It's been a rough decade for gaming. Though the past ten years have delivered some truly memorable experiences, the industry has, in the minds of many, taken a turn for the worse, and, with most major publishing studios now desperate to deliver the lowest-common-denominator minimum viable product possible, it seems like a matter of time until every new release devolves into an uninspired Fortnite clone.

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Overly-cynical though that sounds, it's true that the past decade has been host to a fair share of notable controversies. From the rise of microtransactions and loot boxes to the discontinuation of hugely popular franchises, these were ten of the most controversial moments in gaming over the last ten years.

10 Star Wars Battlefront II's Loot Boxes

One of the most unfortunate, consumer-hostile developments of the past decade has been the normalization of loot box mechanics in many AAA titles. The widely-disliked monetization scheme has marred plenty of releases recently, but none were more notable than EA's 2017 Star Wars Battlefront II release.

Loot boxes were a core part of the multiplayer experience, with crucial upgrades and characters only accessible at random through these loot drops. At least, that's how EA wanted it—consumers were so uproariously upset about this that they re-tooled the mechanic before the game officially launched. Nevertheless, the debacle was a turning point for the implementation of loot boxes in video games.

9 Modern Warfare 2's No Russian Mission

Though this controversy technically kicked off with the late 2009 release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, it definitely stretched into the following year.

The fourth mission in Infinity Ward's acclaimed FPS, "No Russian" had players take control of an undercover CIA operative taking part in a terrorist attack at a fictional Russian airport. The mission was controversial for its wonton slaughter of unarmed civilians, and the scenario also offended those sensitive to the September 11th attacks which took place almost a decade prior.

It was a gutsy play by Activision, but the publicity likely drove sales, and Modern Warfare 2 is still remembered as a high point for the long-running Call of Duty series.

8 The Launch of No Man's Sky

In 2013, Joe Danger developers Hello Games began teasing a universe-spanning sandbox which would be unlike any video game experience before it. No Man's Sky was to be the pinnacle of the survival crafting genre first popularized by Minecraft, and it would be the sort of monumental release gamers would cling to for decades to come.

However, when it launched in August of 2016, disappointed players discovered that the game's marketing was patently false, and the game was ridiculously shallow. Though subsequent patches have brought the title up to snuff, the game's initial launch was legendarily bad and is still regarded as one of the worst of all time.

7 The Cancellation of Silent Hills

During the summer of 2015, a mysterious demo simply titled P.T. went live on the PlayStation 4. It was a captivatingly creepy experience that kept even seasoned horror vets on their toes, and, despite its short length, it stood as one of the most frightening experiences of the decade.

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It was eventually revealed to be a teaser for the then-planned Silent Hills. However, series director Hideo Kojima would split ways with publisher Konami soon after, and the game would be scrapped. It's a terrible shame, and Kojima Productions' Death Stranding did little to assuage the fears of those mourning the once-great survival horror franchise.

6 Street Figher X Tekken's On-Disc DLC Debacle

In a decade that would see quite a bit of lukewarm one-on-one fighters, Capcom's 2012 Street Fighter X Tekken would catch more ire than most thanks to its duplicitous handling of DLC.

Before loot boxes and other microtransactions would plague the industry, gamers rallied against the implementation of DLC. Unfortunately, Capcom took things a step too far, packaging some of the game's DLC files in the actual disc, and then simply charging gamers to access them. It proved that the publisher was prioritizing monetization over game quality, and it was a major blow to fans of both franchises.

5 Epic's Exploration of Erroneous Exclusivity

One of the more recent controversies, Epic caught quite a bit of heat in early 2019 when it was announced that 4A Games' Metro Exodus would be exclusive to the newly-launched Epic Games Store. The concept of game exclusivity was foreign to PC gamers at the time, and most didn't take it lightly.

Beyond that, the exclusivity deal was announced after pre-orders went live on Steam. Though those who already bought the game on the platform would see their purchase honored, Epic's ploy would serve as a huge strike against them for many PC players, and it's an issue with which they are still grappling.

4 Microsoft's Xbox One Reveal

Although the console would eventually find its footing, Microsoft could not have started the Xbox One's lifecycle on a worse note. Initially pitched as an all-in-one media device, the presenters at E3 2013 would de-emphasize actual gaming while seemingly prioritizing mundane, unwanted inclusions and re-enforcing the lackluster Kinect peripheral.

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Worse still was the fact that Microsoft planned to essentially disable a console should it lose its internet connection and to do-away with second-hand retail entirely by locking a disc to the first console on which it was played. Needless to say, this was a horrid business strategy, and Microsoft is still paying the price.

3 The Downfall of Games Journalism

By all measures, 2017's one-of-a-kind platformer Cuphead is a difficult title, but controversy ensued when it was revealed that VentureBeat contributor Dean Takahashi couldn't even complete the game's thirty-second long optional tutorial. It sparked a debate as to the relevancy and trustworthiness of games journalism, and it's a brand that marks gaming commentary to this day.

While total gaming expertise shouldn't be a pre-requisite for journalism, many fairly pointed out that some sort of baseline skill should be required. Plus, with many articles primarily interested in pushing political agendas prior to actually talking about games, it's safe to say that so-called games journalism is in a sorry state.

2 The Failure of Fallout 76

When news of Fallout 76 first broke in early 2018, Bethesda fans were skeptical. The series had long thrived on its lonely, single player-centric gameplay, and morphing that into a strange looter-shooter MMO didn't sound like a winning formula.

Low and behold, when the game went live in November of that year, it was worse than anyone could have imagined. Shockingly dysfunctional and brazenly cheap, it was nothing like the product Todd Howard had promised at E3, and it's gone down as one of the worst games of the decade, if not all time. As of now, Fallout's future looks pretty bleak.

1 #GamerGate

Without a doubt the most controversial moment in gaming in recent memory, GamerGate was a notoriously touchy subject among many which exposed the potentially-dangerous and ever-growing divide between gamers and industry pundits and creators.

After a series of convoluted inciting incidents in 2014, an Internet hate mob came down on prominent women in the gaming sphere, and the ensuing threats of violence and rampant displays of sexism proved that we as a society weren't nearly as civilized as we once considered ourselves to be. Even today, it's a difficult subject to dissect, and it serves as a reminder that tribalism has yet to be rooted out of the human condition.

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