Which game series had the worst anniversary celebration? - Those are supposed to be special events, but some games just insult the players instead.

[Thiletonomics]

Game anniversaries used to be a special event for games, whether it'd be in-game events, special merchandise, or media. However, in recent years, anniversaries have become the bare minimum of celebrations, and in some cases, games even introduce changes to piss off the players instead. What are some examples of bad game anniversaries?

One example is Battlefield's 20th Anniversary, where DICE celebrated by just adding Player Cards to Battlefield 2042:



Another example would be Hearthstone's recent 10th anniversary, which introduce more Pay-to-win changes, i.e. locking early access cards behind pre-release bundles, adding more and more card bundles to the store that can cost $60+, and nerfing Weekly Quests so that players have to do more to earn a little bit more XP. This sums up HS's 10th anniversary as a whole:

 

[HyperboreanRightsActivist]

My 1 year wedding anniversary probably

 

[Chin of Campbell]

Pretty sure Sonic '06 was an anniversary game.

 

[modern horrors]

Half-Life 2's upcoming 20 year anniversary on November 16th will be the worst.
Source: my ass.

 

[Nicholas II of Russia]

/thread

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

I'm pretty sure Rockstar only released the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition for GTA III's (and by extension, Vice City and soon to be San Andreas) 20th Anniversaries.

Edit: They might have released some T shirts in GTA Online too. Can't remember for sure.

2nd Edit: I think they also released the main trios default shirts and suit in GTA Online for the GTA V 10 year anniversary.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I don't know if this counts, but there was one game, I forget which (sorry OP) where they had a big anniversary, and the company refused to acknowledge it. As in, not even a Tweet.

 

[Whatevermancer]

Unreal Tournament 2004 had its 20 year anniversary recently.
What did Epic Games do to celebrate it? Nothing.

 

[modern horrors]

Unreal Tournament 2004 had its 20 year anniversary recently.
What did Epic Games do to celebrate it? Nothing.

Didn't they also made the entire Unreal series unavailable for purchase in all digital stores before that? Can't celebrate what you can't play anymore.

 

[Whatevermancer]

Didn't they also made the entire Unreal series unavailable for purchase in all digital stores before that? Can't celebrate what you can't play anymore.

Yeah, the fact that they unlisted them speaks volumes all by itself.

 

[D.Angus]

Unreal Tournament 2004 had its 20 year anniversary recently.
What did Epic Games do to celebrate it? Nothing.

This. I got really excited when I saw UT was on a list for potential crossovers for Fortnite, I have a feeling they're going to do the same to Jazz too.

 

[AeroGavin Rossdale]

In the run up to Titanfall 2's 7th anniversary, Respawn suddenly started fixing bugs and DDoS issues. Patch notes and messages of the day started putting out cryptic messages about the number 3. Even the fans who resisted the Copium of TF3 were excited Respawn was at least paying attention to TF again. The weekened came at it was just a new game mode no one really liked for a limited time. Turns out Respawn had contracted out TF2 consumer facing stuff to a discord tranny janny who did it all of his own volition. So not only did Respawn not care, they cared so little they didn't notice their contractor had been working the fanbase up into a frenzy with hidden messages for a month promising something special.

Being a pilot is suffering.

 

[Local FloRida-man]

The sims had their 20th a while back and all they did was give away a reskinned hottub.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

If I had to bet, it would probably be some Gacha shit with the overly autistic fans having insane expectations and the devs doing unpopular changes, resulting in death threats and the game shutting down

 

[LazyLizard]

Didn't they also made the entire Unreal series unavailable for purchase in all digital stores before that? Can't celebrate what you can't play anymore.

oh shit didn't know they did that, good thing i bought them on GoG ages ago

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Not the worst but one that personally pissed me the fuck off the most was megamans 25th anniversary. They released a free mega x streetfighter flash game, it was pretty good but it was literally just some dudes's fan game they presented as there own. The thing that made it sting was this was right after they canceled both megaman universe, a stage builder megaman game years before mario maker and megaman legends 3, a game people had wanted for over a decade but canceled at the very last minute because not enough people downloaded there  PAID demo. After this the megaman series basically went into hibernation for a decade until the legacy collection games sold well enough for them to make megaman 11 but for years the final hurrah of megaman was some dude's fan game.

 

[X Prime]

Not the worst but one that personally pissed me the fuck off the most was megamans 25th anniversary. They released a free mega x streetfighter flash game, it was pretty good but it was literally just some dudes's fan game they presented as there own. The thing that made it sting was this was right after they canceled both megaman universe, a stage builder megaman game years before mario maker and megaman legends 3, a game people had wanted for over a decade but canceled at the very last minute because not enough people downloaded there  PAID demo. After this the megaman series basically went into hibernation for a decade until the legacy collection games sold well enough for them to make megaman 11 but for years the final hurrah of megaman was some dude's fan game.

It's only gotten worse.

For example, all the Mega Man X 30th anniversary got was some Amazon clothes, X Dive being cancelled while still making money with the devs working on characters, and NFTs.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Unreal Tournament 2004 had its 20 year anniversary recently.
What did Epic Games do to celebrate it? Nothing.

Sadly, given how bad recent game anniversaries are, maybe it was for the best that Epic Games didn't butcher UT.

Back to back anniversaries, Wizards of the Coast had the idea to sell proxy version packs of the original Magic: The Gathering Alpha/Beta/Unlimited set, as the 30th Anniversary Edition, for $1000 for 4 packs.

 

[Two Dollars]

Here’s how Nintendo celebrated Super Mario Bros.’s 35th anniversary:

• They removed Mario 3D All Stars from the eShop and stopped selling it in stores to get FOMO sales so people would care less that it was a lazy overpriced cash grab collection
• They removed Super Mario Bros. 35 from the eShop and shut down the servers, making it completely unplayable
• They removed the ability to upload levels in Super Mario Maker 1 (they also shut this feature down a few days earlier than announced because people were - to Nintendo’s horror - trying to back up the Bookmark site before it was taken down)
• They also took down the original NES Fire Emblem from the eShop on the same day because… reasons?

All of these were marketed as positives that made the anniversary feel more special.

 

[The Backwards Man]

Halo CEA, can't get much worse than inferior visuals for a then 10 year old game made by people who hated Halo.