The 14 Biggest Flops In Video Game History
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E.T. was all the rage in the '80s. Atari spent around $21 million for the licensing rights alone and paid $200,000 (along with an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii) to secure the right developer. The E.T. video game was highly anticipated at its release in 1982, becoming a popular sought-after Christmas gift. Stores over-ordered in anticipation, only to be met with disappointment because the title flopped due to mediocre gameplay.
It eventually sold 1.5 million units, and is still one of the best-selling Atari 2600 titles. However, over 3 million cartridges went unsold, resulting in a huge commercial loss. Atari buried these millions of copies of E.T. in a landfill in New Mexico, which were later unearthed in 2014. The total money lost after all was said and done? $536 million.
- Released: Jan 01 1982
- Developer: Atari, Inc., Atari
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Superman
Video games saw a surge of superhero games in the late '90s and early 2000s. Unfortunately, many of the titles were shameless money-grabs that were churned out as quickly as possible. Superman was no exception. In addition to production delays and basic control problems, the game suffered from serious technical issues.
Most notably, this title is often referred to as the worst game of all time.
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Duke Nukem Forever was the long awaited sequel to the incomparable Duke Nukem. It was supposed to be released in 1998, but was inexplicably delayed time and time again until 2006. Since the game development started in the '90s, it had some pretty outdated graphics.
Add the fact that the developers and publishers were fighting over funding and licensing rights, and you've got the end-result of a heavily criticized flop.
- Released: May 03 2011
- Developer: Gearbox Software, 3D Realms
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No Man's Sky
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Hello Games, the developers for No Man's Sky, caught a lot of flack for "falsely advertising" their game. Steam featured ads for the game that displayed "a different type of combat, unique buildings, 'ship flying behavior' and [different] creature sizes." They were also criticized for displaying ads for the game with higher quality graphics than can be attained in-game.
Complaints were so drastic that the Advertising Standards Authority started an investigation into the advertising campaign of the game (which ultimately concluded that the devs didn't mislead customers). Although the game was a massive critical flop, it was a financial success, raking in an estimated $43 million. They sold over 800,000 copies of the game in the first year of its release, despite losing over 90% of their fan base within two weeks time.
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The original Driver for PC in 1998 was wildly successful, as was it's successor Driver 2, so Atari and Reflections Interactive thought they had this one in the bag. As always, the hype machine was rolling right along for this title, as Driver 2 had made some serious improvements to the franchise.
Unfortunately, Driver 3 was basically Driver 2 with a coat of polish, and was almost immediately universally rejected. In addition to terrible controls, the game only provided 3 hours of single player content. But the biggest scandal was the fact that, despite being a terrible game, Driver 3 received overwhelmingly positive game reviews from different review sites.
This led to the famous incident dubbed "Driv3rgate," where people were generally turned off by the dishonest practices of both publishers and journalists.
- Released: Jun 21 2004
- Developer: Ubisoft Reflections
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John Romero was kind of a big deal in the '90s. He was the head of id Software and designer of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. So when he announced Daikatana, people were understandably very excited. But then, things took a bad turn when an ad campaign launched, stating, "John Romero's About to Make You His B*tch." The horizon looked even bleaker when the developing studio, Ion Storm, tried (and failed) to quickly switch engines before the scheduled 1999 release.
Thus, not only were the fans mad about the ads, but the game was released late and had terrible gameplay mechanics. Ion Storm's parent company, Eidos, dumped nearly $40 million into the game before deciding to call time of death.
- Released: Apr 14 2000
- Developer: Kemco, Ion Storm
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APB had a lot of hype behind it, and for good reason. It was designed by David Jones, creator of GTA, and was marketed as being the next GTA Online. With over $100 million spent on producing the game, expectations were high.
However, the publisher made a strange move and chose to bar sites from reviewing the game until a week after its launch, which severely affected pre-orders and first-week sales. In addition, unpolished gameplay contributed to the game just falling off the radar.
- Released: Jan 01 2008
- Developer: Realtime Worlds
Okay, so Def Jam Rapstar wasn't a terrible game. It was basically the same game as Singstar, but with rap and hip-hop tracks. The only problem was that the producers didn't do their homework. They released the game featuring 54 songs that they had not claimed the rights to, so record label and publisher EMI sued the company for upwards of $8 million, bankrupting the studio and forcing them to shut down their online community site, which basically left Def Jam Rapstar dead in the water.
- Released: Oct 05 2010
- Developer: 4mm Games
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Tomb Raider was a massive franchise in the '90s - one which game publisher Eidos tried to cash in during 2003. Unfortunately, their title Angel of Darkness went through two different development teams and countless delays. Instead of the incredible, innovative product they promised, gamers were greeted with an incomplete, glitchy game riddled with controller issues.
The game was such a flop that it almost brought about the end of the Lara Croft franchise. Thankfully, the series was saved when it was rebooted under new developers years later.
- Released: Jun 20 2003
- Developer: Core Design
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Lair was a launch title for the PS3 that explored the Remote Play function. It was developed by Factor 5, which actually ended up dissolving because of this game. Lair garnered a lot of attention due to early displays of some great graphics, but was met with luke-warm reviews due to the onslaught of technical issues.
To make matters worse, publisher Sony then sent reviewers a guide on how to review Lair after receiving criticisms of the game.
- Released: Aug 31 2007
- Developer: Factor 5
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Shenmue was released on the Sega Dreamcast in 1997. With a $47 million budget and an excellent dev team determined to outshine PC games, Shenmue was sure to be a hit. Lead director Suzuki introduced cutting-edge features like an open world, a day/night cycle, and early concepts of the RPG genre that would influence the video game industry for years. Unfortunately, the game was too far ahead of its time to be a huge success.
The game was riddled with technical issues upon its release. Worse, development costs had run so high that it actually contributed to putting Sega's whole Dreamcast console out of business.
- Released: Nov 07 2000
- Developer: AM R&D Dept. #2, Sega AM2
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Grim Fandango is a bit of a cult classic from LucasArts. Released in 1998, the game received a lot of awards, recognized for its amazing soundtrack and adventure game mechanics. Oddly enough, despite the high critical acclaim, the game didn't sell more than 500,000 copies even several years after its release.
- Released: Oct 30 1998
- Developer: LucasArts
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Pac-Man
Pac-Man first came to fruition in 1972 as an arcade game. However, in 1983, the video game industry hit an all-time low. In an effort to increase sales, Atari decided to purchase the exclusive rights to the yellow man from Namco, and released a poorer quality version of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 console. Initial sales were a success, but Atari ambitiously produced 12 million copies, nearly half of which were never sold.
Oddly enough, this sub-par port of the arcade cabinet original holds the title of "best selling game" for the Atari 2600, with over 7 million units sold.
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Ōkami
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- Ōkami
- Clover Studio
Ōkami is one of those strange flops that left many scratching their heads in confusion. While the game was highly rated for great gameplay, it sold only 270,000 copies in North America during its first year of release in 2006. Clover Studios, the developers, was dissolved shortly after.
By 2009, Ōkami had sold a total of 900,000 copies, for which it won the Guinness World Record for "least commercially successful winner of a Game of the Year Award."
- Released: 2006
- Developer: HexaDrive, Ready at Dawn, Clover Studio
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