When it comes to most hated companies in the United States, video game industry or otherwise, video game publisher Activision always manages to find itself high up on the list. In fact, you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a gamer who has nice things to say about Activision.
So what’s got gamers frustrated with Activision now? The lack of subtitles in ‘Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.’ There is no subtitle option for cutscene dialog, and gamers have voiced their complaints about the lack of this feature online. Subtitles are crucial for those whom are deaf or hard of hearing, and there really is no reason for them to have been excluded. An online petition was even started up in an attempt to get subtitles patched in.
In response to the complaints, an Activison spokesperson had this to say:
“When Toys For Bob set out to make an awesome game collection, there were certain decisions that needed to be made throughout the process. The team remained committed to keep the integrity and legacy of Spyro that fans remembered intact. The game was built from the ground up using a new engine for the team (Unreal 4), and was localized in languages that had not previously been attempted by the studio. While there’s no industry standard for subtitles, the studio and Activision care about the fans’ experience especially with respect to accessibility for people with different abilities, and will evaluate going forward.”
And unsurprisingly, gamers were not at all happy with this response. Despite this spokesperson’s claim of there being no industry standard for subtitles, that is very clearly not the case. Subtitles have been a thing in gaming for a very long time now, and the omittence of them, is a bizarre and archaic design choice.
