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List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The computer and video game industry has seen several commercial failures since its birth in the late 1970s, some of which have drastically changed the video game market. For example, the flops of E.T. and Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 were high profile games of low quality, contributing to the video game crash of 1983.
Contents
•1 Video game hardware failures
•2 Computer and video game software failures
•3 Computer and video game services failures
•4 External links Video game hardware failures
3DO Interactive Multiplayer
Designed by R.J. Mical and the team behind the Amiga, and marketed by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, this "multimedia machine" was marketed as a family entertainment device and not just a video game console. It was introduced at $699, triple the price of most game consoles at the time.
Amiga CD-32
Released in 1993, this system had very few original titles released for it (though it was able to play Amiga 1200 games). The lack of original titles meant that few gamers wanted it when they could buy the more feature-intensive A1200.
Atari Jaguar console
Released in 1993, this system was far more powerful than its contemporaries, the Sega Genesis and the SNES. However, a number of crippling bugs and lack of software hurt sales, and with the release of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1995, the system could no longer claim technical superiority.
Atari Lynx handheld
Only months after the release of the Game Boy in 1989, Atari released this much more powerful system. Featuring a color display and a backlight, the system should have easily captured the market. However, due to poor marketing and design choices and an extremely low battery life, the system failed to garner any significant sales.
NEC's Turbo series of consoles
The failure of the Turbo series led NEC to pull out of the North American market by 1994. Like Sega, they released numerous peripherals, which did even worse than their Sega counterparts. Furthermore, critically-acclaimed Japanese games were not released in America, in favor of licenses like Darkwing Duck. The Japanese version of the console, the PC Engine, was relatively successful.
Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color handhelds
SNK's cult classic pocket system, discontinued only 2 years after the release of the NGPC, due to a lack of games (virtually the only publisher was SNK itself, and as has often been the case, third-party games proved the crucial element of a system's success).
Nintendo 64DD
The expansion system for the Nintendo 64 that was announced at 1995's Nintendo Shoshinkai game show event (now called Spaceworld). The drive was heavily hyped, and many high-profile games, such as Earthbound 64 and Zelda 64 were supposed to be compliant with it. In the end, however, the N64DD (Nintendo 64 Disk Drive) was only released in Japan on December 1, 1999- after being delayed for many years. Many of the titles originally planned for it were simply shelved, or released for the normal N64 due to impatience. Nintendo, anticipating that their long planned out disc drive peripheral would become a commercial failure, sold the systems through a subscription service called RANDnet rather than selling the system directly to consumers or to retail outlets. As a result the 64DD was only supported by Nintendo for a short period of time.
Nintendo e-Reader
One of Nintendo's more recent failures was the e-Reader for the Game Boy Advance, which was used by several games (such as Animal Crossing, and Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire), and then abandoned.
Nintendo Virtual Boy
The monochromatic 3-D "virtual reality" system caused eye strain and headaches, and was ignored largely in anticipation of the upcoming Nintendo 64. To date, it is the only Nintendo console (apart from the Pokémon Mini) ever to flop.
Nokia N-Gage
Sales were poor and many video gamers mocked the system for its design. Common complaints included the difficulty of swapping games and the fact that its cellphone feature required the user to hold the device "sideways" against their cheek. A redesigned version, the N-Gage QD, has since been released to eliminate these complaints. However, it did not address the popular complaint that the control layout was "too cluttered"; and it has yet to reach the popularity of the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP.
Philips CD-i
A "multimedia machine" jointly developed by Philips and Sony, the CD-i was considered overpriced and underpowered. A lack of compelling software doomed the "console".
Sega CD/Sega Mega CD
This was a CD-ROM drive built for Sega's Mega Drive system. However, costing over £600 ($950) and with discs costing £70 ($115) each, this was a colossal flop and the beginning of the end for Sega (and even splendid games like Sonic CD couldn't save it). Having witnessed this blunder, arch-rival Nintendo almost immediately cancelled their similar CD-based collaboration with Sony (codenamed "SNES PlayStation Xperimental"); which inadvertantly caused the creation of both Nintendo's and Sega's greatest rival: The PlayStation.
Sega Dreamcast proprietary media format
The media used by the Dreamcast were GD-ROMs, which had more capacity (1 GB against 700 MB of a regular CD) and were intended to reduce software piracy. However, early discs were susceptible to defects, and the games were eventually pirated by ripping or re-encoding audio and video files. Extensive piracy and the previous history of Sega consoles (as well as aggressive pre-release marketing of the PlayStation 2) are primary factors in the console's commercial failure.
Sega Game Gear
This was the first handheld system to be released by Sega, and it was indeed technically superior to Nintendo's market-leading Game Boy (as it possessed a colour screen and a sharper picture). However, it was hardly portable (being, to this day, the largest handheld console ever designed) suffered from a very low battery life (using up six AA batteries in little over an hour), lackluster launch titles (as Sonic the Hedgehog and Sega's other flagship franchises were either exclusive to the Mega Drive/Genesis, or at an embryonic stage); but it also had unusually patronising advertising slogans: "It's time to grow up!" Within six months the Game Boy had toppled the opposition, giving Nintendo a monopoly in the handheld market it still holds to this day.
Sega Nomad
Once manufacture of the Game Gear had permanently ceased, Sega began plans for a second handheld. At first known as Project Mercury (keeping with Sega's "planet theme" at the time), this system was much smaller than the company's previous attempt. However, it also suffered from a low battery life and weak third party support, and it was released just as arch-rival Nintendo's Pokémon franchise was taking off (a franchise that would revitalise the Game Boy and bring Nintendo, arguably, back to its former place as supreme power of the games market). The Nomad never really stood a chance, but it maintains a small cult following to this day.
Sega Accessories
The Sega 3D Glasses and Light Phaser for Master System. The Sega Genesis/MegaDrive saw the Menacer light gun, Activator motion sensor ring, Mega Mouse and multi-tap which all had limited support in few games.
Sega's post-Mega Drive/Genesis consoles
The Saturn and the 32X were all failures to some extent in North America (The Saturn was well-received in Japan, while the Mega Drive was not). This poor track record (and aggressive pre-release marketing of the PlayStation 2) led to a lack of confidence in the Dreamcast, Sega's final console before leaving the hardware market.
Tiger Game.com handheld
Produced by Tiger Electronics, the Game.com handheld was a handheld game console that could double as a PDA. The system was intended to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy, and targeted a more mature audience. Due to poor game quality and selection (only 20 games were ever released for it), the system was discontinued in 2000, only 3 years after its release.
Computer and video game software failures The 11th Hour
The sequel to the hugely successful game The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour spent two years in development. When Trilobyte finally brought it to market in 1995, over a year behind schedule, the technology it used was outdated. The designers created the game for DOS, which by then had been replaced with Windows 95, leaving many people unable to get the game working on their computers. Those who could get it working still had to deal with other technical issues, especially the touchy sound settings. Gamers also found the puzzles themselves disappointing; they were generally more difficult than those of The 7th Guest, and most were not nearly as much fun to solve. In the end, despite huge numbers of preorders, The 11th Hour sold well below expectations, and a planned third installment in the series was never made.
Battlecruiser 3000AD
This was one of the most-hyped, most-panned, and longest-developed games in computer gaming history. It was under development for seven years by Derek Smart, generating one of the longest and largest flame wars in the history of Usenet, before publisher Take Two released it in November 1996. It was later released as freeware.
Beyond Good & Evil
Although this game was critically acclaimed, it flopped commercially. It was commonly suggested that the release date, which conflicted with the release of the popular titles Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, was rather unfortunate. It was also considered "too offbeat" by many. The game's commercial failure caused creator Michel Ancel and publisher Ubi Soft to shelve plans to continue the planned trilogy of BG&E.
Conker: Live and Reloaded
The second (and, ultimately, final) game developed by Rareware for Microsoft's Xbox system, Live and Reloaded was a remake of Rare's critically lauded and genre-breaking Nintendo 64 hit, Conker's Bad Fur Day. It was eagerly anticipated by fans of the original game; and mature gamers who had missed the game the first time around. However, even though reviews were generally positive, the game was not strongly marketed by the publisher (Microsoft Game Studios), and many saw the fact that Rare was remaking one of their past successes as an admission that the company was getting increasingly desperate for a return to their former position as a respected and successful games company (as their Game Boy Advance games were not selling very well, apart from arguably their ports of the Donkey Kong Country games; and Rare's recent Xbox game, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, was the biggest flop in the company's history). Rare has vowed to make a fresh start when the Xbox 360 launches.
Daikatana
This video game from John Romero's company IonStorm was intensely advertised early in development, including an infamous magazine advertisement captioned, John Romero's going to make you his bitch! The game missed several announced deadlines and ended up taking four years to complete. Feeling insulted by the hype, some popular gamer websites (notably Old Man Murray) subjected Daikatana and Romero to relentless mockery, making them the butts of jokes for several years. The game was not well received by critics and gamers alike when it was released; several features had been cut significantly from the initial feature list that had been promoted; and the game had significant bugs that made the unpatched version of the game impossible to complete.
EarthBound
Although highly popular in Japan, EarthBound failed to gain popularity beyond a cult following in North America, despite advertisement efforts of Nintendo. Still highly popular in Japan ten years later under the name of Mother 2, EarthBound has been re-released along with Mother on the Game Boy Advance. The third game in the Mother series faced notorious delays in its development. Originally intended to be released on the Nintendo 64, and then 64DD (see above), it is currently being reworked as a title for the Game Boy Advance. There has been no announcement regarding release Mother 3 outside of Japan.
E.T. (Atari 2600)
Reputedly coded in just six weeks, this game was rushed to the market for the 1982 holiday season, and it was based (loosely) on the movie. It was expected to sell millions, but sold extremely poorly. Millions of unsold excess cartridges ended up in landfills. This game, along with Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, is thought to be one of the main causes of the video game crash of 1983 and contributed how Atari went from the US's greatest games publisher to a laughing stock. It was also the first of a trend still lamented by gamers: bad video games based on successful movies.
Soccer management games since 1999
One of the most active genres during the 8 and 16-bit computer era (80s and early 90s), the genre had a massive decline after Championship Manager 3 started to monopolize the market. EuroLeague Football (follow-up to the 97-99 lineage of Premier Manager and English version of PC Fútbol 2000), Bubball's UEFA Manager 2000 (and the follow-up 442 Touchline Passion), EA Sports' Premier League Manager and the ZOO Digital's rebirth of Premier Manager all failed in the market (except in some circles) due to the monopoly of the Sports Interactive franchise. However, even Championship Manager was not flawless: the shipped version of CM4 was deemed incomplete, some of the yearly revisions received only a lukewarm welcome, and their latest version (while mostly unrelated to the previous games in the series), CM5, was released late and bug-ridden, losing the battle to Football Manager and even TCM 2005.
Grabbed by the Ghoulies
The first game to be developed by Rareware for Microsoft's Xbox system was eagerly anticipated for fans of the company and the game system alike. Rare had created several innovative smash hits on previous consoles, most notably Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007, and Microsoft had acquired Rare, paying US$377 million. Microsoft hyped the game as much as they could; and even pushed for the game to be released in time for Christmas (the most lucrative period for toys and video games alike). However, the game performed extremely poorly in terms of sales, due to mixed reviews from games magazines and journalists, a highly confusing storyline and content, and highly unorthodox controls. This remains, as of 16th October 2005, the biggest flop in Rare's history.
Jack the Giantkiller
In 1982, the President of Cinematronics arranged a one-time purchase of 5000 PCB boards from Japan. The boards were used in the manufacture of several games, but the majority of them were reserved for a new arcade game called Jack the Giantkiller, based on the classic fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk." Between the purchase price of the boards and other expenses, Cinematronics invested almost two million dollars into Jack the Giantkiller. It completely flopped in the arcade and many of the boards went unsold, costing the company a huge amount of money. Insiders sometimes refer to the game as "Jack the Company Killer" for the part it played in Cinematronics' eventual bankruptcy.
Laserdisc video games
While Dragon's Lair was a tremendous success for Cinematronics when it came out in 1983, the fallout from its success was a disaster for the arcade industry. Because of its complex laserdisc technology, Cinematronics sold Dragon's Lair machines to operators for $4000 each, twice as much as a normal machine. The operators passed the extra expense on to gamers, charging 50 cents to play it instead of the normal 25 cents (setting a precedent that later became standard practice for all new arcade games). Although gamers flocked to it when it was new, the replay value turned out to be very low; between the high cost of playing and because it was possible to memorize the entire game, many gamers never came back once they beat it. As a result, the cash flow into Dragon's Lair machines quickly dried up and even with the 50 cent charge many operators never recovered the money they paid for it. Finally, it ushered in the short-lived "laserdisc era" in arcades, which featured many more games styled after Dragon's Lair that attempted to cash in on its success. The vast majority of these games were expensive to produce, poorly received by gamers, and ended up being money-losers for companies and operators alike.
Full-Motion-Video ("FMV") games (entire genre)
In the early 1990's, CD-ROM technology became less expensive, and quickly became a staple of the gaming world. In a few more years, the vast majority of consoles would be CD-ROM based. For a brief time in the early days of CD-ROM gaming, many developers, publishers, and investors thought that FMV games would be the future of the industry. Games that utilized full motion video, however, enjoyed very limited popularity and ultimately fell by the wayside by 1995-96. The main reason for this was poor gameplay. Developers tried to find innovative ways to shove video clips into games with very little success. Most FMV games were either puzzle games, in which you simply watched video sequences to gather clues, or rail shooters, where you simply pressed the right button at the right time, with little or no variations. This, combined with the costs of producing the games (sets had to be built, actors hired, etc.) led to this genre only lasting a few years. The future, it turned out, was games using 3D environments rendered in real time.
Might and Magic IX: Writ of Fate
The last game in the Might and Magic series produced by New World Computing suffered from outdated graphics and poor gameplay; the game and several failed spin-offs of the series were among the nails in the coffin of The 3DO Company.
Mortal Kombat (SNES version)
To comply with the "family friendly" policy enforced by Nintendo at the time, blood was recolored to resemble sweat and all fatalities were toned down. While superior in both graphics and gameplay to the Genesis/Mega Drive version, as the Sega version had blood and original arcade fatalities (which was the main reason the game become popular in the first place) unlockable with a cheat code, it oversold the SNES version exponentially, also giving the Sega console an edge in console sales. The losses caused by the incident led to Nintendo lessening creative control over developers in the future.
Rascal
Massively hyped 1998 Super Mario 64 clone for the PlayStation, hailed as the "N64 killer" by the Sony-sponsored gaming press in the earlier stages of development. While in fact the graphics were far superior to most other games, the terrible camera angles (which often made Rascal the only visible character) and bad gameplay made the game unplayable from the earlier levels. Some of the same press never reviewed the final game while others focused completely on praising the graphics.
Red Baron II
The sequel to Red Baron was released with no support for 3D graphics cards, inaccurate flight models, and bugs. A free upgrade for those who purchased the full-priced game, Red Baron 3D, was later released to solve most of these problems and, with a proliferation of unofficial patches, maintains a niche amongst fans.
Star Wars: Force Commander
The first RTS based in the Star Wars franchise, this game used a sub-par 3D engine combined with a bad interface and equally bad game design. Of all Star Wars games, Force Commander is one of the lower in the "pre-release hype + poor game value" combination area.
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Expected to revive the long-stagnant Tomb Raider series, it was repeatedly delayed. When it finally shipped in mid-2003, it was not well received by video game critics due to multiple bugs or outdated game playing elements. The game was even criticised by Paramount Pictures, who said that gamers' dissatisfaction with the game led to the poor commercial performance of their movie Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. [1] This was also the last Tomb Raider game to be developed by its creators, Core Design. Eidos the publisher of the series, has assigned their other game studio Crystal Dynamics to develop the next Tomb Raider game (Tomb Raider: Legend) partly due to The Angel of Darkness' low sales numbers.
Ultima IX
Was very badly received by fans and even created such an outcry that Origin shut down an official online help page due to so many negative posts. Ultimately, due in part to the negative reviews, shortly after the release Richard Garriott left Electronic Arts, while EA kept the rights to the Ultima name, thus effectively ending the series.
World Cup Carnival
The official game of the Mexico '86 FIFA World Cup by US Gold, which had several problems during development, forcing the company to acquire an older game and modify it to suit the license. Buyers and the complete industry alike frowned upon the attempt to distribute a mediocre two year old game as a new one.
Computer and video game services failures
Sega's Online services: the Sega Channel, Sega NetLink and SegaNet were different online services for the Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, respectively. They failed to atract a large audience and the demise of each console ended with these services after some time.
This series will be continued...
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