In a similar vein, Downloadable Content for video games. No one can agree if they benefit gamers or rip them off.
Almost anything involving Final Fantasy, such as which one sucked, which one was awesome, whether they're the best thing since sliced bread or the sign of everything wrong with the game industry today.
The Final Fantasy main series is controversial enough, but if you bring up any of the spin offs (such as X-2 or any of the compilation of Final Fantasy VII) on a forum about one of the main games expect an all out flame war.
Calling any Final Fantasy character emo, but especially protagonists like Cloud and Squall, is asking to be burnt to ashes, just to be put back together so you can be burnt down again and again.
Kefka vs. Sephiroth.
Aeris vs. Tifa. Or, if you're really looking for a fight, try asking any fan whether Cleris, Cloti or Zerith are the OTP.
Another sensitive issue is whether or not a few people pirating games really hurt game developers. Topics also somehow get morals involved.
DRM is the new big one, unique in that there are very few people actually supporting it, yet the Angry Internet Men somehow manage to start a flame war anyway.
Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular team-based online shooters ever. Beyond this, there is no aspect of the game that is not subject to actinic flamewars. There is no action Valve can take that will not spark flames on the forums. This war will end when the world ends and/or the last copy is deleted.
Who would have thought hats could spark that much controversy?
The Mannconomy Update (trading, item set advantages and the ability to buy items (you can still get them free)) can be thought of as Valve pouring a tank full of gasoline out and waiting for the community to blunder in with a lit match.
Try to do a comparison of the same game across multiple platforms without people tearing each other apart over which is the best version.
Please don't ever mention Derek Smart. Especially in any relatively popular gaming-related forum. Especially especially on popular Usenet gaming forums.
The Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. flame war is one of the longest flame wars of all time. It flared up on Usenet in 1996 and is still going on to this day.
Bowser's RPG Personality compared to his Serious Personality in games like Super Mario Galaxy.
Persona 3 vs. Persona 4. Not as huge as the others, but it's there. Which has better characters? Which has a better plot? OMG, Persona 4 sucks because it has a happy ending! ...etc.
And it all comes crashing down when fans of Persona 2 or, better yet, more traditional Shin Megami Tensei games enter the fray. Like Fallout, you are not allowed to like them all.
One of the more famous subjects for a flame war is: "Which is better, Halo or Call of Duty?"
While on the subject of Halo, go to it's official website, which, with all the flames on its forums, could also be known as hell. You're guaranteed to see multiple threads decrying any newly revealed feature for the next game, declaring the "death of Halo", and demanding that the studio apologize for the failure that was the last critically and commercially successful game. Inside these threads, wars between the "I liked that game" and "This new feature sounds fun" guys and the "Nope, the whole series is ruined" and "Halo is Call of Duty now, my life is over" guys will rage until the last Halo game is released. And probably after that.
Also, are the original two, or the post-64 games better? Once you choose between those (especially the former), you get into smaller wars over which of those games is better.
And by saying "the original two", are you including the cancelled-but-leaked Star Fox 2?
Within the Pokémon fandom, there's fans of the first few generations VS fans of the later generations.
Speaking of Runescape, what about their sister site, Funorb?! Funorb is practically dead, and it's festering with people who refuse to let go of the site and flame on the forums that they want something done.
Left 4 Dead starts one whenever anyone dares to compare the first game to the second. Bring the marshmallows if you attempt to bring up the boycotters of the sequel and bring a flame retardant suit if you ever mention the balance of VS mode.
Please... consider the consequences before asking, "Does Heavy Rain qualify as a video game?"
Dragon Age II. Is it a passable sequel to the acclaimed Dragon Age: Origins, a dumbed down hack-and-slash that borrowed too much from the Mass Effect franchise or an Even Better Sequel that fixed many of Origins' problems? The world may never know.
Mentioning the name Oblivion in any way, shape, or form, will more often than not cause someone to kindly explain to you that everything after Morrowind is nothing short of repugnant, which causes even more people to describe every thing Oblivion does that Morrowind doesn't as nothing short of absolute justified perfection.
Modern Warfare is particularly infamous for garnering a large hatedom attributed to some design decisions of Modern Warfare 2 and the Infinity Ward CEO sacking fiasco afterwards, to a degree that it fostered Metacritic bombings and a very vocal flame war on both sides, particularly since the Call of Duty franchise is now one of the biggest-selling out there. Those arguments also extend to modern shooters in general.
A war within the Nintendo fandom has brewed since 2010 due to the influence of Sean Malstrom. On one side stand the "Orthodox" Nintendo fans, who just enjoy the games for what they are and tend to like whatever Nintendo gives them, on the other are the Malstromites, who tend to like only the Nintendo games that adhere to the Blue Ocean strategy. Things get heated in that the Malstromites tend to view those Nintendo games that do not adhere to the strategy as being actively destructive for Nintendo, and thus begin to flame games like Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, or Metroid: Other M, or even call for the firing of Satoru Iwata, Yoshio Sakamoto, and Shigeru Miyamoto, much to the dismay of Orthodox fans.
Mass Effect 2 has become this ever since a series of reviews were made popular, both of which torn into the main plot, highlighting what they perceived as faults. BioWare's forum has been lit up with crusader-esque assaults from both sides while constructive criticism is lost in a slew of ranting.
Many Ace Attorney fans debate as too whether Phoenix being disbarred was a good move or not. There are also many flame wars over Phoenix vs. Apollo debates...
Do NOT mention Player VersusPlayer on the City of Heroes forum, nor should you take a side in the "The writing is good/the writing sucks" debate without first donning a helmet.
The very bitter contentious arguments over the hardware specs of the Wii U, and whether or not it is "next-gen". Hoo boy!!, the arguments are so intense you would have thought someone denied/justified the Holocaust. Both sides are vocal, but dissenters are the most vitriolic. Probably doesn't help that game developers give conflicting opinions about the system and it's capabilities. Either way the passion is dumbfounding.
WRPGS vs.JRPGS , dear God you can't even mention WRPGS and JRPGS in the same sentence withourt starting a huge flame war on most gaming forums.
The League of Legends community forums, over just about anything from changes made to the game to what country should be allowed to even play on it.
Dawn Of War VS. Starcraft. They're both science fiction strategy games with similar concepts for units, factions and gameplay. Add to the fact that there is an Urban Legend of Zelda that Starcraft was originally intended as a Warhammer 40000 game that Blizzard Entertainment couldn't get the creative license for, and it is ensured that any comparison or mention of the two games will devolve into slug-fests, mostly from 40K's very vocal Fan Dumb deriding Starcraft as a cheap knock-off. Nevermind that Games Workshop openly admit that many of the designs for their races have some basis of inspiration, but most of these fans either don't know or care about this.
There's an ongoing argument between Silent Hill fans over whether or not the games produced by Team Silent are better than those produced by Climax, whether recent games are more action orineted than their survival horror predecessors, and whether or not the second game is a Tough Act to Follow or extremely overrated.
