Trolls!

[Fenrir]

What if game developers hated you?

Around 15 years ago, the anime series Evangelion ended. It was about giant robots. In the last episodes the series drops the giant robot part and basically tells its viewers "Stop being emo and go outside", from what I heard.
As Evangelion was crazy successful and watching fans go insane is fun, many game developers were surely inspired. I've seen this kind of stuff in a lot of games lately, mostly in Cavia's games (I need more examples, guys):

Spoilers

Drakengard
You've finished that game, the ending was bittersweet, with the main character and an annoying sidekick being the only surviving main characters. You now have access to different paths to unlock other, presumably more uplifting, endings.
Second ending: Everyone dies. Third ending: Everyone dies. Fourth ending: Giant babies devour everything, time gets stopped, in short everyone dies. Fifth ending: You get teleported out of nowhere to modern day Tokyo, play -the most difficult rhytm game ever- and then everyone dies. That's it.

Metal Gear Solid 2
Back when it was released, that game had massive hype. Everybody wanted to play as the badass war veteran Solid Snake again. Except you play with him for two hours, then he gets captured and you're forced to play as Raiden, a green brat with a clingy girlfriend. This is like a Batman videogame, where Batman gets captured immediately and you spend the rest of the game as Robin.

Nier
This is Kaine: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRknLHT5KKxZIOpWzOCFZHwnv6ggXAklfRSlum6T-eA70krO_RY&t=1
Kaine has impossible curves, almost no clothes and she follows you around. As a human male, you eventually get charmed during the course of the game. Unfortunately, you eventually realize that she's a hermaphrodite, or a man, or whatever, you don't even know but there's something wrong. Cavia made the videogame equivalent of waking up next to a tranny.

Chrono Cross
You bought this game because you liked Chrono Trigger. Well, the entire CT team got killed by in extremely anticlimatic ways. As a bonus, what they did during the entirety of CT only made things worse. WAIT! Developers nearly included Magus in the game! But they were too busy adding a mexican wrestler and a turnip instead.

Bullet Witch
The points you get when you win an Xbox achievement are always a multiple of 5; 5, 10, 15,20... This is done on purpose, it means you'll always have a nice round total gamer score.
Except with this game. There's a 99 points achievement you'll eventually get without even trying, and there's a 1 point achievement you can only get by finishing hard mode. Except it's too hard and you will never get it. You watch your gamer score: It's 23 474. You're annoyed.
This is a bigger deal than it sounds.

Divinity 2 Ego Draconis
The whole game you're led to believe that resurrecting Big Bad Guy's girlfriend will kill Big Bad Guy. Except it was a lie, Bad Guy's girlfriend traps you in a prison beyond time and space, end of game. (The expansion changed that, but it was released one year later)

I've always found developers trolling players absolutely hilarious, but it's often hard to tell whether it's intentional or not. Is XS3 trolling or are they serious?

[DjinnAndTonic]

It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D.

[DomaDragoon]

What if game developers hated you?

You mean they don't?

This is like a Batman videogame, where Batman gets captured immediately and you spend the rest of the game as Robin.

Except that would be awesome (unless the Robin was Jason Todd). A better analogy would be if you spent the rest of the game as Azrael or Spoiler.

The points you get when you win an Xbox achievement are always a multiple of 5; 5, 10, 15,20... This is done on purpose, it means you'll always have a nice round total gamer score.
Except with this game. There's a 99 points achievement you'll eventually get without even trying, and there's a 1 point achievement you can only get by finishing hard mode. Except it's too hard and you will never get it. You watch your gamer score: It's 23 474. You're annoyed.
This is a bigger deal than it sounds.

It's not the only one, it's just one of the most notable. The Dishwasher, Civ Rev, f***ing Lexor 2, even The Orange Box has uneven achievements. And yes, it is serious business.

[AndrewRogue]

MGS2 had a lot of subtext about video games being bad and such, didn't it?

[Fenrir]

"It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D."
While this sounds like the worst Cavia trolling ever on paper, I found that it was done tastefully in game. Your main character does the ultimate sacrifice, so does you, and at this point there's nothing to add. No need to keep saves (I did miss that one achievement though... Ahem)

"Except that would be awesome (unless the Robin was Jason Todd). A better analogy would be if you spent the rest of the game as Azrael or Spoiler."
Having controversial opinions is nice and all. I kind of like Unlimited Saga myself.
But Robin? Are you mad?

"It's not the only one, it's just one of the most notable. The Dishwasher, Civ Rev, f***ing Lexor 2, even The Orange Box has uneven achievements. And yes, it is serious business."
Ooh, I didn't know about that. I'll remember to never buy these! Bullet Witch seems to be particularly self aware with its 1 point achievement awarded for doing the most difficult thing in the game though.

"MGS2 had a lot of subtext about video games being bad and such, didn't it?"
I don't know, been ages since I've played it. I remember Raiden having only experienced combat training in videogames being shown in a bad light.
Hideo Kojima likes to break the fourth wall in general in his games; you need to check the game box to beat one boss in MGS1. It seems to be a way to break immersion and to tell its fanbase "This is just a videogame"

[DjinnAndTonic]

I don't know what comics/cartoons you've perused in the last 20 years or so, but Robin got freakin' awesome sometime in like 1990.

[DomaDragoon]

"Except that would be awesome (unless the Robin was Jason Todd). A better analogy would be if you spent the rest of the game as Azrael or Spoiler."
Having controversial opinions is nice and all. I kind of like Unlimited Saga myself.
But Robin? Are you mad?

True, it wouldn't necessarily be as awesome as actually playing as Batman. But most DC fans like the two main Robins (Dick/Tim). Raiden always struck me as a character that Hideo wanted us to like oh so much and the fans generally said "screw you and the bishie you rode in on", so your analogy would have been more apropos if you chose a character that wasn't well-liked.

[Captain K.]

Chrono Cross was better than Chrono Trigger.  Ha ha, I just trolled you in your Trolls topic.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D.

The act 1 climax where Nier gets taken out, Kaine is out of commission, Weiss gets brainwashed... Then Nier gets up, Weiss shakes it off, and you take your magic back to save the day, and then fail anyway and get clapped up a second time.

Or the entire second playthrough. Oh god.

[Yakumo]

Yeah, Nier is full of trolling, and whatever Kaine is(which I don't even remember being stated outright?  There's hints, but nothing concrete, but I may have missed something) really is one of the minor ones.  Somehow it is an awesome game despite this.

I mean, some of the resolutions to the sidequests are way worse trolling than that could ever be.

[Cotigo]

It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D.

Never playing this game~

As if I would have played it anyway.

[DjinnAndTonic]

But Zenny, if you don't play Nier, I will cry myself to sleep at night~
Look, here is my sad face: ;____;

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D.

Never playing this game~

As if I would have played it anyway.

Fuck what Djinn said, it would only cancel out my recommendation to play it.

[Grefter]

What if you took a successful turn based RPG series with depth, focus and immersive story telling and then made an action game about it that made no sense at fucking all and then thanked the community that hated on you all throughout development for all the support during your credits.  Oh hey Fallout.

What if then you picked up the series and totally missed the point again and moved it to the other side of the continent and made a bunch of shit that made no fucking sense being there also happen there because it was in the original and you want to be "true" to the source material.  Then make the game play nothing like the originals but totally like your other series, but with guns after insisting over and over that it isn't the other disappointing game but with guns.  Oh hey Fallout

What if this was the second time it happened to a series you loved?  Oh hey X-COM.

Trolling through gross incompetence.

[Sierra]

"It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D."
While this sounds like the worst Cavia trolling ever on paper, I found that it was done tastefully in game. Your main character does the ultimate sacrifice, so does you, and at this point there's nothing to add. No need to keep saves (I did miss that one achievement though... Ahem)

Agreeing with all of this, actually. And they do warn you about it in the game. Four times. True trolling doesn't come with a warning.

[metroid composite]

CCP actually does have a trolling subculture; trolling each other, mind you, not the player.

Thing is, Something Awful invaded EVE Online a few years back, and a lot of them stuck around really enjoying the game...and now a few of the smartest ones work at CCP.  Near as I can tell, all these goonies enjoy trolling coworkers during break/leisure time.  It's cool, though: I quote Twilight back at them.

I can't think of a game I've been on where there was any real discussion of trolling the player, though.  Well...ok no, there was one Marvel game where the second pass on Daredevil was...quite well endowed.  We talked about embracing this and giving him "package jiggle", but there was too much paranoia that this might land us an M-rating (which is kinda discriminatory given that DoA gets a T-rating; in retrospect, I still want to know how the ESRB would have reacted).

[NotMiki]

We talked about embracing this and giving him "package jiggle", but there was too much paranoia that this might land us an M-rating (which is kinda discriminatory given that DoA gets a T-rating; in retrospect, I still want to know how the ESRB would have reacted).

Discriminatory, yes, but it's only been recently that comic book editors have allowed their artists to even give a hint that superheroes were, so to speak, packin' heat.  Jae Lee is well known in the industry for taking a stand for male anatomical correctness when he was the artist of Namor and subsequently having been forced to redraw a lot of panels.

I say you should do it.  Thinking back on the tempest in a teakettle over Hot Coffee, it would make for some pretty funny congressional hearings.  We could call it packagegate.

[DjinnAndTonic]

*Shrug* Not really, male and female anatomy are held to different standards of decency. Guys can go around shirtless, but at least a token covering tends to apply to a female's upper body. Breasts are also 'secondary sex organs', whereas Daredevil's package would be "primary". There's enough there to argue over and America LOVES to be squeamish about anything sexual!

[Cotigo]

It's amusing that you think the biggest trolling in Nier is that the lead female character is actually a hermaphrodite.
You didn't even mention the part where it deletes all your Nier save files if you get Ending D.

Never playing this game~

As if I would have played it anyway.

Fuck what Djinn said, it would only cancel out my recommendation to play it.

Any game that deletes your saves can go fuck itself, even if it warns you.  Maybe I want to see your stupid fucking content without having to worry about being able to continue afterwards.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

You've already beaten the game three times before seeing it.

[metroid composite]

We talked about embracing this and giving him "package jiggle", but there was too much paranoia that this might land us an M-rating (which is kinda discriminatory given that DoA gets a T-rating; in retrospect, I still want to know how the ESRB would have reacted).

Discriminatory, yes, but it's only been recently that comic book editors have allowed their artists to even give a hint that superheroes were, so to speak, packin' heat.  Jae Lee is well known in the industry for taking a stand for male anatomical correctness when he was the artist of Namor and subsequently having been forced to redraw a lot of panels.

I say you should do it.  Thinking back on the tempest in a teakettle over Hot Coffee, it would make for some pretty funny congressional hearings.  We could call it packagegate.

From a "challenging and pushing the boundaries of the medium" standpoint, of course we should have done it.

From a business standpoint, though, if there's even a chance Djinn is right and male and female anatomy are held to different standards of decency, getting slapped with an M-rating would have hurt this game's sales too much.

[Fenrir]

Risen

Achievement unlocked: Idiot
Fell to death three times.