Hellgate London launches with awide range of bugs, including one that billed you repeatedly for one subscription.

The response: Lead designer Bill Ropersaidonly 3% of users ran into the billing issue. He latercame cleanwith Gamasutra about his time on Hellgate London and Flagship, painting a dark, dreary picture of business models and good intentions gone awry.

We hated it because: Hellgate had a huge Halloween launch (they had a massive party in San Francisco with a line that stretched around the block) so we rightfully assumed the game we’d be playing the next day would work. That was not the case, ultimately leading to its servers being shut down and then revived in 2010 as afree to play MMO.

How’s about you? Got any woeful tales of your brand-new games or hardware getting a slice of the ol’ dick pie? Let us know in the comments!


The trends we can't help but complain about


So much for nostalgia - the more passes, the more these suck

The Anti-Awards 2009
Celebrating the crappiest games and dumbass dickery of last year

Brett Elston
Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.