10 Game Companies Engaged in Intense Rivalries

 Introduction

Game companies are constantly trying to bilk the customer out of more money. It's easy to think, "Wow, they hate us," but there's one thing that game companies hate more than the consumer, and it's other game companies. Hi folks, it's Zaid Ikram, and today on Speed Tool, we're discussing 10 game companies who hate each other.

Sony vs. Nintendo: The Vintage Hatred

Getting started with number 10, it's the classic vintage hatred: Sony and Nintendo. The original modern video game rivalry was Nintendo versus Sega, but after a string of bad decisions on the part of Sega, Nintendo won that one... well, I guess kind of. They defeated their enemy, sure, but in the process, they managed to create their worst rival yet. Yes, that is a little dramatic, but there is truth to it. Back in the early '90s, Nintendo did partner with Sony to create a CD-based console, but in a public act of betrayal, they announced they were working with Philips instead just one day after Sony announced the partnership. It's an act of corporate spite you just don't see much of now. Nintendo probably was correct in terms of why they suspected that Sony's partnership was a smoke screen to get access to Nintendo's console-making knowledge and were looking to launch their console one way or the other, whether Nintendo was involved or not. I get Nintendo's thinking here, but I think it may be wasn't the correct thinking. If they had worked together, who knows? Maybe we'd get a CD-based Nintendo console that people liked rather than the disastrous Philips partnership that produced the CDI and those Zelda games. Or maybe the partnership would have launched something that would have kept Sony from ever releasing a console. The Nintendo PlayStation may have been a massive flop, a project on par with the CDI. Who knows? But instead, we got the Sony PlayStation, a system that remains a heated rival with Nintendo consoles up to this very day. While Microsoft has gotten buddy-buddy with both Nintendo and Sony, you rarely see Sony and Nintendo publicly even acknowledge each other. There are some cross-platform third-party games, but that's about it. They're pretty rare, even though the PS5 and the Switch are kind of completely different audiences - the Switch is meant for more casual players, the PS5 for the hardcore. The sense of rivalry between the two companies still burns hot to this very day.

Epic Games Store vs. Steam: The Digital Storefront Battleground

Moving on to number nine, it's the Epic Store versus Steam, which is Valve. Epic's fight with Steam is well-documented to this point, and while it's a pretty one-sided rivalry, it's still a major battleground. Steam originally launched back in September of 2003, which, wow, that's a long time ago. It's since become the de facto storefront for buying games digitally on PC. Lots of companies have tried to compete, but nobody's been able to crack that dominance. Valve is a huge company, and it's because of Steam. They had a killer app and they used it to put Steam on all of our computers, and now we all use Steam. They beat everybody else to it, including EA. Remember when they tried to do that? When they try to compete with Steam? Ha! Like, even the mighty Microsoft didn't stand a chance against Valve when they tried their best. And so far, the only real rival to Steam's domination has been the Epic Games Store. Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, has made it clear that he wants to beat Steam. One of his major talking points is the 30% cut storefronts like Steam and Apple get from developers. He's explicitly complained about these rent-seeking software distribution middlemen, which is a legitimate complaint. But, I mean, that's what he wants to be, a rent-seeking software distribution middleman, like the Epic Store, isn't that? And also, I'm not buying the little guy talk either. Fortnite is one of the most profitable games of all time. Woe is me isn't exactly a real-sounding statement out of this guy's mouth. Still, that 30% fee is one of the primary motivators in the creation of the Epic Games Store, which, to be fair, does offer a much more equitable 12% fee. For the most part, Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell, hasn't had much to say on the matter. Valve is notoriously tight-lipped on stuff. But there have been moments where the rivalry heats up, like when Valve investigated the Epic Store accessing Steam files, or when Valve unanimously banned crypto games while Epic Games embraced them. But for the most part, it's a fight that's mostly going on behind closed doors. Still, the hate is real.

Respawn Entertainment vs. Activision: Fallout from Modern Warfare 2

And number eight is Respawn Entertainment versus Activision. You've heard of Call of Duty, right? That was a big one. But after putting out the game that made the series a household name, Modern Warfare 2, Activision unceremoniously fired the two guys responsible for the series' unprecedented success. Those two guys were Jason West and Vince Zampella, the former heads of Infinity Ward and the guys behind Respawn Entertainment. So what happened? Well, there's a lot of he said, she said type stuff in that story, but the gist of it is that West and Zampella weren't happy with the royalties they were getting off the Call of Duty franchise. Activision alleged that they were in talks with EA and conspiring to jump ship and just fired both of them outright. Sure, Activision poached these guys from EA after they worked on Medal of Honor, but now that EA is allegedly doing it to them, it's unacceptable. And they hadn't even done it. Unsurprisingly, both of these guys were pretty bitter about the experience, especially when you consider the next move they made was joining up with EA and forming Respawn. Reading interviews at the time, you can tell they were not happy with Activision. By all counts, Activision was pretty upset about the whole thing too.

Blizzard vs. NetEase: Partnership Woes in China

And number seven is Blizzard versus Netease. China is one of the largest gaming markets in the world, but to gain access to that massive user base, a foreign company like Blizzard has to form a partnership with a Chinese company. And this is where the Blizzard-Netease partnership began in 2008. It was smooth sailing for both companies up till 2023 when Blizzard publicly announced they were ending their partnership with Netease. We don't know the exact reason for the split, but anonymous insiders have claimed it's because Netease wanted to make changes to their commercial partnership agreement. They wanted more money, and Blizzard didn't want to pay up. It's also possible Netease wanted something that would have affected Blizzard's control over its intellectual property. Quoting from a Reuters article, "Don't know to what extent that has actual truth in it. Netease denied it, but it's possible. I mean, we're talking about pretty big companies at this point. Pretending that big companies don't want control is kind of stupid. And what other reason would Blizzard back away from such a lucrative deal? The anger over the entire situation didn't stop there. Netease did a livestream where they destroyed a World of Warcraft statue. And when Blizzard came crawling back to propose a six-month extension of the deal, Netease just straight up refused. In 2024, the two companies managed to reach an agreement both sides were happy with, and Blizzard games are back in China again. But still, that was a rocky little tense time they got going. That was kind of a pretty intense beef.

Rockstar Games vs. True Crime Series: GTA's Unrivaled Dominance

At number six, it's Rockstar Games versus the True Crime series. If there's one company that owns the open-world crime genre, it's Rockstar. If you make a game even close to the Grand Theft Auto series, it's labeled a GTA clone. Some devs ran from that label, while others embraced it. Some games even took potshots at the GTA series, which, in hindsight, looks kind of sad. One of the more ambitious of the GTA clones was True Crime: Streets of LA. It tried to accurately model LA and had branching missions, and features that GTA games didn't. From the previews, it looked like a real Grand Theft Auto killer. But the final result was not all that impressive. Come on, you pee me run. Still, they snuck in a few potshots at the series, like this billboard on Hollywood Boulevard that's a reference to Rockstar's logo. The rivalry wasn't one-sided either. Rockstar fired back with their billboard in San Andreas, which was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. In hindsight, Rockstar didn't have anything to fear from this game. Even with all of Activision's money behind it, HCU is serious. San Andreas is one of the best games ever. Today, still. And True Crime: Streets of LA was not. If I'm going to play any True Crime game, it's going to be Sleeping Dogs, which isn't technically a True Crime game.

Fortnite vs. PUBG: Battle Royale Lawsuit

At number five, Fortnite versus PUBG. Fortnite might have been the real breakout hit of the battle royale genre, but PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was the first game in the genre to get big. Fortnite didn't even start as a battle royale game. It was more like a cooperative horde game where you built a base and defended it against hordes of zombies. That's the Save the World mode. They effectively ended developing back in 2020. This iteration of the game was never the success Epic wanted. So when they saw the success of PUBG, they said, "We can do that," and did. The spin-off mode became way more popular than the original game, and history was made. Here's the thing: Battlegrounds actually remains a pretty popular game, but it just doesn't get anywhere near the kinds of numbers Fortnite does. So it was inevitable that there would be some bitterness there. That resentment grew until 2018, when PUBG Corp filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Epic Games in Korea, claiming Fortnite copied their game. In the filing, they alleged that Epic Games stole 11 different concepts from their game, from the weapons to the compass to the map and the mechanic of a blue circle of death that slowly gets smaller as the round progresses. And they aren't wrong, exactly. Fortnite swiped those concepts from PUBG. But you can't own the copyright on those mechanics. Copyrighting game mechanics in general is looked at as a pretty scummy practice to attempt and is not possible. The Nemesis system, for instance, is an example of something that they successfully did, and no one likes that. They copyrighted that. It makes people very mad when you talk about it. But, B, I'm pretty sure somebody else could do something that's exactly like the Nemesis system. And as long as the code wasn't based on the Nemesis system's code, I don't think it would be a problem. So yeah, you can't copyright things in this way. That lawsuit was dropped a few weeks later without any explanation from PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. So I don't know why they did it in the first place. Maybe spite, who knows?

EA's Failed Bid for Take-Two: A Costly Rejection

At number four, EA trying to force-buy Take-Two. Unlike Activision or EA, which we know a lot about the nature of, Take-Two Interactive is a lot more nebulous. If you just look at their published games, you'll see a lot of stuff from the late '90s and mid-2000s that would suggest a company that has been defunct for years. But that's only because they don't publish games that much anymore. They just own publishers, which include industry giants like Private Division, T2 Mobile Games, Zynga, and, oh yeah, Rockstar Games and 2K. These guys are one of the most powerful companies in the industry. But back in 2008, their market share was still growing. EA attempted to buy them outright for $2 billion back then. And when the offer was rejected, EA made the offer public in an attempt to get investors to force a vote to get the deal through. Funny story, want to know who the CEO of Electronic Arts was at the time? It was none other than John Riccitiello, the same guy who pretty much single-handedly destroyed any respect or trust people had in the Unity game engine with his asinine plan to start charging install fees for anyone who used Unity. It's the same guy, the poster child for failing upward. But Take-Two managed to remain independent, and their market cap has increased exponentially since then. EA wouldn't have been able to buy these guys for $2 billion today if they wanted to, because now they're valued at something like $24 billion. Which is not that far off from EA's $35 billion.

CD Projekt Red vs. Ubisoft: Public Call-Outs and Game Quality

And number three is CD Projekt Red versus Ubisoft. Early this year, Ubisoft's CEO made the absurd statement that Skull and Bones, the physical embodiment of the sunk cost fallacy, wasn't just a triple-A game, it was a quadruple-A game. That's four A's. Yeah, sure thing. I hate to break it to you, but Skull and Bones is not the most advanced or amazing game ever. It doesn't even look that good compared to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which came out 10 years ago and is a better game. In one of the more public call-outs I've ever seen, CD Projekt Red made a joke about it during a recent investor Q&A. The Public Relations VP answered some questions, including one about that comment. Their response? "Ours will be quintuple-A." That's five A's. Big thanks to Twitter user Jack Slade on that one. He kindly pointed out to me that quintuple-A is the correct term.

Rockstar Games vs. Reflections Interactive: The Battle of British Developers

Moving on to number two, it's Rockstar Games versus Driver, which was a game by a company called Reflections Interactive. Rockstar had their fair share of rivalries with various game studios, but none were more heated than with Reflections, the makers of the Driver series. In contrast to pretty much everybody else, Driver was a legitimate rival to the GTA series because, in a lot of ways, it got there first. The original Driver, "You Are the Wheelman," was a 3D mission-based driving game set in a realistic city, and it came out when the GTA series was still top-down. Both studios also came from the UK, Rockstar is situated in Dundee, Scotland, whereas Reflections came from Newcastle. So there's some friendly local rivalry going on there as well. Rockstar included an entire mission making fun of Driver in Grand Theft Auto III called "Two-Faced Tanner". Tanner, being the protagonist of the Driver series, and their version of him walked like a girl, which was a different time but a common complaint about how Tanner walked in one of the sequels to Driver was that he walked like a girl. Maria and I have gone shopping. Our source in the police has informed us that one of our drivers is a strangely animated undercover cop. They had you kill another Tanner in Vice City, but up until this point, it was like gentle ribbing. It wasn't until Reflections put out Driver 3, which is a game that was meant to be the next great GTA killer, and failed in every way. Like, utterly crashed and burned. This game was a broken, buggy mess that, yes, was ambitious in several ways but didn't hit those high notes, let's say. Also, seriously, that title. What "Drive3r"? It just wasn't any good. Rockstar pretty much won that battle without even trying. And you better believe that they gloated about it. Again, Driver was kind of Grand Theft Auto 3 before Grand Theft Auto 3. Driver 3 being a messy failure is kind of GTA winning. So, during the mission "Mad Dogs Rhymes," which is in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a guard is playing a video game and says, "This sucks. How could Reflections mess up so bad?" Tanner, "You suck ass." That's about as direct as it can get. But they saved their most brutal Easter egg for later. In San Fiero, you can find the "Opposition Memorial," which dates from 1997 to 2004, which 1997 when the first Driver came out, and in 2004 when Driver 3 came out. Which is devastating.

Bethesda vs. Obsidian: Fallout Over Franchise Ownership

Number one is Bethesda versus Obsidian. A prevailing narrative about the Fallout fandom pits Obsidian, a studio made by many former Black Isle Studios devs, and creators of Fallout: New Vegas, against Bethesda and Bethesda Game Studios, the current owners of the Fallout IP and the guys responsible for making Fallout 3 and 4. Fallout is one series, but in many fans' minds, there's Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas, and then there's Fallout 3, 4, and 76. For fans of the old games, there's a lot of bitterness about how Bethesda handled the series overall. They feel like Obsidian was sidelined and mistreated, even though they're technically the true owners of the series, I guess, even if they aren't the legal owners of it and are no longer working on the mainline games. It's not hard for fans to feel this way because just look at the development of Fallout: New Vegas. The absurd one-year development time, the bonuses the developers were denied because the game didn't reach an arbitrary Metacritic score, etc., etc. All that was bad, but that wasn't even the end of it. A recent tweet from Chris Avellone, one of the founders of Obsidian, revealed they pitched multiple new Elder Scrolls and Fallout games to Bethesda, similar to New Vegas, but were denied. And it all paints a pretty sad picture.

Conclusion

But let's put this in perspective. Bethesda Softworks is not the same as Bethesda Game Studio, and keep in mind they have their own parent company, even above them, ZeniMax Media, who is also dictating what's getting made. It's easy to just say Bethesda was jealous or whatever because everyone likes New Vegas more than their game. But let's get realistic here. Publishers aren't blocking good games from being made because they're too darn popular. There are hundreds of other dumb reasons why they don't make games, but because it's selling gangbusters and everyone likes it more than the other games we make is not one of them. Chris Avellone is bitter about how the Fallout series has been treated. I mean, just look at his Twitter. Josh Sawyer, you know, the guy who was the lead designer and project director on Fallout: New Vegas, has been a lot more diplomatic about the entire situation. Listen, the narrative that Bethesda just hates Obsidian, it's easy. It makes it so Obsidian is the good guy and Bethesda is the bad guy. But just as much as video games are creative endeavors, they're also a business. Unless someone from Bethesda straight-up comes out and says, "Oh yeah, we hate Obsidian, we always have," then I have a hard time believing there's any actionable ill will between Obsidian and Bethesda. And I'll say this too, I am firmly in the Obsidian camp. If anybody has ever heard me talk about an Obsidian game versus a Bethesda game, I always say Obsidian knows Bethesda better than Bethesda does. And there's a good reason for that.

Outro

And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, and let us know what you think. And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog. I'm Zaid Ikram. We'll see you next time right here on Speed Tool.