Except that fun is extremely subjective thing, even more so than balance. Look at Spiffing Brit for example, he's making videos about breaking every videogame system he can while mocking the very concept of balance.

But talking about balance and fun is way out of this thread's topic, and I don't want to be a douche. I am leaving that to Perisans and Cumans. Instead I'll just say that Obsidian lost my respect after Pillars of Eternity, and be out of my way.

Agree.

Thought Wolfenstein The Old Blood was a brilliant shooter.

Monolith Games? Wow. I too miss some of their earlier games but I think their LOTR games have been very good (except for the WB Games loot-boxes and microtransactions that ultimately got stripped)

As for devs I've lost confidence in...

Bethesda Game Studios and Bioware. It just seems like they've lost the talent -- through retirements, to competition, etc. -- that built their companies. It doesn't feel like either knows how to make industry-leading games anymore.

Now, when I say Bethesda Games Studios, I'm talking about the dev studio and not the publisher Bethesda. Bethesda (publisher) has a couple of good dev studios, but Bethesda Game Studios has long ago diminished to a shadow of itself.

Using a long animation as a limiting factor is not game design. Also, being able to outdamage MP-sing spells (other than the aformentioned KOTR) with free (once acquired) physical attacks is not good game design either. Even being able to do 6,000 damage with a free physical attack (which I got without really trying, I believe this was wielding Ultima Weapon without any materia to further boost damage) is too much in a game where the damage cap is 9,999; it doesn't leave much room to do more damage with spells.

Blizzard after the merger with Activision and the release of Cataclysm. Though WoW Classic is appreciated and I've heard promising things about Shadowlands. That's just WoW though - it's a good thing I'm not a big Diablo fan because I would not appreciate a online-only Diablo 3 and a lootbox-filled spinoff that got farmed out to China.

For me, with respect to Nintendo it is when they region locked the DSi and 3DS, not to mention the DRM-encumbered online stores of those systems. My most recent Nintendo handheld is the DS Lite, and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon.

Bethesda
When Oblivion horse armor DLC happened and when Fallout 3 happened with all those game-breaking bugs that became synonymous with the company's name. Bugthesda

Haha, you're so modern. My most recent Nintendo handheld is a Game Boy with a grey scale display. ;-)

–––

When id Software was sold to ZeniMax. Although generally speaking I lost respect in most developers when Steam appeared. And the horse armour. And then micro transactions.

Nice oxymoron, m8!

Bethesda. Creation Club and Fallout First.
I've been absolutely in love with the Elder Scrolls Series since Morrowind, but the direction the company is heading right now has me fearing the worst for ES6.

When did you lose faith in that developer?

Most current AAA devs: I just find them (mostly) unispiring eye-candy traps; look great and play shallow and short.

It's been a LONG time since i was interested in any EA/Ubisoft/Activision game etc. Just not worth my time and money these days. Loot crate crap etc.

Many current 'AA' devs: Those that fell for the DLC spam trap (Paradox i'm looking at you!), or those that develope a game, then leave out big chunks of it for you to buy ater as DLC/tiny add-ons (again Paradox i think i'm looking at you still, Firaxis (and others) can also hold their hands up). Gaming the Whales crap etc.

It's been a LONG time since i was interested in a Paradox/Firaxis title (CK2 - i think i got about half of the DLC before 'getting it' and CivIV was my last and favourite Civ game).

Now i simply wait years (i can wait 5 or 10, no sweat) until an 'Ultimate' edition is released with all the tiny DLC content included, and then wait for that to go on sale, assuming the game is still actually good and the design didn't implode under all the 'Whale' hunting efforts?

I'm looking forward to trying Stellaris in about...oh maybe 2-3 more years? I used to buy Paradox games at release. But now there are so many interesting other games, i don't need to be treated like a cash-cow imho.

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Microsoft:

About the time of the first Windows 8 release. At first it was just shock at how ugly and difficult to dig down into it the OS was (like trying to do simple admin tasks etc), then there were those rumblings around the 'MS store' and integration into Windows of that.

Gabe Newell (Steam nemesis of mine) wrote quite correctly (and not without huge doses of irony i felt, looking at how Steam successfully dominated PC gaming!) about the dangers inherent in such a system.

Then we got that Xbox One release, where it was discovered your 'toy' the family enjoyed using was sending home personal data without your permission (so they changed the software that was doing that) and that had an effect on pushing the PS4 as the most popular console of this gen etc.

Then we got Windows 10 which is basically a spy-tool masquerading as an OS. Sure you can (now) switch some of that spy-tool off, but it often comes back and MS can do that anytime they want.

Around that first Windows 8 period i saw the writing on the wall, which is why i do all my internet (this post etc) on Linux these days. I just don't trust MS anymore, and neither should any of us.

............

Now GET OFF MY LAWN! ;)

Not really. When you speak of quality of art (or anything really), you are inevitably speaking about subjective opinion. And if you are smart, you know only subjective opinion about which you should care is your own. As it happen, I quite like Bioshock Infinite, so it's a "good" game.