From a business perspective, it’s never a smart idea for a video game to actively antagonise the very people paying hard-earned money to play it, but sometimes developers just can’t help themselves but openly display their outward judgment of players. Some players, at least.
These 10 games, most of them popular and well-received as they were – bar one or two exceptions – all made scarce little attempt to mask what they really thought of their player-base.
Whether shamelessly mocking players who wasted hundreds of hours collecting pointless digital tat, ribbing horny players craving sexy fan service, shaming pirates or straight-up showing contempt “just because”, these games all dared to poke fun at the very people playing them.
It’s a bold strategy, and in some cases resulted in a mild backlash, yet because most of these games were generally so damn good – or because the devs were undeservedly correct in their assumptions – players tended to let the thinly-veiled judgment slide for the most part…
