Biggest video game disasters.

KdjaCL

Gonna spoil it and post the no 1

1. Psychonauts

- Despite being a critical success and being highly innovative for a platformer, the game sold less than 90,000 copies on the PC, Xbox, and PS2. The game led to troubles at publisher Majesco, including the resignation of its CEO and the plummeting of the company's stock, prompting a class-action lawsuit by the company's stockholders. This game has been declared the "poster child" for the recent failures in innovative games. Its poor sales have also been blamed on a lack of marketing coupled with a high-end, US$50 price tag. Since this, the game has been placed onto Valve's digital distribution service, "Steam", where it is selling for a price of US$19.95, as of April 2007. Due to Valve's policy of not releasing sales statistics, it is not currently known how the game is doing in this new market.

:eek:

The grestest platforming game ever made, granted some went before it and gave it ideas but this is the last best 3d platformer.

http://www.gunslot.com/blog/top-ten-10-video-game-disasters

90,000 copies and im 2 of those i got the 5 disc version for PC and then got it again on DVD in a nicer box.


kdjac

steviec

I played the first few levels of the game and although I loved the humour I got annoyed with the controls (shouldn't have bought the PC version) and gave up on it.

Might pick up the PS2 version sometime if I see it cheap.

KdjaCL

Pc version with ps2 game pad solves all


Sad that this game only sold that amount.

kdjac

Jim

Zero Punctuation does a good review of it.

0ubliette

Hated psychonauts myself. i picked it up for 20 quid in xtravision last year and traded it in the next day. The humour was nowhere near as good as its made out to be and the lead character was an obnoxious twat.

Ri_Nollaig

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Zero Punctuation does a good review of it.

that guy does brillant reviews

johnny_ultimate

It is indeed one of the greatest gaming shames that Psychonauts did not sell copies - bit surprising as well, considering the absurdly positive response it got on the 'net.

It's not a perfect game by any stretch (platform sections did get a little annoying on occasion - the tight rope walking bit in the circus springs to mind) but it had bucketfuls of imagination, astonishing art design (check out that neon painting level - woah) and it really was laugh out loud funny on occasion, especially with some of the odder characters that inhabited the camp (that secret agents in disguise level had me in stitches). And most importantly, it was just a hell of a lot of fun to play.

Alas, like alot of good films, it was never destined for great things due to the way games are sold and marketed. The big budget games will also outsell the small independent ones, no matter how good the latter are - which is a shame, considering how much a game costs to make these days. I for one fear we shall see less risks of this sort being taken as costs continue to escalate - at least online services will give smaller developers a bit of a chance.

monkeyfudge

I loved this game.

I had the Xbox version.

The last level was very frustrating though and I never completed it.

Retr0gamer

Have laugh about a story on gamespot (I think) about the first playtest of Dominion. After all the journalists had a go of the game the lead designer got really excited about how revolutionary his game was and asked everyone what they thought. Unfortunately all the journos there had been to the first playtest of Starcraft a week beforehand and proceeded to tell him how behind the times his game was compared to SC.

tman

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Zero Punctuation does a good review of it.

Fantastic:p

I got as far as the

phantom of the opera-esque boss battle

, then just gave up for some reason...
Might give it another lash now that I've got a wired 360 controller for my pc...

awhir

- Shenmue on the Dreamcast is more notorious for its overambitious budget than its poor sales figures. While it sold a respectable number of units, at the time of release, the game had the record for the most expensive production costs (over US$70 million), and its production time was 5 years. Shenmue was a critical hit, earning an average review score of 89% on Game Rankings. It also sold moderately well, with 460,316 units in the US alone (according to NPD). However, these sales figures were not enough for Sega to recoup the massive production costs. The sequel, Shenmue II, published in Japan and Europe for Dreamcast, was never released in America on the original Dreamcast console, and fans had to wait for the eventual Xbox port. However, the sales for Shenmue II on Xbox proved to be far less than those of the original game (179,648).

humanji

Eh, Daikatana anyone?

Damn, I wrote a whole post and only the first line got posted Anyway, How can it only be no. 9? Considering all the problems it went through, I would of thought it'd be number one. The others on the list were mainly just badly advertised, where this one was crap, billed as the greatest thing ever made. (and I actually liked Battlecruiser 3000AD )

Actually, don't know if anyone's read it but there's a great article on Games Radar about PR disasters in games: http://www.gamesradar.com/us/ps3/game/features/article.jsp?releaseId=20060314115917309058&articleId=2007031912215876016&sectionId=1003

super_furry

Psychonauts is kind of the Emperor's new clothes for me. Sure it's funny - downright hilarious in places - but the core game itself isn't that great. It's basically a retread of every 3D platformer I've ever played and offers very little new in the gameplay department.

I see Beyond Good & Evil is in that list, now that was a brilliant game. Truly, truly epic.

Jimi-Spandex

0ubliette wrote:

Hated psychonauts myself. i picked it up for 20 quid in xtravision last year and traded it in the next day. The humour was nowhere near as good as its made out to be and the lead character was an obnoxious twat.

You are dead inside.

mise

Was just reading about the ET disaster in Total Film the other day. And never quite got into Psychonauts. Think ill start up BG&E this weekend tho.. love it

shatners basoon

super_furry wrote:

Psychonauts is kind of the Emperor's new clothes for me. Sure it's funny - downright hilarious in places - but the core game itself isn't that great. It's basically a retread of every 3D platformer I've ever played and offers very little new in the gameplay department.

I see Beyond Good & Evil is in that list, now that was a brilliant game. Truly, truly epic.

Psychonauts isn't as good in gameplay terms but in every other aspect i think its much much better. The originality of the ideas is genius for a computer game, the art direction and the detail are second to none. truly hope that its doing well on Steam and more people can appreciate the originality presented in it.

tuxy

Where's Duke Nukem forever and ever and ever and ever?

d22ontour

Superman n64 blows all off these games out of the water though financially it probably cost a couple of beers and a pizza to make ....

Nailz

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Zero Punctuation does a good review of it.

:mad: Ah shít, why did pause it and put the pensil in between my fingers and squeez?!! That really fúcking hurts!