The most failed games of all time

Not all video games have been equally successful. As always in business, some projects do not lead developers to the planned result. Logic tells us that there must be more failures than successes.

Nevertheless, the failures are also different. In addition, there are such game developments that have fallen into the infamous list of «The Most Failed Games».

Best-sellers and their antipodes

Low sales, which are insufficient even to recoup investment in product development, are the most important sign of business failure. A salesperson that will spare no expense in advertising will be able to get many purchases of his game.

However, social media is what prevents modern marketing. Many gamers who don’t like a developer’s game will tell their blogs about the pitfalls of this game, and users will stop buying it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead — Overkill’s The Walking Dead

Below we will show you a list of ten games that have not paid for their development.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. 1982. The outlook seemed optimistic. Atari released the game at the same time as the release of Steven Spielberg’s film with a similar plot. Nevertheless, this developer was unlucky, and as a result was found the most unsuccessful, both in commercial terms and in terms of user sympathies. The company’s total losses amounted to more than $50 million.
Shenmue и Shenmue II. 1999-2001. These projects for the Dreamcast console failed to compete with the PlayStation and resulted in losses to Sega totalling more than $200 million.
Overkill’s The Walking Dead. 2014. The problems of this game began at the development stage. Managers changed the engine twice, resulting in millions of dollars in losses. The game was so unpopular with the gaming community that it was appropriate to award the award «Spectator Antipathies». Overkill went bankrupt because of this failed project.
Daikatana. 2000. This game began with high hopes and was to be very popular. However, the game proved to be boring and looked obsolete. As a result of the failure, John Romero became known as the world’s most famous loser, and his game was recognized as the biggest failure of those years.
Pac-Man. 1981. This project was incredibly popular in the year of its release because it had no rivals. However, the developers created a Christmas sale, and the game failed in sales. Atari Company lost a lot of money it invested in the promotion of its project.
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. The ending part of the famous series was so disgusting and full of bugs that it even damaged the popularity of the film project «Lara Croft», resulting in the film’s failure at the box office.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. 2012. Another project that fell “victim” to overwhelming ambitions. Confident of success, the developers took out a loan of $75 million. Unfortunately, sales were not active and 38 Studios The company was unable to raise money to repay the loan and as a result, went bankrupt.
Beyond Good & Evil. It is a good game that did not gain popularity due to inefficient advertising.
Ōkami. 2006. Critics praised the project as a game of the year, but gamers did not appreciate the game at all, and the game failed in sales.
APB: All Points Bulletin. 2010. This time, the developers’ greed was the reason for the failure. They decided not to make a free subscription for this project, and as a result, they lost more than 100 million. The thing is, at that time, gamers didn’t use subscriptions as often as they do today.

This list shows us that the failure of a development company can be the result of poor game quality and inefficient and incorrect marketing. Although there are times when the game is not sold for such logical reasons.

Peter Lyakh

I write reviews, guides, tips and interesting facts about a wide variety of RPGs on the market. In addition, I offer my vision of the best characters, progression, and ways to play that can help beginners improve their skills and gaming experience.

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Best-sellers and their antipodes

Peter Lyakh

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