History ExecutiveMeddling / VideoGames

*** And in a meta example of ExecutiveMeddling, the above was almost certainly written by a Microsoft representative, as no one else would make the absurd claim that achievements - meaningless awards which can be seen only on your system - are [[YouKeepUsingThatWord "tangible"]] results.

*** It's because [[AcceptableTargets Violence is A-OK as long as it's white on white]], but people cry foul when it's White on Black. As long as it's not interracial violence, everything's ''bueno''.

* TheWitcher video game, under the hands of publisher Atari was heavily meddled to the point of unacceptable (even developer CD Projekt Red thinks so). The US version got a BlindIdiotTranslation script, removed adult content and a DRM scheme that CD Projekt Red never intended to put in (and yes, we are talking about DRM on a totally single-player game). Not until the Enchanced Edition and 1.5 patch released by the original developer was things fixed, it reworked the entire script, removed the DRM scheme and many other fixes to make the game the way it was intended to be.

* According to internal sources, ''LANoire'' was fraught with Executive Meddling when Rockstar joined Team Bondi to help get the game out of DevelopmentHell. Rockstar executives would constantly veto Bondi's ideas, citing them as "insane". This battle for creative control poisoned relations between the two companies to the point that they essentially cut ties with one another. However, since the game was SavedFromDevelopmentHell and received positive reviews shortly after Rockstar's intervention, YourMileageMayVary on whether this is a case of good or bad meddling.

* According to internal sources, ''LANoire'' was fraught with Executive Meddling when Rockstar joined Team Bondi to help get the game out of DevelopmentHell. Rockstar executives would constantly veto Bondi's ideas, citing them as "insane". This battle for creative control essentially poisoned relations between the two companies that they essentially cut ties with one another. However, since the game was SavedFromDevelopmentHell and received positive reviews shortly after Rockstar's intervention, YourMileageMayVary on whether this is a case of good or bad meddling.

* The team that worked on {{Darkstalkers}} say that they'd love to make a ''Darkstalkers 4'', but {{Capcom}} doesn't want to work on anything that isn't a CashCowFranchise (eg. StreetFighter).

** But on the positive side, the villain of the first Zero game was supposed to be the real X, which would have been epic level CharacterDerailment. Meddling forced the change to [[spoiler:Copy-X.]]

* Meta example: When the Sony PSP's firmware updated to 6.31, all instances of the PSP Action Replay vanished, it was ''removed from its homepage'', and the AR devices themselves have been pulled from every distributor (such as Gamestop) that had supplied them.

* Meta example: When the Sony PSP's firmware updated to 6.31, all instances of the PSP Action Replay vanished, it was ''removed from its homepage'', and and have been pulled from every distributor (such as Gamestop) that had supplied them.

* Fans of the ''StreetsOfRage'' series gotten together to create a remake that would faithfully include character and elements from all three games, along with new gameplay concepts. The project started in 2003 and was finally finished in April of 2011, ''[[DevelopmentHell eight years later.]]'' During development, the developers supposedly contacted Sega about the project and were given the green light to proceed since the game wasn't being made for a profit. Days after the final version was released, Sega ordered a cease and desist on the developers, forcing them to yank the download link off their site. This mirrors a similar case years back where Square-Enix issued a stop on a fan who finished doing a remake of ''ChronoTrigger.'' Luckily, fans who had downloaded the Streets Of Rage remake have uploaded the game to various sites for all to obtain.

* Originally, the villains for ''Homefront'' would have been the Chinese. However, due to fears of offending China (specifically, the Chinese Ministry of Culture), the villains were instead changed to [[strike:North]] Unified Koreans.

*** Apparently, Sega released it due to fan demand, this doesn't exactly excuse Sega, though, if you think it means the fans are at fault, fans ''cannot control the system of how or when games are released'', meaning that Sega just decided to release the game, ''very likely knowing'' that the game was bugged up the ass, but didn't care because they completely knew that people would buy it because, well, it's Sonic.
** Really, at this point Sonic Team have pretty much lost the passion for their eponymous franchise, with Sega of Japan hellbent on making sure they keep the new games coming regardless. But Sega's control over the team extends beyond just Sonic: Case in point, the ''NightsIntoDreams'' sequel ''Journey of Dreams'', which Sonic Team originally wanted to develop on the Xbox360, until Sega came butting in and decided that the game would be shoehorned onto the Wii with its brand-new motion controls. And the results show too...
**** Not to mention it would've gone on Wii anyway if Yuji Naka was still at Sonic Team, he's gone on record saying that the Wii is the perfect platform for NiGHTS. The IR pointer would've been ''perfect'' had it not been implemented so bizzarely.
** Frankly, almost everything Sega has done with the Sonic franchise in the past decade could be considered an example. Sega seems more focused on quantity over quality, having released many Sonic titles since 2000 and most of them have been panned either by reviewers or fans.

* The [[SoBadItsHorrible notorious]] ''{{Legend of Zelda}}'' and ''SuperMarioBros'' games on the Phillips CD-i system were a result of several years' worth of Executive Meddling. During the early nineties, just as Sega was coming out with the Sega CD/Mega CD, Nintendo decided to develop [[UsefulNotes/{{SNESCDROM}} a CD-based add-on of their own for the Super Nintendo]] with Sony, one that would be able to play new, 32-bit CD-based games in addition to the original SNES library. A while into their co-operation, however, Nintendo realized that letting just anyone develop games for the CD add-on meant that Nintendo would lose their absolute control over the games released on their systems, so they decided to give Sony the cold shoulder and, completely by surprise, announced that they were going to work with Phillips on the CD add-on from there on. Nintendo's CD add-on never saw the light of day, and to compensate for their hard work, they gave Phillips the right to publish games based on four or five Nintendo characters. The worst part for Nintendo? Sony continued the project by themselves, creating the Sony {{PlayStation}}, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero which pushed Nintendo into a slump]] from which they didn't completely recover until the {{Wii}}.

* Ever wonder why ''ToejamAndEarl'' 1 & 2 were about {{Funk}} music while ''Toejam and Earl'' 3 was all about HipHop?

*** ItGetsWorse in May of 2009: Arika is now asking {{YouTube}} to wipe out videos of ''Lockjaw'', another ''Tetris'' clone. Even if said videos are of people playing the "40 Lines" mode, which has almost NOTHING to do with Arika or TGM. Cue the [[WallBanger Wall Banging]]!

*** Some horribly cynical people have suggested that some developers put ridiculously easy achievements in games as a marketing tactic, as there's a small but obsessed group of gamers out there who will buy the game just for a quick boost to their gamerscore. If it's a naff licensed game that'll sell like hot cakes with kids but otherwise hold no appeal to the "hardcore", then it might just be a worthwhile ploy.

* The [[SoBadItsHorrible notorious]] ''{{Legend of Zelda}}'' and ''SuperMarioBros'' games on the Phillips CD-i system were a result of several years' worth of Executive Meddling. During the early nineties, just as Sega was coming out with the Sega CD/Mega CD, Nintendo decided to develop [[UsefulNotes/{{SNESCDROM}} a CD-based addon of their own for the Super Nintendo]] with Sony, one that would be able to play new, 32-bit CD-based games in addition to the original SNES library. A while into their co-operation, however, Nintendo realized that letting just anyone develop games for the CD addon meant that Nintendo would lose their absolute control over the games released on their systems, so they decided to give Sony the cold shoulder and, completely by surprise, announced that they were going to work with Phillips on the CD-addon from there on. Nintendo's CD addon never saw the light of day, and to compensate for their hard work, they gave Phillips the right to publish games based on four or five Nintendo characters. The worst part for Nintendo? Sony continued the project by themselves, creating the Sony {{PlayStation}}, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero which pushed Nintendo into a slump]] from which they didn't recover until the {{Wii}}.

* ''SuperMarioBros 2'' came into being because Nintendo of America didn't think the original Japanese game of that name was different enough to the first one.

*** [[PlatformHell Not unreasonable]]. Have you ever played SMB 2? [[http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BE6F1A2D9EBBB044 Take a look]].

**** Not really fandumb, look at how well they merged the enemies of [[DokiDokiPanic Doki Doki Panic]] with the Mario cannon, like Yoshi's Island shyguys or [[SuperMarioBros3 SMB3]] Bomb-ombs. Even [[WholesomeCrossdresser Birdo]] makes a appearance now and then. this might have been a good thing [[YourMileageMayVary depending on how you look at it]]

* Ever wonder why ToejamAndEarl 1 & 2 were about {{Funk}} music while Toejam and Earl 3 was all about HipHop?

* TheWitcher video game, under the hands of publisher Atari was heavily meddled to the point of unacceptable (even developer CD Projekt Red thinks so). The US version got a BlindIdiotTranslation script, removed adult content and a DRM scheme that CD Projekt Red never intended to put in (and yes, we are talking about DRM on a totally single-player game). Not until the Enchanced Edition and 1.5 patch released by the original developer was things fixed, it reworked the entire script, removed the DRM scheme and many other fixes to make the game the way it was intended to be.

* For a game that was ''born'' from ExecutiveMeddling, we have the ''{{Spyro the Dragon}}'' franchise in all it's glory. In order to compete with the companies of [[SuperMarioBros Mario]] and [[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]], Sony realized that they needed to appeal to the "kids market" in gaming, considering most of the games in the late 90s for the {{Playstation}} were [[RatedMForMoney teen and adult oriented]]. So with the aid of Universal Games and Insomniac, they created a game that was basically [[RecycledinSPACE Sonic as a dragon]]. Funny thing is, Insomniac never had full rights to the franchise (and apparently, didn't want anything to do with it, as seen in ''Year Of the Dragon''), in which it was sold off to Universal only and it became a FranchiseZombie. Well, after the release of ''A Hero's Tail'', long runner {{Sierra}} bought the franchise, in gave it a severe ContinuityReboot (The whole Legend of Spyro series), which due to insufficient man power and funds, created a [[YourMileageMayVary controversy of the quality of the games]]. Needless to say, Activision bought out Sierra and let them keep the franchise in hopes "to have promising results," which of course, costs Sierra its better, older franchises like KingsQuest and SpaceQuest.