Gaffes galore, publishers are having such a strange year. Most recently, Deep Silver released a buggy and clearly unfinished version of Dead Island on Steam. Then, Square's poor response to the racist controversy of its hit prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution caused a media frenzy. Moreover, the well-publicized hacking of the PlayStation Network brought Sony to its knees. Therefore, can a correlation be made between these incidents and more expected throughout the year, or is it just one of those years?

Ironically enough, the careless handling of Dead Island's PC port might actually help the game in sales. A video was posted showing the hilarious third-person actions while running and swinging melee weapons. My first time seeing that, I grew especially appreciative of the first-person perspective. The botched release gives Dead Island the opportunity to soak up even more spotlight, thus solidifying more sales. Careless or not, Deep Silver's actions show the difficulties of digital distribution, and similar incidents will happen with future games.

The character of Letitia, supposedly existing on the hard streets of Detroit in 2027, is a sight for sore eyes. The questioned video is of a down-on-her-luck black woman who served as an informant back in Adam Jensen's police days. This article captures the essence of the argument - a horribly designed, appalling voice-acted caricature of a person hampering a stellar game. In my opinion, this whole situation has been blown drastically out of proportion and the character is the lone case of bad planning. Racially-driven or not, this whole controversy is ridiculous, and overshadowing the amazing game Square has created.

Sony's little debacle dominated headlines and isolated the company from competitors. Having "the worst breach of consumer information in history" on the corporate track record is certainly one massive achievement. Regardless, as horrible as that situation was, what's worse was Sony's lackluster response. Not informing consumers until a week after the actual attack, the company was berated by consumer groups and many in the gaming media as irresponsible and unprepared for a breach. To Sony's credit, three million users have been added since April, a remarkable number given the circumstances. Though, players can create multiple accounts, so the statistics probably read better on paper.

The company's episode shows the direction, and eventually dependence, of online and the Internet for gaming in the near future. The rise of Steam and digital distribution is terrific for this industry, but the constant threat of hacking is a necessary evil. However, the gaming gods have been gracious in blessing bloggers and journalists will something to rant about this year. The last little while will enter the gaming history books as one of the awkwarder years; not filled with needless court cases or stupid business tactics, just general strangeness.

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