List of commercial failures in video gaming

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As a hit-driven business, the great majority of the video games industry's software releases have been commercial failures. In the early 21st century, rules of thumb noted by industry commentators estimated that 10% of published games generated 90% of revenue;^[1] that around 3% of PC games and 15% of console games have global sales of 100,000+ a year (with even this level insufficient to make high-budget titles profitable);^[2] and that about 20% of games return at least some profit.^[3] The rate of commercial failure has been estimated at 95% by the International Game Developers Association^{[dated info]}.^[4]

Some of these have drastically changed the video game market since its birth in the late 1970s. For example, the flops of E.T. and Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 contributed to the video game crash of 1983. Some games, despite being commercial failures, are well received by certain group of gamers and are considered cult games. Many of these games live on through emulation.

Contents 1 Video game hardware failures 1.1 3DO Interactive Multiplayer 1.2 Amstrad GX4000 and Amstrad CPC+ range 1.3 Atari Jaguar 1.4 Apple Bandai Pippin 1.5 Commodore 64 Games System 1.6 digiBlast 1.7 Gizmondo 1.8 Nintendo 64DD 1.9 Nokia N-Gage 1.10 PSX (DVR) 1.11 Virtual Boy 2 Video and computer game software failures 2.1 Battlecruiser 3000AD 2.2 Beyond Good & Evil 2.3 Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3 2.4 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 2.5 Grim Fandango 2.6 Pac-Man (Atari 2600) 2.7 Psychonauts 2.8 Shenmue 2.9 The Last Express 2.10 Uru: Ages Beyond Myst 3 Arcade game failures 3.1 I, Robot 3.2 Jack the Giantkiller 3.3 Radar Scope 3.4 Sundance 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Video game hardware failures

For the sake of scope, a commercial failure for a video game hardware platform is generally defined as a system that either fails to become adopted by a significant portion of the gaming market place, or fails to win significant mindshare of the target audience. This definition should be applied internationally, and not based strictly on the success or failure of a platform in any one given market (e.g. North America).

[edit] 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

Co-designed by RJ Mical and the team behind the Amiga, and marketed by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, this "multimedia machine" released in 1993 was marketed as a family entertainment device and not just a video game console. The success and quality of subsequent next generation systems which began coming onto the market in the mid-90's, the limited library of titles, the lack of third-party support, and a refusal to reduce pricing until almost the end of the product's life (US$699.95 at release) were among the many issues that led to the platform's demise and the company's exit from the hardware market.^[5] This exit also included The 3DO Company selling the platform's successor, the M2, to Matsushita (now Panasonic).^[6]

[edit] Amstrad GX4000 and Amstrad CPC+ range

In 1990, Amstrad attempted to enter the console gaming market with hardware based on its successful Amstrad CPC range but also capable of playing cartridge-based games with improved graphics and sound. This comprised the Amstrad CPC+ computers, including the same features as the existing CPCs, and the dedicated GX4000 console. However, only a few months later the Sega Mega Drive, a much-anticipated 16-bit console, was released in Europe, and the GX4000's aging 8-bit technology proved unable to compete. Many of the games were also direct ports of existing CPC games (available more cheaply on tape or disc) with few if any graphical improvements. Fewer than thirty games were released on cartridge, and the GX4000's failure ended Amstrad's involvement in the gaming industry. The CPC+ range fared little better, as 8-bit computers had been all but superseded by similarly-priced 16-bit machines such as the Amiga, though fans of the computer discovered software hacks that made the advanced console graphics and sound accessible to users.^[7]

[edit] Atari Jaguar

Released in 1993, this 64-bit system was promoted as much more powerful than its contemporaries, the Sega Genesis and the SNES (hence its "Do the Math" slogan); however, its sales were hurt by a lack of quality software, a flaw in the hardware that made programming difficult, a hard to hold/manipulate controller design, and a number of crippling business practices on the part of Atari senior management. The system never attained critical mass in the market before the release of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, and without strong leadership to drive a recovery, it failed alongside the company.^[8][9]

[edit] Apple Bandai Pippin

A game console designed by Apple Computer and produced by Bandai (now Namco-Bandai) in the mid-1990s based around a PowerPC 603e processor and the Mac OS. It featured a 4x CD-ROM drive and a video output that could connect to a standard television monitor. Apple intended to license the technology to third parties; however, the only Pippin licensee to release a product to market was Bandai. By the time the Bandai Pippin was released (1995 for Japan, 1996 for the United States), the market was already dominated by the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn. The Bandai Pippin cost US$599 on launch, more expensive than the competition.^[10]

[edit] Commodore 64 Games System

Released only in Europe and being Commodore International's first venture in the video game market, the C64GS was basically a Commodore 64 redesigned as a cartridge-based console. Aside from some hardware issues, the console did not get much attention from the public, who preferred to buy the cheaper original computer that had far more possibilities. Also, the console appeared during the apogee of the 16-bit era, which left no chance for it to succeed.^[11]

[edit] digiBlast

The digiBlast portable console was launched by Nikko at the end of 2005 and promised to be a cheap alternative (selling at approximately €80) to the Game Boy Advance and PSP. The handheld could be used for games on cartridges, cartoon (WinX Club, SpongeBob SquarePants) episodes and were released on cartridge as well as cartridges containing music videos. Also a cartridge for MP3 playback and a cartridge with a 1.3 Megapixel camera were planned. A shortage of chips around the release date and thereafter resulted in a failed launch and loss of consumer interest.^[12][13]

[edit] Gizmondo

A handheld gaming device including GPS and a digital camera was released by Tiger Telematics in the United Kingdom on 19 March 2005. The console sold poorly, due to a lack of games, and being unable to compete with the cheaper Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. On 23 January 2006, the UK arm of Tiger Telematics went into administration. Several high-ranking Tiger executives were subsequently arrested for fraud and other illegal activities related to the Gizmondo.^[14]

[edit] Nintendo 64DD

A disc drive add-on to the Nintendo 64, it was first announced at 1995's Nintendo Shoshinkai game show event (now called SpaceWorld). However, the 64DD was delayed until its release in Japan on December 1, 1999. Nintendo, anticipating poor sales, sold the 64DD through its RANDnet subscription service rather than directly to retailers or consumers. As a result, the 64DD was only supported by Nintendo for a short period of time and only nine games were released for it. Most unreleased 64DD games were either canceled or released as normal Nintendo 64 games. During its lifetime, 15,000 sets were sold worldwide, while 85,000 sets became scrap.^[15]

[edit] Nokia N-Gage

Made by the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, and released in 2003, the N-Gage was a small handheld console, designed to combine a feature-packed mobile/cellular phone with a handheld games console. Sales were poor and many video gamers mocked the system for its taco-like design. Sales were so bad that the system's price dropped by $100 within a week after its release. Common complaints included the difficulty of swapping games and the fact that its cellphone feature required users to hold the device "sideways" (i.e. the long edge of the system) against their cheek.^[16] A redesigned version, the N-Gage QD, has since been released to eliminate these complaints. However, the N-Gage brand still suffered from a poor reputation and the QD did not address the popular complaint that the control layout was "too cluttered." The N-Gage failed to reach the popularity of the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or the Sony PSP. In November 2005, Nokia announced the failure of its product, in light of poor sales (less than three million units sold during the platform's three-year run, against projections of six million), and while gaming software is still being produced for its Series 60 phones, Nokia ceased to consider gaming a corporate priority until 2007, when it expected improved screen sizes and quality to increase demand.^[17]

[edit] PSX (DVR)

Built upon the PlayStation 2, the PSX enhanced multimedia derivative was touted to bring convergence to the living room.^[18] The device's failure in Japan, however, due to its high price and lack of consumer interest^[19] resulted in the cancellation of plans to release it in the rest of the world. Not only was it an unsuccessful attempt by Sony Computer Entertainment head Ken Kutaragi to revive the ailing consumer electronics division,^[20] it also hurt Sony's media convergence plans.^[21]

[edit] Virtual Boy

The red monochromatic 3-D "virtual reality" system failed due to issues related to players getting eye strain and headaches when trying to play it. It was Nintendo's first failed console release. Gunpei Yokoi, the designer of the platform and the person largely credited for the success of the original Game Boy handheld and the Metroid series of games, resigned from the company shortly after the Virtual Boy ceased sales in order to start his own company.^[22]

[edit] Video and computer game software failures

[edit] Battlecruiser 3000AD

One of the most notorious PC gaming failures, Battlecruiser 3000AD (aka BC3K) was hyped for almost a decade before its disastrous release in the US and Europe. The game was the brainchild of Derek Smart, an independent game developer with a flair for self-promotion and a penchant for public excoriation of his critics. The concept behind BC3K was extremely ambitious, giving the player the command of a large starship with all the requisite duties, including navigation, combat, resource management, and commanding crew members. Advertisements appeared in the gaming press in the mid-1990s hyping the game as, "The Last Thing You'll Ever Desire."^[23] Computer bulletin boards and Usenet groups were abuzz with discussion about the game. As time wore on and numerous delays were announced, excitement turned to frustration in the online community. Smart exacerbated the negative air by posting liberally on Usenet.^[23] The posts ignited one of the largest flame wars in Usenet history.^[24] During the development cycle, Smart refused to let other programmers have full access to his code and continued to change directions as new technology became available, causing the game to be in development for over seven years.

In November 1996, Take Two Interactive finally released the game, reportedly over protests from Smart.^[23] The game was buggy, even unfinished in many areas. It was written for a DOS environment at a time when most games used Windows 95. It employed outdated graphics, MIDI music, a cryptic interface, and contained almost no documentation - a huge problem since the commands were unintuitive (e.g. Alt-Ctrl-E to fire weapons). It was joked that the only thing that worked properly was the introductory movie. Critics and the gaming community were merciless, panning BC3K across the board. Smart continued to publicly battle his detractors, but kept working on the game, even in the face of harsh criticism. Eventually, a stable, playable version of the game was released as Battlecruiser 3000AD v2.0. Smart eventually released BC3K as freeware and went on to create several sequels under the Battlecruiser and Universal Combat titles.

[edit] Beyond Good & Evil

Although critically acclaimed and planned as the first part of a trilogy, Beyond Good & Evil flopped commercially. Former Ubisoft employee Owen Hughes stated that it was felt that the simultaneous releases of internationally competing titles Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and in Europe, XIII (all three published by Ubisoft and all of which had strong brand identity in their markets), made an impact on BG&E's ability to achieve interest with the public. The game's commercial failure led Ubisoft to postpone plans for any subsequent titles in the series.^[25][26] A sequel was announced at the end of the Ubidays 2008 opening conference.^[27]

[edit] Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3

The first title released by Ion Storm, Dominion was a real time strategy title similar to Command & Conquer and Warcraft. The game was originally developed by 7th Level, but was purchased by Ion Storm for US$1.8 million. The project originally had a budget of US$50,000 and was scheduled to be finished in three months with two staff members. Due to mismanagement and Ion Storm's inexperience, the project took over a year, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.^[28] Dominion was released in July, 1998. It received bad reviews and sold poorly, falling far short of recouping its purchase price, let alone the cost of finishing it. The game divided employees working on Ion's marquee title, Daikatana, arguably leading to the walkout of several key development team members. It put a strain on Ion Storm's finances, leading the once well-funded startup to scramble for cash as Daikatana's development extended over several years.^[29]

[edit] E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Based on the popular E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial movie and reputedly coded in just five weeks,^[30] this game was rushed to the market for the 1982 holiday season.^[30] It was expected to sell millions, but despite selling 1.5 million copies,^[31] the game came nowhere near Atari's expectations as it ordered five million copies.^[30] Not only that, but a good deal of the sold games were sent back to the company because many consumers found the game to be unenjoyable.^[30] This resulted in warehouses being left filled with cartridges for the would-be rush of buyers running to get the game.^[30] It turned out that the game was such a huge disaster that millions of unsold excess cartridges ended up buried in a landfill in the New Mexico desert.^[30] The game is highly emblematic of the video game crash of 1983 and contributed to Atari's fall from grace. Bad sales, coupled with the $25 million Atari paid for the rights, meant huge financial losses for Atari, which subsequently announced bankruptcy with debts of $536 million. It was divided and sold in 1984.^[30]

[edit] Grim Fandango

Known for being the first adventure game by LucasArts to use three-dimensional graphics, Grim Fandango received positive reviews and won numerous awards. It was originally thought that the game sold well during the 1998 holiday season.^[32] However, based on data provided by PC Data (now owned by NPD Group), the game sold about 95,000 copies up to 2003 in North America, excluding online sales.^[33] Worldwide sales are estimated between 100,000 and 500,000 units. Grim Fandango's sales are considered to have reduced the appeal of making traditional point and click adventures.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Pac-Man (Atari 2600)

The home version of the highly popular Pac-Man arcade game was eagerly anticipated, but was an incredible disappointment. In 1982, Atari created twelve million cartridges, even though there were only 10 million Atari 2600s sold at the time, in hopes of the game boosting system sales. Pac-Man did sell close to seven million cartridges, but consumers and critics alike gave it low ratings. The game was rushed to make the 1981 Christmas season. The high number of unsold units (over five million), coupled with the expense of a large marketing campaign, led to large losses for Atari. This game, along with E.T., is often blamed for sparking the video game crash of 1983. Shortly after the disappointment of Pac-Man, Atari reported a huge quarterly loss, prompting parent company Warner Communications to sell the division off in 1984. Atari never regained a prominent position in the home console market.^[34]

[edit] Psychonauts

Despite being a critical success and being highly innovative for a platformer,^[35] the game initially sold fewer than 100,000 copies.^[36] The game led to troubles at publisher Majesco, including the resignation of its CEO and the plummeting of the company's stock,^[37] prompting a class-action lawsuit by the company's stockholders.^[38] This game has been declared the "poster child" for the recent failures in innovative games.^[39] Its poor sales have also been blamed on a lack of marketing coupled with a high-end, US$50 price tag.

[edit] Shenmue

Shenmue on the Dreamcast is more notorious for its overambitious budget than its poor sales figures. At the time of release, the game had the record for the most expensive production costs (over US$70 million),^[40] and its five-year production time. In comparison, the games' total sale was 1.2 million copies.^[41] Shenmue was a critical hit, earning an average review score of 89%.^[42]

[edit] The Last Express

Released in 1997 after five years in development, this 6-million-dollar^[43] adventure game was the brainchild of Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia. The game was noted for taking place in almost complete real-time, using Art Nouveau-style characters that were rotoscoped from a 22-day live-action video shoot,^[44] and featuring intelligent writing and levels of character depth that were not often seen in computer games. Despite rave reviews,^[45][46] Brøderbund, the game's publisher, did little to promote the game, apart from a brief mention in a press release^[47] and enthusiastic statements by Brøderbund executives.^[48] Released in April, the game was not a success, selling only about 100,000 copies,^[49] a million copies short of breaking even.^[50]

After the release of the game, Mechner's company Smoking Car Productions quietly folded, and Brøderbund was acquired by The Learning Company,^[51] who were only interested in Brøderbund's educational software, effectively putting the game out of print.

[edit] Uru: Ages Beyond Myst

The fourth game in the popular Myst series, it was developed by Cyan Worlds shortly after Riven was completed. The game took Cyan Worlds more than five years and $12 million to complete^[52] and was codenamed DIRT ("D'ni in real time"), then MUDPIE (meaning "Multi-User DIRT, Persistent / Personal Interactive Entertainment / Experience / Exploration / Environment"). Though it had generally positive reception,^[53][54] the sales were disappointing.^[55] In comparison, the first three Myst games had sold more than 12 million units collectively before Uru's release.^[56] Uru's poor sales were also considered a factor in financially burdening Cyan, contributing to the company's near closure in 2005.^[57]

[edit] Arcade game failures

[edit] I, Robot

Released by Atari in 1983, I, Robot was the first video game ever to use 3-D polygon graphics, and the first that allowed the player to change camera angles.^[58] It also had gameplay that rewarded planning and stealth as much as reflexes and trigger speed, and even offered players the option, instead of playing the primary game, of selecting a sandbox mode called "Doodle City," where they could make artwork by playing around with the polygons. Today, I, Robot is frequently described as a game that was too far ahead of its time; polygon graphics, player-controlled camera angles, and even sandboxes are now commonplace, but in 1983 gamers and operators who were used to much more straightforward fare like Galaga and Pac-Man didn't know what to make of it, and it became one of Atari's biggest arcade flops as a result.^[59] Production estimates vary, but all agree that there were never more than 1500 units made at most.

[edit] Jack the Giantkiller

In 1982, the President of Cinematronics arranged a one-time purchase of 5000 printed circuit boards from Japan. The boards were used in the manufacture of several games, but the majority of them were reserved for the new arcade game 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 at a time when it was already having financial difficulties.^[60]

[edit] Radar Scope

Radar Scope was one of the first arcade games released by Nintendo. It was released in Japan first, and a brief run of success there led Nintendo to order 3,000 units for the American market. American operators were unimpressed, however, and Nintendo of America was stuck with about 2,000 unsold Radar Scope machines sitting in the warehouse.^[61] Facing a potential financial disaster, Nintendo assigned the game's designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, to revamp the game. Instead he designed a brand new game that could be run in the same cabinets and on the same hardware as Radar Scope.^[62] That new game was the smash hit Donkey Kong, and Nintendo was able to recoup its investment by converting the remaining unsold Radar Scope units to Donkey Kong and selling those.^[63]

[edit] Sundance

Sundance was an arcade vector game. Producer Cinematronics planned to manufacture about 1000 Sundance units, but sales suffered from a combination of poor game play and an abnormally high rate of manufacturing defects. The fallout rate in production was about 50%, the vector monitor (made by an outside vendor) had a defective picture tube that would arc and burn out if the game was left in certain positions during shipping,^[64] and according to programmer Tim Skelly the circuit boards required a lot of cut-and-jumpering between mother and daughter boards that also made for a very fragile setup.^[65] The units that survived all of that to reach arcade floors were not a hit with gamers - Skelly himself reportedly felt that the gameplay lacked the "anxiety element" necessary in a good game and asked Cinematronics not to release it, and in an April 1983 interview with Video Games Magazine he explicitly referred to Sundance as "a total dog."^[66]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Dumbest 25 moments in gaming from GameSpy