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00:00 Video gaming on the whole is big business. Developers and publishers bet big, but that can mean losing big as well.
00:07 Consequently, here are 10 examples of games that were either bankrolled or crowdfunded to astronomical levels,
00:13 only to sell poorly and fail to reach any kind of real audience.
00:18 Not all of the following games are bad, some are really, really good.
00:22 So, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 hugely expensive video games nobody wanted.
00:27 Number 10 - Tomb Raider The Angel of Darkness.
00:30 Lara Croft's reboot trilogy in recent years is not only well-received, but also not even her first reboot, or even a second.
00:38 See, the first reimagining came in 2003 with The Angel of Darkness, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world when I was 9 years old.
00:47 Unfortunately, I was an idiot at 9 years old and eventually I had to face facts that Angel of Darkness blows.
00:54 Scrapping Lara's more traditional, highly acrobatic gameplay into something more grounded,
00:59 it was intended to reinvent the character as a more serious explorer.
01:03 Because, you know, shooting dinosaurs apparently isn't serious enough.
01:07 A lot of the spectacle was replaced with sneaking about restrictive corridors, and as such,
01:12 fans didn't really take the Croft's leap to the then newest generation of consoles.
01:16 And neither did critics, citing it as lacking compared to what the PS2 and Xbox could offer in terms of better, similar games.
01:23 Whilst it did sell better than other examples of this list, it wasn't enough to generate interest in the planned reboot titles, and they quickly faded away.
01:32 Thankfully, Crystal Dynamics did restore the faith in 2006's Legend before bungling another franchise on this list,
01:38 but for a time, Lara's fate was almost as buried as she's been a few times.
01:43 Number 9 - Brutal Legend
01:45 Poor, poor Tim Schafer.
01:47 Whilst he makes some often considered cult classics, they never really seem to find their place in mass selling legacy.
01:54 Yet, fans still raised 3 million for Broken Age, so there's clearly a lot of love there.
01:59 It's a shame that the same can't quite be said for Brutal Legend though.
02:03 On paper, it should have been a multi-platform rock adventure.
02:06 It had Jack Black, it had a killer soundtrack, and not to mention, it had a who's who of rock legends in there as well.
02:13 From Ozzy Osbourne to the late Lemmy, Rob Halford, and even Tim Curry was in there.
02:17 It could have been a huge success, had Tim Schafer not pulled a bait and switch on what kind of game Brutal Legend even was.
02:24 See, the opening act, and conveniently the demo portion that was sent to players,
02:29 had players believing that it was a Dante's Inferno style hack and slasher,
02:33 which then suddenly turned into a pseudo-Command & Conquer, being a hybrid real-time strategy game with base management.
02:40 As you can imagine, people weren't really happy with the switcheroo.
02:44 Backlash was aimed at marketing hiding this reveal, with critics citing the muddling gameplay not being strong on either component.
02:51 The only thing that sold well, well, were the license songs that were used in the game.
02:56 Number 8 - Conquer's Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64
03:00 Conquer is an endearing little divvy.
03:02 Starting off all twee on the Game Boy Color, he found his success when Rare went R-rated with Bad Fur Day.
03:08 Or so you'd think, as it's not all as rosy as it may seem.
03:13 Despite being a beloved cult classic now, it stuck out like a sore thumb on Nintendo machines at the time.
03:18 Still, it was predicted back in the day to ship big, as R-rated games on the N64 were few and far between.
03:24 The hype was there, with its game website, remember those, recording a lot of traffic at the time.
03:30 And so, hopes were high, and Rare had a good track record already, so this should have been a hit.
03:36 Except, it wasn't.
03:38 Nowhere near, in fact.
03:39 High game costs towards the nearing end of the console shelf life, among other factors, saw this ship less than six digits upon release.
03:47 Weirdly, original copies still fetch a high price now, but not to Rare, who saw this as a commercial failure.
03:53 Number 7 - Sonic Boom - Rise of Lyric/Sonic Boom - Shattered Crystal
03:58 As Count Dooku once said, "Twice the pride, double the fall."
04:02 And in Sonic's case, releasing not one but two companion games simultaneously could have gone well, but it didn't.
04:10 The blue blur has always had a rocky history with 3D games, so Rise of Lyric was already off to a not promising start.
04:17 Shattered Crystal, though, the 3DS accompaniment, should have been a safe bet with its 2D classic gameplay.
04:24 However, not even that could save the series from the disaster of Lyric.
04:27 Review copies weren't given out at the time, and the end result was an absolute shambles.
04:33 The only positive was seeing speedrunners tear the game apart with a heinous glitch.
04:37 Shattered Crystal didn't exactly fly off the shelves either, resulting in a combined 600,000 copies sold.
04:44 That's normally a loss on one game, let alone a double whammy.
04:48 Whilst the animated show that ran alongside it did review well, the follow-up game on the 3DS, Fire and Ice, did little to bolster the hedgehog's new look either.
04:56 As a result, Sonic was left to cool his feet until Mania brought players back to that classic gameplay that they loved in the first place.
05:03 Number 6 - Daikatana
05:05 John Romero co-founded id Software, and was responsible for groundbreaking titles like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Quake.
05:12 However, that's not what his name is synonymous with today.
05:16 Instead, it's the absolute spectacle surrounding, and including, the release of Daikatana, which stands as his biggest piece of hubris.
05:24 Besides the claims about Romero making players his b*tch in a provocative advert, the behind-the-scenes goings-on about this game were even worse.
05:32 Initially pitched in 1995, it took a full 5 years and a rumoured $30 million budget to see Romero's darling brought to life.
05:41 Reports of a rockstar lifestyle, a revolving door of staff and other bold claims saw scepticism turn into annoyance over the delays,
05:49 and the end result did little to quell anyone's frustration.
05:52 With a projection of 2.5 million copies expected to be sold, Daikatana saw low-end chart numbers on release.
05:59 In fact, by the end of its release year, it had barely sold 50,000, roughly 2% of its intended sales figure.
06:06 Rightfully hailed as one of the worst video games of all time, the only good thing to come out from Iron Storm Studios was Deus Ex,
06:13 and Romero thankfully had nothing to do with that.
06:16 Number 5 - Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning
06:18 Now in the intro, I said not all of the games on this list were going to be bad, or rightfully ignored,
06:24 and Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning definitely did not deserve its fate.
06:28 It's not very often that you hear that a city has bankrolled the production of a video game, but it has happened.
06:35 Well, to be less hyperbolic and more specific, it was developer 38 Games who requested a $75 million loan
06:42 from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, and it was granted.
06:46 So, it would be fair to assume that there was a lot riding on the studio and subsequently Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning.
06:52 Fortunately though, pre-release it looked good, with its single-player RPG stylings looking very in vogue.
06:59 It was bright, it was entertaining to play, and there was tons of life to it.
07:03 All it had to do then was sell well and find an audience, which of course it didn't do.
07:08 Selling only a third of its intended break-even target of 3 million copies,
07:13 Reckoning was dubbed a commercial failure despite scoring extremely well.
07:16 Consequently, 38 Games couldn't make the repayments on their whopper of a loan,
07:20 filing for bankruptcy before the game had even been out a year.
07:24 Number 4 - Battlefield 2042
07:27 Battlefield 2042, being an installment in one of EA's biggest franchises,
07:31 had a ridiculous amount of money thrown behind it.
07:34 And you can see why. After the lukewarm reception to Battlefield 5,
07:38 this was supposed to be the return to form, a proper next-gen multiplayer FPS
07:42 that put the franchise back on top.
07:44 The only issue is, EA assumed that they could accomplish that without, you know,
07:49 actually listening to what the fans wanted from a new Battlefield game in the first place.
07:54 Rather than try to please the people already invested in the series,
07:58 2042 made changes to the map design, flow of battles, and class system
08:02 in order to appeal to new, more casual players.
08:05 Sadly, they did not caught that new audience, and in changing so much,
08:10 they also pissed off the hardcore fans.
08:12 So, when it became clear that the sequel could have done with a few more months in the oven,
08:16 the player base tanked to ridiculous lows,
08:19 with Battlefield 5 even boasting more players at one point.
08:22 Later, hundreds of thousands of players signed a petition demanding refunds,
08:26 making it clear that they and EA had wasted their money on this.
08:30 Number 3 - Marvel's Avengers
08:32 Whilst Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics' take on the Marvel's insanely high-grossing movie
08:38 franchise didn't almost kill the gaming industry, it did threaten to sink the studio.
08:43 Now this is a surprise, right? I mean, anything Avengers-wise should've been a shoe-in to print money.
08:48 But that's only had both parties not failed spectacularly on launch.
08:52 And that's because the end result of this game was a middling assortment of gameplay types,
08:56 broken up with a mess of a currency system and repetition throughout.
08:59 As such, critics and fans alike weren't rushing to buy it,
09:02 with the player base dropping nearly 100% in the game's second month of release, in 2020.
09:07 Sales from the opening weeks were positive, yet Square Enix reported a $63 million loss
09:13 that financial year, and most of the blame was put on the Avengers.
09:17 Square was still confident that live service models could work though,
09:20 adding a much-derided payment model a year later to try and make more money,
09:24 which was then quickly removed.
09:26 Fortunately for the publisher, the Final Fantasy VII remake sold well in 2020,
09:30 which didn't entirely force them out of the market.
09:32 Better still, the Guardians of the Galaxy game in 2021 was positively received,
09:37 removing a lot of negative aspects seen in the Avengers,
09:39 but still, that apparently sold under expectations as well.
09:43 Suffice to say, this was an expensive lesson for Square Enix.
09:46 Number 2 - Anthem
09:48 If one were to compare the futuristic Javelin spacesuits to the Icarus flight fable,
09:53 it almost makes a decent parable.
09:55 Almost.
09:55 See, Bioware, hot off the back of the Mass Effect trilogy's success,
09:59 dodgy ending aside, wanted to break free from the Mass Effect/Dragon Age name
10:03 that they'd made for themselves.
10:05 And with great ambition and cost behind Anthem, they flew too close to the proverbial sun.
10:11 Now, in its defence, it did look kinda good on pre-release.
10:14 The early demonstrations of zipping around in Iron Man-esque suits,
10:17 taking on enemies as a team in exotic locations, looked awesome.
10:21 But looking awesome is not the same as playing awesome and on release,
10:26 Anthem did not hold up to its charm.
10:28 A lacklustre launch did see some net return on the game,
10:31 including microtransactions in-game as well.
10:34 In EA's eyes though, it massively undersold and was therefore deemed a big, expensive mess.
10:39 As a result, planned content was dropped, as was an Anthem 2.0 revival,
10:43 and the game was condemned to the bargain bin.
10:45 Still, it was probably more fun to play than Mass Effect Andromeda at least.
10:49 Number 1 - E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial
10:52 Ultimately, you can't do a list like this without the biggest flop of all time.
10:55 The game so bad that it actually caused the great video game crash of 1983.
11:01 The stinker that made Nintendo rethink their console branding,
11:05 with "video games" being a dirty word in the wake of this debacle.
11:09 And yep, of course, it can only be E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.
11:16 A development time of only a few months was never going to be a good sign,
11:19 but Atari insisted that this game would be ready for the holiday season.
11:23 And the result was a terrible experience that literally ended up in a landfill in New Mexico,
11:29 rather than in the houses of gamers across the globe.
11:32 Whilst the total number of games buried varies, the impact it had not just on Atari,
11:36 but gaming as a whole, was massively damaging.
11:40 Atari itself reportedly lost $536 million in 1983, causing a massive blow to home gaming,
11:47 and potentially the fate of future consoles at the time.
11:50 Nintendo got around this stink by calling their new machine an "entertainment system",
11:54 lest it suffer the same fate.
11:56 But still, it stands that for a time, that little alien freak almost brought an early death
12:02 to one of the biggest earning mediums of all time.
12:05 So, that's our list. I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
12:08 What do you think about these games, and why do you think they didn't resonate with an audience?
12:12 While you're down there as well, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,
12:15 and head over to wotculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
12:19 Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.
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