2024 was a big year for gaming, and so naturally it was also a big year for gaming-related controversies. While hand-wringing over fears that "videogames cause violence" seems to have subsided, at least for now, political and culture wars nonsense is more pronounced than ever. The videogame industry itself, meanwhile, continued to suffer decimation as funding dried up and executives who overplayed their hands during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic slashed headcounts in the name of "sustainability." There's no other way to put it: It got ugly out there.
Of course, there were plenty of conventional fumbles too: Dissembling, dishonesty, and some straight-up bad calls provided plenty of "things that actually happened" for gamers to be unhappy about. From Facebook rejecting ads for board games to a weird cat game accused of being built with AI, here's our roundup of the year's biggest lowlights.
