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List of commercial failures in video games

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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.

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.

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" was marketed as a family entertainment device and not just a video game console. Few titles utilized the console's full potential, which, along with its high price (699.95 USD at release) and the inability of the console market to sustain multiple platforms, put it in an early grave. The final nail in the coffin was the scuttling of the project after the expensive development of the successor console, the M2.
Amiga CD 32
Released in 1993, the decline of the Amiga product line and Commodore's poor marketing and lack of product support prevented any kind of serious traction for this product. While it was initially billed as all the power of an Amiga computer in a console, it was not priced competitively to the Amiga 500/1200 lines. Additionally, 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 business practices on the part of Atari senior management, a hard to hold/manipulate controller design and lack of quality software hurt sales. The system never attained critical mass in the market and without strong leadership to drive it, it failed alongside the company.
Atari Lynx handheld
Only months after the release of the Game Boy in 1989, Atari launched their first color hand-held system co-Designed by R.J. Mical. Featuring a large, backlit display, and significantly higher powered hardware compared to the Game Boy. However, due to a bulky design and an extremely low battery life, the system failed to garner any significant sales. Eventually Atari released a smaller more manageable version branded the Lynx II, but the differences were only cosmetic and it proved too little too late, appealing mostly to owners of the original system.
Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color handhelds
SNK's cult classic pocket system, discontinued after 2 years when SNK decided to pull out of the home video game market which was then followed by the company closing operations in 2001. The system quickly disappeared from the market at that time as SNK recalled all outstanding unsold product in order to avoid costly long-term support issues.
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
The e-Reader for the Game Boy Advance, was used by several games (such as Animal Crossing, and Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire), as well as the Pokemon CCG which included mini-games encoded on the cards. The system proved to be too cumbersome for most players and failed to take off.
Nintendo 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 along with the problem that the system required the player to be isolated during play thus killing any social interaction while playing. To date, it is the only Nintendo console 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.
Sega CD/Sega Mega CD
This was a CD-ROM drive built for Sega's Mega Drive system. The high cost of the percieved system 'upgrade', combined with the lack of unique software for the platform prevented it from really taking off. Fearful of losing sales, Sega maintained a practice of simultaneous cartridge/CD-ROM releases of many games. Unfortunately the CD-ROM versions rarely featured more than improved audio. Another factor that impacted sales was the over reliance on Full Motion Video style content over gameplay and originality in a significant number of titles.
Sega Dreamcast
Sega's last attempt into the console market. Although it did recieve high reviews and a good library of games, the sales couldn't replenish the losses that Sega has endured earlier. They official announced they wouldn't continue to make Dreamcasts and there is no word if they will ever release another counsle again. Sega still continues to creates games for other consoles such as the Xbox and Playstation 2 which relieved many Sega fans. Another factor to the Dreamcast's downfall was the release of the Playstation 2. Dreamcasts are still viewed today as a console that never really got it's just deserts.
Sega Nomad
Sega's second entry into the handheld market. 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, but fans were soon disappointed to discover that the system was nothing more than a portable Genesis. Like the Game Gear it suffered from a low battery life and weak third party support as developers had already moving away from the cartridge format and had abandoned Genesis development years earlier. Sega never fully promoted the system and as a part of efforts to clean house, sold the manufacturing rights to a third party company who managed to make strong sales of both Sega handheld systems in Brazil.
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 was targeted at the economy market. 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.
Virtual Reality (Entire Format)
The early 1990s saw a major surge in interest of virtual reality as a form of entertainment. Various companies attempted to develop virtual reality games for public use, but limitations such as the high cost of virtual reality equipment, along with unflattering portrayals of the technology depicted in popular media such as the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man and its sequel, led to a quick decline in interest that proved to be nothing more than a fad. However, despite this early failure in the public eye, research and development into virtual reality is still being conducted for medical and other scientific purposes. It may yet have a better chance to become a viable form of entertainment in the future.

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. The game's commercial failure caused creator Michel Ancel and publisher Ubi Soft to place plans to continue the planned trilogy of BG&E on indefinite hold.
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 Ion Storm 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, including going through numerous engine upgrades/changes, as well as development team changes on a seemingly routine basis. 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 (as Mother 1 + 2). 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 buried in a desert.[1] 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 to 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.
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.
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.

Note that Football Manager 2005 onwards (the name revived from Football Manager on a variety of 8-bit consoles in the 1980s) is a product of Sports Interactive, who surrended the Championship Manager series' name after Championship Manager 03/04, following a dispute with their then-publishers, Eidos Interactive. Championship Manager 5 and Championship Manager 6 have nothing to do with Sports Interactive, instead being developed by Beautiful Game Studios under the auspices of Eidos. SI took their expertise in creating the series (as well as their huge databases of football information) to Sega to release Football Manager 2005. Fans of Sports Interactive see the Football Manager as the inheritor of the Championship Manager tradition due to being made by the same development team. Judging by the respective sales figures, these fans are in the majority. A comparatively small number of early Championship Manager fans seem to have stuck by Eidos and the new studio who now own the name.

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.
Killer 7
Killer 7 is a video game jointly developed and published by Grasshopper Manufacture and Capcom for the GameCube and the PlayStation 2. Due to its unconventional (and confusing) plot, stylish cel-shaded graphics, and un-orthodox gameplay the game suffered commercially, selling only in the ten thousands.
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.
The Last Express
This 1997 computer game by Jordan Mechner, is a real-time adventure game and one of the most expensive and innovative ever made. The project took nearly four years to complete and included a month-long blue-screen filmshoot and a round-the-clock staff of up to 50 animators, artists, asset wranglers, and programmers. The game only remained in stores for a few months. Brøderbund's marketing department quit just weeks before the game was released, resulting in virtually no advertising for it. Softbank pulled out of the game market, dissolving its subsidiary GameBank and canceling several dozen titles in development, including the nearly finished PlayStation port of Express. The Last Express was out of print long before its first Christmas season and nearly a million units shy of breaking even. By dropping their support of an already completed game, Broderbund and Softbank most likely increased their losses.
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.
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. [2] 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 due to a tremendous amount of bugs in the software which created such an outcry that Origin shut down an official online help page over so many negative posts. Ultimately, due political struggles within Electronic Arts, Richard Garriott (the designer of the series) eventually left. While EA kept the rights to the Ultima name, the bad press, poor support and user animosity forced EA to terminate 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 attract a large audience and the demise of each console ended with these services after some time.
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