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Splatoon 3
Splatoon 3 (2022)
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Attachment Following the 2024 Splatoon 3 world championships, Nintendo released a commemorative Splashtag banner depicting the winning team, Jackpot. However, shortly afterwards, the team became embroiled in controversy following allegations of racist comments and behavior both in and out of the game. Nintendo subsequently issued a statement on Twitter announcing that Jackpot's victory would be rescinded and that their banner would be redesigned due to them violating the game's community guidelines. Consequently, the Version 9.0.0 update replaced the design with a placeholder one depicting generic Inklings and Octolings. Nintendo additionally removed footage and social media posts of the championship from their website and social media accounts and pulled the Nintendo Switch News article announcing Jackpot's win.
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Artwork/Illustration, Competitive, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Social Media, Update Difference, Version Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 13, 2024
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Hard Time III
Hard Time III (2024)
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Celebrity, Character Design, Easter Egg, Legal Affairs, Parody, Real Life, Reference, Similarities
person VinchVolt calendar_month October 3, 2024
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The Slaughtering Grounds
The Slaughtering Grounds (2014)
subdirectory_arrow_right Digital Homicide Studios (Company)
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On March 16, 2016, Digital Homicide's co-founder James Romine filed a lawsuit against video game critic Jim Sterling for "assault, libel, and slander" for releasing negative reviews of their output, starting with a review of their debut game The Slaughtering Grounds in late 2014, and sought $10 million in damages. Sterling had also accused the developers of deleting negative reviews from the game's Steam page and banning users who criticized it. This conflict would go on for almost a year, with the asking price being raised to $15 million at one point, until the parties settled and the case was dismissed with prejudice on February 21, 2017.
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Censorship, Complaint, Corporate Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Reviews
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month September 15, 2024
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Article about the lawsuit:
https://kotaku.com/angered-game-developer-sues-game-critic-jim-sterling-fo-1765484317

The Jimquisition - "SLAUGHTERING GROUNDS - New 'Worst Game Of 2014' Contender":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfI7pAaOH9c

The Jimquisition - "WYATT DERP - And 17 Other Games From Digital Homicide":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoNDahSe5J4

The Jimquisition - "The Slaughtering Grounds: A Steam Meltdown Saga":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6s0Wpn1zmU

Article about the lawsuit aftermath:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/2/14781112/jim-sterling-lawsuit-defamation-result
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Platform), Game Boy (Platform)
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Attachment Popular conceptions about Nintendo's release history in Europe claim that their hardware was never released in the former Eastern Bloc until the 21st century. Rather, these countries instead saw the proliferation of various clone consoles called "Famiclones", such as the Dendy (a Taiwanese-built bootleg that achieved widespread popularity in the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up of the ex-republics of the former Soviet Union) and the Pegasus (which became as popular in Poland as the Dendy did in Eastern Europe). However, while Famiclones did indeed dominate the Eastern European gaming market during the 1990s, Nintendo was not only aware of this, but actively attempted to halt the spread of bootlegs in these regions in favor of officially sanctioned products.

In 1994, Nintendo made a deal with Steepler, the Dendy's distributor in Eastern Europe, to permit continued sale of the Dendy in exchange for equal distribution of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy in the Commonwealth of Independent States; official Russian releases of these systems even included Dendy stickers on the packaging to reflect the arrangement. Meanwhile, in various other parts of the former Eastern Bloc, Nintendo made deals with other third-party distributors; among others, the NES, SNES, and Game Boy saw official releases in Poland, Hungary, and the former territories of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia during 1993–1994.
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Anti-Piracy, Box Art, Console Difference, Copyright, Corporate Affairs, Legal Affairs, Misconception, Piracy, Real Life, Regional Difference, Release Date
person VinchVolt calendar_month August 23, 2024
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City of Heroes
City of Heroes (2004)
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On April 15, 2019, it was discovered that a private server based on City of Heroes at the time of its shutdown had been running in secret for six years following the game's discontinuation. Three days later, the source code for this server was distributed, leading to the creation of a public server based on the code. Although this server was shut down by April 22 due to possible legal threats, multiple servers based on this code had since been set up. The most prominent of these offshoot servers was known as "Homecoming", who even went as far as to negotiate with NCsoft for the legal right to keep the server running. Years later, their efforts would pay off, as on January 4, 2024, it was announced that the team behind "Homecoming" had acquired a server license to run an official version of City of Heroes and its expansions, free to play and funded by donations.
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Copyright, Corporate Affairs, Delisted, Fan Works, General, Leak, Legal Affairs, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month August 4, 2024
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Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong (1981)
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Attachment According to court documents related to the 1983 legal case Universal City Studios, Inc v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 19 alternate names considered for Donkey Kong included:

• Funny Kong
• Kong the Kong
• Jack Kong
• Funky Kong
• Bill Kong
• Steel Kong
• Giant Kong
• Big Kong
• Kong Down
• Kong Dong
• Mr. Kong
• Custom Kong
• Kong Chase
• Kong Boy
• Kong Man
• Kong Fighter
• Wild Kong
• Rookie Kong
• Kong Holiday

The name "Funky Kong" would coincidentally re-emerge as a character in Donkey Kong Country.
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Coincidence, Development, Early Idea, Legal Affairs, Name Change, Title
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month June 24, 2024
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Shining Nikki
Shining Nikki (2019)
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In 2020, to celebrate the launch of Shining Nikki in South Korea, Paper Games released a series of in-game wardrobe items based on the hanbok, a traditional Korean dress. This led to complaints from Chinese players, who objected to the hanbok being treated as a traditional Korean item and claimed that it was actually rooted in Chinese culture. On November 4, Paper Games released a statement supporting the argument that the hanbok was not Korean, and that "as a Chinese company, we want to reiterate that our stance is always consistent with our country China." They also announced that any accounts spreading misinformation about China or trying to insult the country would be blocked, implying that arguing that the hanbok was Korean counted as an offense. The hanbok items were ultimately removed from the game a day later.

This caused backlash from Korean players, who retaliated by deleting the game and applying for refunds for in-app purchases. On November 6, the game was delisted from Korean stores, resulting in demands that Paper Games be investigated for stealing Korea's cultural heritage and closing the service without offering compensation. This got to the point where Lee Sang-heon, a Democratic Party lawmaker from South Korea's National Assembly, called out Paper Games for siding with false claims from Chinese netizens and directing criticism towards Korean users. He also warned that their actions had violated South Korea's fair trade rules as they did not offer refunds and compensations prior to pulling the game from the country.
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Apology, Censorship, Complaint, Customization, Delisted, General, Legal Affairs, Misconception, Politics, Press Release, Real Life, Social Media, Update Difference
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month June 3, 2024
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Tetris
Tetris (1988)
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Attachment The original release of the 1988 DOS version of Tetris features an animation on the title screen where a white Cessna airplane flies over the title logo; after the opening scroll, it reappears while dragging a banner that reads "PLAY TETRIS!" This sequence references Mathias Rust, a West German teenager who illegally piloted a Cessna from Uetersen Airfield to Moscow the previous year in an attempt to relieve tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, landing near Red Square.

Rust's flight was a major embarrassment for the Soviet military due to him disproving the notion that their defenses were ironclad. Consequently, later revisions of the game removed the animation on orders from ELORG, the Soviet Union's state-sponsored computer company and the owners of the Tetris license at the time.
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Easter Egg, Legal Affairs, Politics, Real Life, Reference, Update Difference, Version Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 29, 2024
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The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Tetris_(DOS,_Spectrum_HoloByte)#Title_Screen

Smithsonian Magazine article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/the-notorious-flight-of-mathias-rust-7101888/

BBC article:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20609795
Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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Attachment Within the data for Chapter 2 is a placeholder graphic for Queen's arcade cabinet that depicts it with green paneling and the word "XBOX" crudely written on the marquee. Despite the fact that it was never intended to be featured in the normal course of play, the sprite was altered in the version 1.06 update to remove the "XBOX" text, presumably to avoid potential trademark issues.
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Development, Legal Affairs, Placeholder, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Unused Graphic, Update Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 27, 2024
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Fortnite
Fortnite (2017)
subdirectory_arrow_right Epic Games (Company)
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In May 2024, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) fined Epic Games €1,125,000 for using "unfair commercial practices" aimed at children in Fortnite. The investigation found that Epic Games "exploited [the] vulnerabilities" of children through design choices in the game's Item Shop. Examples include the use of demanding phrases like "get it now" or "buy now" on certain advertisements, which the ACM deemed an "illegal aggressive commercial practice", as well as countdown timers that were used on some ads for items still available in the shop after the countdown ended, exploiting a fear of missing out by making items that were still available for sale falsely seem scarce. Epic Games immediately made changes to the game in response to this report, including removing countdown timers worldwide and adding time indicators for shop refreshes and item removal dates. As of May 24, 2024, players under 18 years of age in the Netherlands can only see items available for 48 hours or more in the store. However, the company still planned to appeal the decision, claiming that the ACM's findings contain factual errors about how Fortnite and the Item Shop operate.
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Complaint, False Advertising, Financial Affairs, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Removed Feature, Update Difference
person ProtoSnake calendar_month May 19, 2024
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Deltarune
Deltarune (TBA)
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Attachment Although Chapter 1 was given a surprise release in 2018, with Toby Fox giving no prior public indications of its existence, Deltarune had been teased in secret since at least 2015. Three months after Undertale released, the fan site DeltaRune.com announced that it would be rebranding to Dreemurr.com at Fox's request; Fox didn't tell the owners of Dreemurr.com why he didn't want them to use the domain. However, after the fan site fulfilled his request, Fox used deltarune.com to host an image called him.png, a passage of Wingdings text only readable by turning up the brightness using image editing software.

While the text initially parroted the phrase "THIS NEXT (space) EXPERIMENT (space) SEEMS (space) VERY (space) VERY (space) INTERESTING" from the unused room_gaster event in Undertale, by July 1, 2016, the text was edited to read "THREE HEROES APPEARED (space) AT WORLD'S EDGE", later being edited again by August 17 to say "THREE HEROES APPEARED (space) TO BANISH THE ANGELS HEAVEN". Both revisions quote portions of the legend that Ralsei recounts in Chapter 1, indicating that these parts of the game's backstory were already conceived by this point.

Following the release of Chapter 1, deltarune.com would be refurbished as the official website for Deltarune itself. Consequently, earlier versions of the site only survive through snapshots on the Wayback Machine, a URL archiving platform hosted by the Internet Archive.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Backstory/Lore, Development, Easter Egg, Hidden Message, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Secret, Teaser, Website
person VinchVolt calendar_month May 13, 2024
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SimCity
SimCity (1989)
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Attachment In the original release of the game, the monster that the player could summon to attack the city was a thinly veiled parody of Godzilla, right down to using the character's iconic roar from the film series; the sound effect is even named "God" in the game's files, furthering the reference. The Godzilla parody is also depicted on the game's box art, gleefully waving at the viewer.

According to programmer Don Hopkins, who notably ported SimCity to numerous versions of Unix, Maxis ended up getting sued by Toho, the owners of the Godzilla franchise; additional details were recounted to him by Maxis CEO Jeff Braun:

"We never referred to the name Godzilla, our monster on the box cover was a T-Rex looking character, but... a few magazine reviews called the monster, Godzilla. That was all it took. Toho called it "confusion in the marketplace". We paid $50k for Godzilla to go away. In all honesty, Toho liked Maxis, they said $50k was the minimum they take for Godzilla infringement."

As a result of this suit, the monster was redesigned in the v1.2 release to resemble a giant orange salamander. The creature's roar is also changed and the game's box art is redesigned to replace the Godzilla parody with a tornado. In the v1.3 release, the salamander is given a slightly larger and more detailed sprite to fit the revised art style, but its roar (now internally renamed "Monster") is corrupted.
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Artwork/Illustration, Censorship, Character Design, Glitch, Legal Affairs, Magazine, Parody, Plagiarism, Reference, Release Difference, Reviews, Sprite/Graphical Animation, Version Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month April 22, 2024
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The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/SimCity_(Mac_OS_Classic)#Godzilla_vs._Notzilla

Don Hopkins testimony in a Hacker News post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40050799

MobyGames gallery showcasing the different box art designs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/848/simcity/covers/
Cooking Mama: Cookstar
Cooking Mama: Cookstar (2020)
subdirectory_arrow_right Yum Yum Cookstar (Game)
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Yum Yum Cookstar appears to have been made as some kind of contingency over Cooking Mama: Cookstar's legal disputes, being made by the same developers and publishers and having gone on sale on Steam a mere week before Cooking Mama: Cookstar was withdrawn from sale. While it is not known to what extent Yum Yum Cookstar is based on Cooking Mama: Cookstar, it does have a substantial difference in gameplay, having a psuedo-rhythm element that does not exist in the latter game.

Some prints of the box art have a printed sticker noting the game's connection to Cooking Mama: Cookstar, in spite of the controversy. The official website, TikTok account, and trailers for Yum Yum Cookstar proclaim the game to be made by "the creators of the best-selling hitgame[sic] Cookstar" (without acknowledging the Cooking Mama series by name) and use the slogan "This ain't your mama's kitchen!". The veracity of the claim of the first Cookstar being a best-seller is not known as sales figures have not been released.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Asset Reuse, Box Art, Complaint, Delisted, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Social Media, Website
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month April 11, 2024
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)
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Attachment Shortly after the game's release in 2020, the government of China ordered gray market online storefronts to stop selling the game. While no official reason was given for the ban, fans and analysts speculated that it was due to players in Hong Kong using the game's customization features and online connectivity to broadcast messages in support of protests that were occurring at the time against changes to the region's extradition laws. Around the same time, the game was also used by Joe Biden's campaign team to advertise his candidacy in the 2020 United States presidential election by creating a dedicated island and customizable items.

16 days after the election in November, Nintendo updated the game's Usage Guidelines for Businesses and Organizations, significantly narrowing how they could use the game for advertising. This included a rule requesting that offensive content be refrained from being created in-game, along with a statement asking to "refrain from bringing politics into the Game." However, this rule does not clarify what "politics" specifically Nintendo wanted to keep out of the game, and it appears to be in effect for any content created after the update, as it seems that none of the Hong Kong protest content or the Biden campaign's promotional content were taken down.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Censorship, Corporate Affairs, Legal Affairs, Politics, Real Life, Update Difference
person VinchVolt calendar_month March 28, 2024
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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On April 8th, 2022 (the American release date for the film "Sonic the Hedgehog 2"), former Archie Comics writer Ken Penders revealed that he was contacting his legal team in regards to the Echidnas and their backstory featured in the film. According to Penders, both Knuckles' unnamed father and the workings of the film's depiction of the Master Emerald were derivitive of two of his characters, Locke and Enerjak. Despite the fact that the powers of the game version of the Master Emerald had been established back in 1994 with the release of Sonic & Knuckles, Penders has claimed to have legal ownership over the ideas he created in 1996. However, as of March 2024, no lawsuit has materialized.
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Backstory/Lore, Complaint, General, Legal Affairs, Multimedia Adaptation, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month March 25, 2024
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WWE 2K24
WWE 2K24 (2024)
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Attachment In early February 2024, one month prior to the game's release, multi-time WWE World Champion Brock Lesnar was removed from the cover of the "Forty Years of WrestleMania" showcase edition of the game in response to a sexual assault and sex trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE. Although Lesnar's name was not directly mentioned in the lawsuit, his reported connection to the case led to his removal as part of a wider effort by the WWE to disassociate from him. The cover was updated to feature a larger version of John Cena, where Lesnar used to be.

Content creators who got early access to the game on February 23 confirmed that both Lesnar and McMahon were no longer playable characters in WWE 2K24. While the extent of McMahon's removal is unknown, Brock Lesnar’s data remains locked away in the game due to his matches with The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 30 and Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania 31 being featured in the "Showcase of the Immortals" Showcase mode, and it being too far into development to remove them.
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Artwork/Illustration, Box Art, Censorship, Corporate Affairs, Development, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Removed Feature, Unused Character
person ProtoSnake calendar_month February 20, 2024
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Brock Lesnar Removed From WWE 2K24 Special Edition Cover:
https://www.ign.com/articles/brock-lesnar-removed-from-wwe-2k24-special-edition-cover

Brock Lesnar's replacement on WWE 2K24 cover revealed:
https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/news-brock-lesnar-s-replacement-wwe-2k24-cover-revealed

[Below source and additional info provided by SOGESNAKE.]

WWE 2K24 Final Roster Confirms Removal of Brock Lesnar and Vince McMahon:
https://www.ign.com/articles/wwe-2k24-final-roster-confirms-removal-of-brock-lesnar-and-vince-mcmahon
Gyakuten Kenji 2
Gyakuten Kenji 2 (2011)
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Frank Sahwit, the culprit of "The First Turnabout" (the first episode of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), plays a major role in the second episode of Ace Attorney Investigations 2, "Gokuchū no Gyakuten" (roughly translated to "Reversal in Prison"). This is notable in that it suggests that not everybody convicted of homicide is given either a life sentence or the death penalty in the Ace Attorney series, as it's implied that he would have been eligible for parole after the events of the case had he not Spoiler:served as Marie Miwa's accomplice in the murder of Manosuke Naitou. This is consistent with real life, as Frank had committed a second-degree murder (a murder which occurs in the spur of the moment) rather than a first-degree murder (which are premediated). Additionally, given the short amount of time he had served prior to his near-parole (around two years and nine months), it's possible that Sahwit had been convicted of a lesser crime such as manslaughter since the first game did not indicate that he had actively intended to murder Cindy Stone.
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Backstory/Lore, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month February 18, 2024
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Franchise: Sonic The Hedgehog
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In August 2016, Scott Fulop, a former editor and writer for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics (whose notable contributions include the characters Mammoth Mogul and the Fearsome Foursome), began pursuing legal action against Archie Comics for the unauthorized use of his characters and reprinted stories. He was inspired to do so by fellow former writer Ken Penders, who had also infamously sued Archie for similar reasons. However, on September 5, 2017, Fulop ultimately lost his lawsuit.
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General, Legal Affairs, Multimedia Adaptation, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month February 7, 2024
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Postal
Postal (1997)
subdirectory_arrow_right Running With Scissors (Company)
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Running with Scissors wanted to make "the most outrageous game they could", and began work on Postal after being inspired by Robotron: 2084. In 1997, they filed a trademark for the word "Postal" in the area of electronic gaming, but were soon counter-filed by the United States Postal Service, who claimed to be moving into video games: Marvin Travis Runyon, the United States Postmaster General at the time, even sent Running with Scissors a latter condemning the game's theme. The legal battle was ultimately dismissed with prejudice in June 2004.

The theme was also highly controversial not just within the larger media, but also within the video game industry. This was a surprise to CEO Vince Desi, who felt Postal was more comical and over-the-top, and stated that the game was not meant to be taken seriously. After it was released, Postal was targeted by Senator Joe Lieberman, who called the game "one of the worst things in America". Additionally, retail chains such as CompUSA and Walmart refused to sell the game.
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Complaint, Development, General, Inspiration, Legal Affairs, Real Life
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month February 3, 2024
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Platform: Nintendo Switch
subdirectory_arrow_right Nintendo (Company)
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In 2020, hackers Gary Bowser and Max "MAXiMiLiEN" Louarn were arrested and extradited to the United States for money laundering and selling products meant to crack the Nintendo Switch's copy protection to run pirated copies of games. The two were members of Team Xecuter, a hacking group which specialized in similar measures for a large number of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft consoles. In 2021, Bowser pled guilty on conspiracy and trafficking charges and was sentenced to 40 months in prison; Nintendo later filed a separate civil suit against him, which together with the prison sentence left him $14.5 million in debt. The company's legal department claimed during the court case that the unusually severe punishments were intended to send a chilling effect through the piracy world, intimidating would-be hackers by using Bowser's punishment as an example.

Following the case, multiple news outlets noted the irony of Gary Bowser's last name, which is shared with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser and Mario series antagonist Bowser.
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Anti-Piracy, Corporate Affairs, Financial Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Piracy, Real Life
person ProtoSnake calendar_month February 2, 2024
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