History YMMV / PrisonArchitect

* BrokenBase:
** The game being bought by Paradox Interactive and having regular DLC releases similar to other Paradox titles. Some players are incensed, believing that the game has become yet another case of Paradox turning a product into a DLC platform, while others are fine with the game being continuously updated and expanded, both with free patches and paid DLC.

** The lockdown alarm sound is pretty unsettling.

* NightmareFuel: Scheduling an execution of a death row inmate mutes all of the game's sound, replacing it with an ominous sounding tune that gets more and more intense as you complete each step of the execution process. Then when the actual execution is complete, the tune suddenly stops and is replaced by what sounds like a distorted angel choir until you dismiss the staff and witnesses and finish clean-up.
** Despite the above, the lockdown alarm sound is pretty unsettling.
*** Imagine how it would feel to be a prisoner in a cruel player's prison. You shoplift, get caught, and sent to prison. Ok, you think, it's just one year. No big deal. Then one day, the owner of the prison locks you and several other prisoners in a room. You're all slowly starving to death in your own shit and piss. Then one of the more violent inmates snaps, and suddenly everyone is fighting. You can't do anything about it except try to fight back... And then the gunfire begins.
** Really, the whole concept in itself is Nightmare Fuel, since players are put in charge of managing their prisons. You're dealing with cold-blooded inmates, violent gangs, and some of your own staff to boot! You get to control things through either peaceful or harsh means to stay in control. And, when things start boiling over due to negligence or through overreactive means, then things really do start getting freaky.

* UnacceptableTargets: Teachers and Spiritual Leaders. They come into this despair pit full of violent, dangerous morons in order to teach the most violent of them. And they're very competent, too! No pathing problems, and no killing people from them! [[MoralEventHorizon Then some brain surgeon bashes their face in...]]
** There is an event where you discover that one of your spiritual leaders was actually stirring up hate speech. You have to cancel all the Spiritual programs, which is a shame because it's generally the most popular and most successful program.

* WhatAnIdiot: The Mayor is always telling you to do things like dismantle all [=TVs=] and weights, just because he doesn't want voters to think he's easy on criminals. This leaves prisoners with less activities to occupy their time, so they fight instead, and if you've got a TV or radio in every cell, wastes a lot of your builders' time. You may also be asked to lower food quality, another thing that annoys prisoners.
** He'll also tell you to remove visitation rights. Removing this is as simple as de-zoning your Visitation rooms, but it leaves Prisoners with their Family need implacable, squabbling over phone booths, and the numbers of smuggled cell-phones skyrockets. Oh, and when you rezone the rooms there will be a huge influx of backed-up visitors, frequently bringing all the contraband back in anyway.
** Your prisoners may demand less work. Unfortunately work doubles with programs that fulfill important needs like Spirituality, and fix problems like alcoholism, drug addiction and violent tendencies. Additionally you can't hire your prisoners as janitors and cooks so the prison gets dirty and meals are served more slowly, and prisoners can't work in the Mail Room so family needs start to rise. In the end, everybody loses out, especially when prisoners fight and OD from sheer boredom.

** The game being bought by Paradox Interactive and having regular DLC releases similar to other Paradox titles. Some players are incensed, believing that the game has become yet another case of Paradox turning a product into a DLCplatform, while others are fine with the game being continuously updated and expanded, both with free patches and paid DLC.

** The $30 pricepoint for the alpha access caused this amongst the game's discussion board on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} to FlameWar-inducing levels, even after Introversion stated in a Eurogamer Expo 2012 feature that the reasoning behind this pricepoint was be to separate the people who would think about their purchase (and thus offer better feedback) from the impulse buyers.
** The game, in most definitely finished state, being bought by Paradox Interactive and turned into a DLC-selling platform, a practice they are infamous for in their own games[[note]]PI's intention is for players to pick and choose the DLC they want, theoretically meaning players only buy the content they're actually interested in, however each DLC released comes with an update to all players accomodate the upcoming new mechanics that frequently results in an inferior experience unless you either downgrade or purchase said DLC[[/note]]. While some fans are fine with some new content being made, others ostentatiously play the final, pre-Paradox build of the game.

* GoodBadBug: Quite a few of the {{Gamebreaking Bug}}s mentioned in the trailer from one of the much earlier alpha stages. How is a prisoner eating their food while bareback in a shower not hilarious?

** The game, in most definitely finished state, being bought by Paradox Interactive and turned into a DLC-selling platform, a practice they are infamous for in their own games. While some fans are fine with some new content being made, others ostentatiously play the final, pre-Paradox build of the game.

* AcceptableTargets: Prisoners will kill people. It's a fact of the game. Sometimes, though, they'll kill someone you don't particularly care about.
** Other Prisoners: After a while, depending on what kind of person you are, you begin to hate these guys. You make this beautiful prison, you even give them recreational activities and lots of programs and help them become literate, and all they seem to do is break things, whine about whatever needs you're not meeting (despite your best efforts) and abuse your trust by stealing from the prison, hiding drugs and concealed weapons in the books and the mail and forcing you to shake them down every other day just to look for whatever they've been hiding from you. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Oh, and they're constantly getting the place dirty and then whining about THAT too.]] Honestly, it's enough to make you WANT the National Guard to [[KillEmAll nuke them from orbit]] sometimes...
** Builders: [[ArtificialStupidity Their ability to prioritize is nonexistent,]] causing them to mess up the build order. Instead of laying down pipes and wires first, then objects, then walls, they will do things randomly, causing them to lock themselves into the cell they just built, or traipsing half-way across the map for a piece of pipe when there's plenty of boxes nearby.
** Guards: They can be as stupid as the builders and vicious as the inmates. Think about all those times they walk past an OD'ing inmate. Or watch what happens when a guard is Pissed Off and will beat an inmate to death on a whim.

** The game, in most definitely finished state, being bought by Paradox Interactive and turned into a DLC-selling platform, a practice they are infamous in their own games. While some fans are fine with some new content being made, others ostentatiously play the final, pre-Paradox build of the game.

* BrokenBase: The $30 pricepoint for the alpha access caused this amongst the game's discussion board on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} to FlameWar-inducing levels, even after Introversion stated in a Eurogamer Expo 2012 feature that the reasoning behind this pricepoint was be to separate the people who would think about their purchase (and thus offer better feedback) from the impulse buyers.

** Your prisoners may demand less work. Unfortunately work doubles with programs that fulfil important needs like Spirituality, and fix problems like alcoholism, drug addiction and violent tendencies. Additionally you can't hire your prisoners as janitors and cooks so the prison gets dirty and meals are served more slowly, and prisoners can't work in the Mail Room so family needs start to rise. In the end, everybody loses out, especially when prisoners fight and OD from sheer boredom.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: Entire campaign, particularly ''G.A.B.O.S'' and ''Conviction'', gave AnAesop that prisoners are people and things are not as [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white]] in the judicial system. Not all prisoners are AlwaysChaoticEvil and have a chance at redemption, private prisons and judges will make deals to maximize profits through large intake of prisoners, abuses and miserable lives of prisoners will lead to suicide and uprisings, and rehabilitation can be more beneficial than harsh treatment in the long run. These lessons also provided interesting takes for some of the NightmareFuel and the plot of the storyline.

* BrokenBase: The $30 pricepoint for the alpha access caused this amongst the game's discussion board on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} to FlameWar-inducing levels, even though Introversion have stated in a Eurogamer Expo 2012 feature that the reasoning behind this pricepoint would be to separate the people who would think about their purchase (and thus offer better feedback) from the impulse buyers.

[-The main page can be viewed [[VideoGame/PrisonArchitect HERE]]-]
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** Other Prisoners: after a while, depending on what kind of person you are, you begin to hate these guys. You make this beautiful prison, you even give them recreational activities and lots of programs and help them become literate, and all they seem to do is break things, whine about whatever needs you're not meeting (despite your best efforts) and abuse your trust by stealing from the prison, hiding drugs and concealed weapons in the books and the mail and forcing you to shake them down every other day just to look for whatever they've been hiding from you. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Oh, and they're constantly getting the place dirty and then whining about THAT too.]] Honestly, it's enough to make you WANT the National Guard to [[KillEmAll nuke them from orbit]] sometimes...

** Other Prisoners: after a while, depending on what kind of person you are, you begin to hate these guys. You make this beautiful prison, you even give them recreational activities and lots of programs and help them become literate, and all they seem to do is break things and get it dirty. [[{{KillEmAll}} Honestly, it's enough to make you WANT the National Guard to nuke them from orbit sometimes...]]

* AcceptableTargets: Prisoners will kill people. It's a fact of the game. Sometimes, though, they'll kill someone you don't particularly care about. [[{{KillEmAll}} Honestly, it's enough to make you WANT the National Guard to nuke them from orbit sometimes...]]

** Other Prisoners: after a while, depending on what kind of person you are, you begin to hate these guys. You make this beautiful prison, you even give them recreational activities and lots of programs and help them become literate, and all they seem to do is break things and get it dirty.

** The Mutators update added many, many more optional reputations, one of them being "Connected". These prisoners, no matter how many dogs or metal detectors you have, will generate contraband whenever they feel like it. ''This includes firearms''.

* MostAnnoyingSound:
** The radio chime that indicates that your guards are going after a misbehaving prisoner.
** The alarm that sounds whenever a lockdown is triggered had a bug that makes the sound continue even after the lockdown is ended, and the only fix was to quit the game.
** The phone ringing - it doesn't take long to know that it's always bad news, like telling you to remove all your radios or cancel every period of Lockdown.

* WhatAnIdiot: The Mayor is always telling you to do things like dismantle all TVs and weights, just because he doesn't want voters to think he's easy on criminals. This leaves prisoners with less activities to occupy their time, so they fight instead, and if you've got a TV or radio in every cell, wastes a lot of your builders' time. You may also be asked to lower food quality, another thing that annoys prisoners.

* InternetBackdraft: If you're ever on the game's Steam hub, NEVER bring up the Alpha price tag or the lengthy development period. It always ends badly, doubly so if the game is on sale.
** Despite only superficial similarities, many ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' fans will froth at the mouth at ''any'' comparison, no matter how slight.