2015 is almost over so time to look back upon the gold of this year. I am lacking the time right now to go through it all fully but you can have a token effort
Last year we saw Nintendo vs Youtube, round 3 came up this year
http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-closing-rom-hacking-and-speedrunning-channels.397021/
Some lovely wonky legal reasoning in there (TAS means emulator and therefore illegal, despite being able to do TAS runs on hardware and call it some kind of fair use without even working too hard being my favourite).
http://gbatemp.net/threads/do-you-agree-with-nintendos-creators-program.380750/ for the version earlier in the year.
At some level it seems the opinions on youtube can get as heated as the time Steam and Nintendo joined to make a pokemon and mario crossover.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/youtube-offering-ad-free-paid-subscriptions.386274/ and the later version
http://gbatemp.net/threads/google-announces-paid-youtube-subscription-service-youtube-red.400297/ and for a third then
http://gbatemp.net/threads/youtubes-new-gaming-website-launching-tomorrow-aug-26th.395888/
I say that but this year we got amiibos. Arguably the end run around getting people to accept on disc DLC, possibly some pay to win or at least some really shitty microtransactions of a sort but you do get a middling quality plastic statue for your trouble.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/uk-retailer-increases-the-prices-of-amiibos-to-premium-level.387176/ http://gbatemp.net/threads/profiteering-from-nintendos-amiibos.386793/
Speaking of microtransactions Steam trialled having some mods for Skyrim be legitimately paid for things. Discussion here was more civil than elsewhere on the internet but the key part of the opening of this sentence was "more".
http://gbatemp.net/threads/steam-workshop-now-selling-game-mods-update-paid-mods-gone.387479/
Happened after the cutoff from last time but highly amusing
http://gbatemp.net/threads/q-why-do-people-pirate.378940/
Oh and though some things might have changes and some might have been absent (we did not have a single Michael Pachter thread this time around) it seems gamestop are still the anti ninja king
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gamestop-now-selling-retro-games-and-consoles.391341/
Mixing it up a bit
http://gbatemp.net/review/yo-kai-watch.410/
The review of yo-kai watch, love some of the comments in there.
The Wii U's failure was accepted in this last year it seems so many of the stock liquidation threads for things like Tesco and phones4u had nothing major in them.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/snes-playstation-prototype.392097/
The inability of many game playing types to grasp the
subtleties basic tenets of intellectual property, accounting and business/marketing makes perfect sense considering so many are now master engineers with experience in 80's/90's prototyping... wait I think I got that wrong. Have the follow up too
http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo...m-earlier-this-year-confirmed-working.402248/ .
http://gbatemp.net/threads/should-sega-sell-their-franchises-to-nintendo-sony.380493/
I think around this time another dev was selling off things and thus we got this thread. Related
http://gbatemp.net/threads/sega-exiting-the-home-console-market.382787/
"Producer of Splatoon - "Voice Chat Isn't Needed to Communicate Strategy""
http://gbatemp.net/threads/producer...t-isnt-needed-to-communicate-strategy.387703/
It seems there are people out there which will swallow bullshit hook, line and sinker, especially if it happens to be for a halfway functional but by no means exceptional game on the failed Wii U.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/bloodstained-castlevania-successor-revealed.388603/
It seems some did not learn the lesson from mighty no 9 and got excited for a kickstarter game from the castlevania dev. It got nowhere close to the MN9 stuff but if the opening kickstarter thing was not enough to make things unsettling then the comments were.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/any-good...do-is-encouraged-besides-nintendolife.392427/
It is short so reading is plenty quick.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/ubisoft-releasing-zombi-on-august-18th-for-ps4-xbox-one-and-pc.393882/
Of all the games to get the rose tinted glasses treatment I did not expect zombiu. Then again they do say any port in a desert which is the wii u game library.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/is-using-black-magik-bad.397641/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/did-nint...-checks-on-their-latest-games-discuss.394541/
In previous years we had seen the rise of the gateway fanboy (some possibly even starting before its release), they then turned on the poor sky3ds and we also got things like the thread linked. As with many things here if we are searching for true golden material then this is not going to truly deliver, still good though.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/trainwreck-what-is-homebrew.399148/
Not as bad as the previous efforts in the 3ds section like the guy that built a screen decoder or the one wanting to sell an exploit to gateway and co but it did win a thread splitting session.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-begins-deploying-nx-sdk-to-developers.399843/
I am stretching for a not quite grasping business thread and getting that back. You can have a subtle variation on the theme of we don't understand IP though
http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo...ve-them-theyre-pretty-awful-sometimes.403259/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/big-nintendo-announcement-happening-monday.405099/
Games are about pattern recognition more often than not, however for a self selected group of those which play them then as a site we are really awful at it. In this case thinking that Nintendo's big announcement would be something of note*, in the end it was they are getting a version of Minecraft. The better part of 200 posts before then and some more after too.
*part of said pattern forming information would be the repeated utter uselessness of Nintendo directs, have one such example
http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-direct-coming-on-thursday-nov-12.402663/ (the main end result being a "HD" version of Zelda Twilight Princess which looked like it had been done by a 14 year old using an ezcap.
I am not sure what we had for "controversial" (read the "I am 14 and my mighty citizenship class has taught me I can say whatever" set I want has met the real world) staff this year. We had a few asking why certain people had been banned. Nothing really on par with previous years though, save perhaps the p1ngpong and Vipera saga. See also
http://gbatemp.net/threads/game-give-a-reason-for-me-to-hate-weed.388765/ I guess.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/we-need-to-start-warning-rude-members-and-giving-out-suspensions.400546/ and
http://gbatemp.net/threads/message-to-bortz-and-p1ngpong.401638/ being some of the better threads here and
http://gbatemp.net/threads/dupe-accounts-are-against-the-rules.401094/ being the counter thread that I will include to complete the little aside.
This year's not strictly flamebait poster of the year award has to go to TotalInsanity4 for the GBAtemp debate club series, with Haloman800 reprising a
previous role as potentially unintentional supporting actor.
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-debate-club-presidential-candidates.398759/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-debate-club-gun-control.399328/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-debate-club-syrian-refugee-crisis.400037/
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-debate-club-videogame-sexism.400723/
So then what threads would you have as the golden threads of the year?
Edit forgot one of the true classics
http://gbatemp.net/threads/do-not-buy-a-sky3ds.393133/
Quote
"Then, finding roms without having to pay extortion to download websites is almost impossible. Most of the sky3ds retailers just link you to the same old website that required you to download essentially a "rom downloader" onto your computer, which even then is surprise surprise full of malware."