Top 20 Biggest Video Game Fails of the Decade

Top 20 Biggest VG Fails of the Decade

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With so many great achievements in gaming, it’s such a shame when things go so wrong. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 20 Biggest Video Game Fails of the Decade. For this list, we’re looking at the biggest failures of the gaming industry from 2010 to 2019. These were games, and or consoles that cost their companies millions of dollars for their mistakes.

#20: The PlayStation Classic (2018)

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Nintendo’s success from the NES and SNES Classic prompted Sony to do the same. Surely, players would want a small digital library of classic PS1 titles? Well as it turns out, if you implement a bunch of aspects players hate, the answer is a resounding no. The mediocre game line-up was an easy criticism pre-launch. But the poor user interface, subpar image and emulation quality, and an insane $100 price tag made the game line-up the least of our worries. Word spread fast, and Sony has gone through several price cuts just to get people to buy them. Within a year of its launch, you can now get one for around $20 - $25.

#19: Xbox One’s Pre-Launch (2013)

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Microsoft’s future is looking bright going into the 9th generation. It’s just a shame they’ve had to course correct so intensely, due to the disastrous launch of their 8th generation console. At the Xbox One’s reveal event in May 2013, Microsoft was criticized for focusing too much on TV and sports instead of games. But that was just the beginning. It was revealed the Xbox One would require constant internet connection, the always-on Kinect sparked privacy concerns, and the system’s design would have prevented selling and trading old games. It was a mess, and all for $100 more than the PS4. After Sony wiped the floor with them at E3 2013, Microsoft was left with no choice but to reverse all of these decisions. And it’s something they’ve had to work back from the entire generation.

#18: “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric” (2014)

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Not one to shy away from the reboot trend, Sega opted to give their iconic mascot and his friends a bandage-covered makeover, in a new game being developed by Big Red Button. A new team made up of former developers from Naughty Dog, what could go wrong? Well everything for that matter! The game was marred with technical issues so bad, that some considered it worse than the infamous Sonic ’06. It was later revealed; that these problems stemmed from the fact that the game was forced to shift development to the Wii U thanks to an exclusivity deal, a console that wasn’t optimised to run the game’s engine. At least the spin-off TV show was pretty good.

#17: “Crackdown 3” (2019)

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Our hearts go out to the developers of “Crackdown 3.” The latest entry of the hectic, third-person shooter series went through 4 delays before finally releasing in February 2019. And they were all products of trying (and failing) to keep the hefty promises the game was supposed to deliver on. Fully destructible environments through the Xbox One’s highly touted Cloud Processing were harder to implement than the team initially thought. The delays, crowded release schedule, and mediocre game design made it sell incredibly poorly. It didn’t actually do much different from the original “Crackdown,” which was released in 2007. It’s such a shame this was a failure given the importance riding on this title.

#16: Always-on DRM Games

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Remember that constant internet connection of the Xbox One? Well, Microsoft aren’t the only ones who fell prey to it. DRM, or digital rights management, is a technology that’s designed to verify the legitimacy of a purchase in an effort to fight piracy. But at the start of the decade, a trend of DRM that emerged required players to maintain an internet connection, even if they were playing single player games. Two of the most notable games that used this feature; were “Diablo III” and 2013’s “SimCity”. Both of which proved to be too much for their respective company’s servers at launch, that players were unable to even play the games that they had bought. There’s a good reason this never caught on.

#15: “Metal Gear Survive” (2018)

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The first “Metal Gear” game without Hideo Kojima was always going to be met with serious scrutiny. Unfortunately for us, Konami dropped the ball pretty hard. Gone was the focus on stealth gameplay the series was known for. Instead, “Survive” was an action-survival game set in an alternate universe that tasked players with combating zombie-like creatures. If that doesn’t convince you that the tacked on “Metal Gear” name was just a cash grab, the inclusion of microtransactions should. The story and characters, which had nothing to do with the iconic characters players know, were also met with fair criticism. Nevertheless, it underperformed. And it’s a rather sour note as the so-far last installment of such a cherished series.

#14: The Wii U (2012-2017)

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While the Wii U had some great games, it was almost set up to fail from the very beginning. Revealed at E3 2011, Nintendo focused so heavily on the new controller that many didn’t realize it was an entirely new console. And naming it after the popular Wii to sound like an add-on didn’t help matters. The console would struggle through mediocre third party ports and a trickling of great first party fare for five years. With nothing really new to draw players in, the Wii U was a colossal financial failure for Nintendo. At least this failure has a happy ending: it led to the inventive and imaginative Switch.

#13: The PlayStation Vita (2011-2019)

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Sony’s handheld consoles were always going to be second fiddle to Nintendo’s lineup, but things did well for the Vita at all. From the moment the system launched, sales were very slow, and never had the chance to take off. This was attributed to the fact that there weren’t that many must own exclusives on the system, and it’s multimedia features were being bested by smartphones at the time. Eventually game development for the Vita ended mid-decade, most of its exclusives were ported over to the PS4, and Sony quietly discontinued the Vita in March 2019. Sadly unlike the Wii U, there seems to be no successor to the Vita in sight.

#12: “Mighty No. 9” (2016)

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When it comes to Kickstarter campaigns, for every incredible “Shovel Knight,” there are at least 3 like this. “Mighty No. 9” was meant to be a spiritual successor to “Mega Man,” and even came from the blue bomber’s artistic creator, Keiji Inafune. Given the popularity of the Capcom franchise, “Mighty No. 9” blew through all of its financial milestones incredibly quickly. After many delays, it was met with tremendous backlash from both players and critics. Underwhelming graphics, a bland story, and poor technical performance were all favorites to pick apart. Even those who backed the project reported receiving broken download codes and mismatched rewards. An overall mess of a project, it didn’t help that it received one of the worst launch trailers of all time.

#11: “No Man’s Sky” Launch (2016)

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When promoting a game, it’s best to keep your promises in check. Hello Games learned this the hard way when they launched “No Man’s Sky” in 2016. Players were ecstatic to explore a procedurally generated galaxy with their friends, discovering new planets and species. A victim of overhype and overselling, the title released without many of the promised functions. Multiplayer components and gameplay elements, such as those in terms of crafting resources and different planetary features, were absent from the game. This obviously sparked outrage from players sold on a certain experience. And this failure to live up to expectations is something Hello Games has had to work very hard to fix with updates to the game. But they’ve learned to stay quiet.

#10: “Assassin’s Creed Unity” (2014)

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For a while, the Assassin’s Creed series seemed unstoppable, thanks to a yearly release schedule that turned out one successful title after another. But at the start of the 8th console generation; that all came to a screeching halt. Intent on maintaining their yearly release schedule, Ubisoft released Unity in a broken unfinished state. Not only were the bugs plentiful but the game was also prone to crashing. In fact, reception of the game was so bad that it affected sales of the next game in the series “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate” forcing Ubisoft to give the series a break … and a much needed overhaul. Thankfully that overhaul paid off.

Once upon a time “Command & Conquer” was at peak of the RTS mountain, right alongside the likes of “Starcraft”. Yet the 2010’s ended up being it’s downfall. In a decision that defies all logic; “Tiberium Twilight” was developed by EA as the finale of the Tiberium storyline, while at the same time; a soft reboot of the series core gameplay mechanics. Gone was base building and resource gathering, in favour of fast paced battle with pre-set classes and an RPG levelling up system. Basically removing everything the series was known for. The game’s critical and commercial failure caused the series to go silent for the rest of the decade, save from a mobile spin-off no one asked for. At least we’re getting remakes of the first two games next decade … so there’s that.

#8: Telltale Games (2005-2018)

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While they were around since 2005, Telltale Games earned fame by creating point-and-click games based on popular IPs. Their most successful being 2012’s “The Walking Dead” where tough choices made for engaging storytelling. But some of the more expensive-costing franchises like “Batman” and “Game of Thrones,” combined with diminishing sales, meant they had to shut their doors in 2018. But the worst part is how they went about it. With little notice, Telltale laid off 250 employees with no severance pay. What remains of the studio was purchased by LCG Entertainment in 2019, but this was an undeniably awful handling of a bad situation.

#7: “Fallout 76” (2018)

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Where to start with this one? Bethesda’s latest “Fallout” has disappointed on almost every front. With no NPCs at first, players would inhabit the game’s massive world together. Too bad the world was plagued with bugs and repetitive gameplay loops. Things have been just as ugly post-launch. Controversy surrounded the $200 Collector’s Edition, whose canvas bags were switched to nylon last-minute by Bethesda. But there’s also Fallout 1st, a rather pricey subscription plan. Even this is riddled with issues. Players have reported one of the service’s perks, a scrapbox to store endless materials, makes their items disappear. And the private worlds for you and your friends? Well they’re not invite-only, so they aren’t quite as private as you’d think. Just play “The Outer Worlds” instead.

#6: “Anthem” (2019)

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BioWare’s online sci-fi shooter would probably still make the list for its repetitive grind, generic story, and its failure to meet EA’s selling expectations. But it’s the behind-the-scenes story that makes things so much worse. Shortly after the game’s release, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier interviewed a group of anonymous BioWare employees. And the picture they painted wasn’t pretty. Poor management, crunch, high stress, indecision about what the game should actually be, and a forced usage of EA’s Frostbite game engine all resulted in a half-baked title. “Anthem” is a tedious, unfun mess that doesn’t live up to BioWare’s standards. It was so bad, the game is now set for a full overhaul. Who knows how that will go.

Gearbox’s hero shooter is actually an okay game. It had enough variety in each character’s gameplay mechanics to keep players interested. Its failure, however, can mostly be attributed to its launch window. It was released in May of 2016, mere weeks before the much-more-highly-anticipated “Overwatch” from Blizzard. Though they were similar, “Overwatch” was clearly the better game and had the larger marketing budget. “Battleborn” sold decently at launch. But player count dropped immensely after “Overwatch” released, with the PC count dropping from 12,000 to 1,000 just two months later. The game would eventually go free-to-play in 2017, but now the game is scheduled for shut down in January 2021. So long Battleborn.

#4: “Radical Heights” (2018)

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With the boom in popularity of battle royale games like “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” and “Fortnite,” we’ve seen many studios follow the trend to varying degrees of success. At the very bottom of that list sits “Radical Heights.” Developer Boss Key Productions likely thought the title would help them recuperate losses from their first game, the FPS “LawBreakers.” However, “Radical Heights”, classified as being in “X-Treme Early Access,” was criticized for using unpolished assets and recycling gameplay from more successful counterparts. It was obviously a slapdash combination of things Boss Key thought would bring players in. Instead, it brought financial ruin to the studio as it closed shortly after. Cliff Bleszinski, the studio’s founder and creator of “Gears of War,” even retired after Boss Key’s closure.

#3: “Mass Effect: Andromeda” (2017)

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Things started going downhill at BioWare before “Anthem.” The fourth (and so far) final entry in the “Mass Effect” series; was built by the company’s Montreal team. Just like with “Anthem” though, Kotaku’s Jason Jason Schreier reported mismanagement issues. Notably that the team was forced to use the Frostbite engine, which required them to build everything from the ground up. Many team members, particularly in leadership positions, would leave BioWare during the difficult production. Upon release, facial animations were a constant source of jokes from players. And a bevy of technical bugs and glitches made it frustrating to play. It was so bad that EA shut down BioWare Montreal as a result of the failure.

#2: “Duke Nukem Forever” (2011)

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Sometimes, a game is better off being cancelled. Such is the case with “Duke Nukem Forever.” First announced to be in development in 1997, the game went through many delays (and different developers and publishers) before it would see the light of day. Unfortunately, it didn’t evolve in the decade and a half since its announcement. Everything felt outdated, from the stale pop culture references to the awkward controls to the ugly graphics. Criticism was swift and fierce. In fact, a tweet from 2K’s PR firm, The Redner Group, threatened to blacklist critics who had been too mean in their reviews, prompted 2K to fire the firm. Duke Nukem is a product of the 90s. And hopefully this trainwreck has ensured he’ll stay there.

#1: The PlayStation Network Hack (2011)

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Games can flop. Companies can make mistakes. But putting the private information of your consumers at risk? That’s hard to top. In 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked. Names, log-in information, addresses, and other personal information of 77 million users was obtained. And as a result the network was shutdown for three weeks. Yet in a baffling decision, Sony waited a whole week to disclose this information to anyone. And the offering of free games most had already played didn’t appease the anger. This all cost Sony millions, as they paid around $171 million for security improvements and another $15 million for settling against the somewhat 65 class action lawsuits filed against them. The worst part? An investigation uncovered the attack could’ve been prevented had Sony’s security software had been up to date.