Hottest Mess 2025: Part 1 (Hopefully?)

Would you be surprised to learn this image comes from a pro-AI site? (Image Source: Digiday)

For the past three months, I've been writing versions of this intro in my head. And basically every day during that time, I've made significant changes to it. Until, oh, a week ago, I wasn't sure if I should even bother writing this blog because of an obvious winner. But now hot messes are all the rage, with a truly unprecedented amount of corporate fuckery coming to this very site. Rather than go quietly into that dark night, I've opted to dance around like a silver-maddened prospector, slapping my virtual hat against my knee while "hee-hee-hee"ing about. Which is a fancy way of saying: here are some hot messes in a year already chock-goshdarn-full of them.

Presumptive Winner Until Last Week: The United States Government

This is an illustration of the trade war's impact, not a threat or implication. Apparently I have to specify that now! (Image Source: Thrillist)

In order to list the ways this entity is a shitshow without hitting the character limit, I'm restricting it to more direct impacts on video games. As quaint as it seems now, the USA got off to a rollicking start by banning TikTok in the country. This ban temporarily restricted access to Marvel SNAP, which is published by a subsidiary of ByteDance. After it came back online, the developer announced it wanted to find a new publisher for the game (which it eventually did). Then we got to the all-on clusterfuck of tariffs. Tariffs have already raised the price of video games, delayed the Nintendo Switch 2 preorder in the US and Canada, and the ESA denounced them as having a "real and detrimental impact" on the video game industry as a whole. Companies such as Razer and RetroTINK halted orders based in the US due to uncertainty on whether they could deliver the items at anything less than an exorbitant loss. The global impact of the tariffs even raised the price of the PS5, a system that is nearly 5 years old. And this is before tariffs truly fuck with the supply chain! Honestly, I should just raise this jersey to the rafters now so we even have a little bit of competition, I say while taking a huge sip of water and reading the next entry on my li-

Shit, I Guess We Have Ourselves A Competition: Fandom

Imagine I'm clever enough to insert a poop emoji in place of the heart (Image Source: TechCrunch)

This is a developing story, and it sounds like there are people inside the company advocating for Giant Bomb. While I do respect that, I by no means extend a shred of that respect towards the Fandom brand. I am continuously dumbfounded by the lack of knowledge that the people in charge of decision-making have about what makes their products even remotely appealing. According to Semafor, tech CEOs spend approximately 14 hours a day sniffing their own farts in insulated chat rooms, so I guess that's why they think nobody else does real work either. The least you hoopleheads could do is fuck off to your ayahuasca caves and collect passive income while letting your worker bees make stuff we enjoy. I felt like in the "Department of Government Efficiency" era that I'd lost my capacity for surprise about how stupid and incurious rich people could be, but I guess I should never underestimate that force. Run naked backwards through a field of dicks, whoever made the PG-13 mandate.

But Against All Odds, I'm Posting The Other Contenders

It's actually a pretty solid fight for the bronze medal so far this year, though one in particular is my current front-runner. As always, I'm presenting them in alphabetical order so you can make your own judgments.

• Christopher Barrett - The former Bungie developer sued his ex-employer in a payment dispute, only for him to be exposed as a serial sexual harasser in discovery. Oops!
• Discord - The app used begrudgingly by most of its base required some users to scan their faces for "age verification".
• Electronic Arts - (deep breath) The concept art for the next Battlefield game used a real-life photo of an explosion in Gaza. The company blamed its underperformance last year on Dragon Age: The Veilguard and EA FC not meeting expectations; it later added Apex Legends to that list when it laid a bunch of people off this week. It gutted Bioware and made them all-in on Mass Effect 5 for their survival, while simultaneously misleading reassigned staff about what they would be working on. Back to Veilguard for a sec - the CEO also claimed it would have done better as a live service game, which is certainly a unique sentiment. Finally, it launched its Sims 1+2 Remaster in an extremely rough shape.
• GameStop - The company closed stores in France and Canada, blaming "liberalism, socialism, progressivism, wokeness, and DEI". It announced a pivot to bitcoin as its primary business, with retail stores a stated second priority.
• Gamurs - Quiet layoffs conducted over multiple months led to the mothballing of entire websites, such as Attack of the Fanboy and PC Invasion. It also siloed The Escapist into basically just publishing Roblox guides.
• God Is A Geek - The entire editorial staff resigned after the site's owner performed a Nazi salute at a right-wing rally. Good on the staff for that; the owner can eat a rake sideways.
• Marvel Rivals - NetEase fired its gameplay director and their team despite the game being a massive success. Also, Emma Frost's thighs may have killed this website.
• Microsoft - The company that can't ship games prioritized an idea "generating" AI that's trained on their own games, which they feel have underperformed. Meanwhile, Activision fishes for game survey responses via fake ads with AI-generated art. According to the Zenimax union, Microsoft has also not bargained in good faith on a labor contract. Microsoft proudly unveiled a suckass AI-powered Quake preview. Finally, the company continues to enthusiastically support the ongoing genocide in Palestine with its cloud services, prompting a boycott and at least one self-delisting.
• Niantic - Sold its business to Scopely (Saudi Arabia) and laid off employees. Hey, a short entry!
• Nintendo - Charged $80 USD / 90 Euro for its upcoming new games and Switch 2 upgrade versions of old Switch games, while (some) physical carts appear to only contain authentication keys for digital download. They're also charging $10 for their new demo. It was difficult parsing their mess from the tariff mess, so I imagine their role and the backlash will be a further topic of discussion.
• Sony - Cancelled Bend and Bluepoint live-service games, with the employees finding out through news reports. It raised the price of PS Plus in Canada as well. I can't really put the PS5 price increase on them, but here's a reminder that happened if you feel differently.
• Steam - February NextFest was full of AI slop, further muddying the waters for growing small developers.
• Ubisoft - Created a new subsidiary with Tencent that houses their top 3 IPs (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six), raising a lot of questions about every single one of their other properties. At least AC Shadows sold well?
• WB Games - Shut down three studios (Monolith, Player First, and WB San Diego) and cancelled the Wonder Woman game after years of mismanagement. This guarantees the Nemesis System stays behind closed doors for an indefinite period of time as well.

I'd say I need a drink after typing all of that, but I don't want to glorify alcohol on this here website or anything. Be good to your brands, and I'll hopefully check back in during the late summer or early fall with Part 2.