10 Hugely Expensive Video Games No One Wanted

Australian Cinephile

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Transcript

00:00Video gaming on the whole is big business.

00:02Developers and publishers bet big, but that can mean losing big as well.

00:07Consequently, here are 10 examples of games that were either bankrolled or crowdfunded to astronomical levels

00:13only to sell poorly and fail to reach any kind of real audience.

00:18Not all of the following games are bad, some are really, really good.

00:22So, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 hugely expensive video games nobody wanted.

00:27Number 10, Tomb Raider, The Angel of Darkness.

00:31Lara Croft's reboot trilogy in recent years is not only well received, but also not even her first reboot, or even a second.

00:38See, the first reimagining came in 2003 with The Angel of Darkness,

00:43which I thought was the coolest thing in the world when I was 9 years old.

00:47Unfortunately, I was an idiot at 9 years old and eventually I had to face facts that Angel of Darkness blows.

00:54Scrapping Lara's more traditional, highly acrobatic gameplay into something more grounded,

00:59it was intended to reinvent the character as a more serious explorer.

01:03Because, you know, shooting dinosaurs apparently isn't serious enough.

01:08A lot of the spectacle was replaced with sneaking about restrictive corridors and as such,

01:12fans didn't really take The Croft's leap to the then newest generation of consoles.

01:16And neither did critics, citing it as lacking compared to what the PS2 and Xbox could offer in terms of better, similar games.

01:24Whilst it did sell better than other examples of this list,

01:27it wasn't enough to generate interest in the planned reboot titles and they quickly faded away.

01:32Thankfully, Crystal Dynamics did restore the faith in 2006's Legend before bungling another franchise on this list,

01:38but for a time, Lara's fate was almost as buried as she's been a few times.

01:44Number 9, Brutal Legend

01:45Poor, poor Tim Schafer.

01:48Whilst he makes some often considered cult classics,

01:51they never really seem to find their place in mass-selling legacy.

01:54Yet, fans still raise 3 million for Broken Age, so there's clearly a lot of love there.

01:59It's a shame that the same can't quite be said for Brutal Legend though.

02:03On paper, it should have been a multi-platform rock adventure.

02:06It had Jack Black, it had a killer soundtrack, and not to mention,

02:10it had a who's who of rock legends in there as well.

02:13From Ozzy Osbourne to the late Lemmy, Rob Halford, and even Tim Curry was in there.

02:18It could have been a huge success, had Tim Schafer not pulled a bait-and-switch

02:22on what kind of game Brutal Legend even was.

02:25See, the opening act, and conveniently the demo portion that was sent to players,

02:29had players believing that it was a Dante's Inferno-style hack-and-slasher,

02:33which then suddenly turned into a pseudo-Command and Conquer,

02:37being a hybrid real-time strategy game with base management.

02:41As you can imagine, people weren't really happy with the switcheroo.

02:44Backlash was aimed at marketing hiding this reveal,

02:47with critics citing the muddling gameplay not being strong on either component.

02:51The only thing that sold well, well, were the licensed songs that were used in the game.

02:56Number 8, Conquer's Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64.

03:00So, Conquer is an endearing little divvy.

03:02Starting off all twee on the Game Boy Color,

03:05he found his success when Rare went R-rated with Bad Fur Day.

03:09Oh, so you'd think, as it's not all as rosy as it may seem.

03:13Despite being a beloved cult classic now,

03:15it stuck out like a sore thumb on Nintendo machines at the time.

03:19Still, it was predicted back in the day to shift big,

03:21as R-rated games on the N64 were few and far between.

03:25The hype was there, with its game website, remember those,

03:28recording a lot of traffic at the time.

03:30And so, hopes were high, and Rare had a good track record already,

03:34so this should have been a hit.

03:36Except, it wasn't.

03:38Nowhere near, in fact.

03:40High game cost towards the nearing end of the console shelf life,

03:43among other factors, saw this shift less than six digits upon release.

03:47Weirdly, original copies still fetch a high price now,

03:50but not to Rare, who saw this as a commercial failure.

03:53Number 7, Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric slash Sonic Boom Shattered Crystal.

03:58As Count Dooku once said, twice the pride, double the fall.

04:02And in Sonic's case, releasing not one, but two companion games simultaneously

04:06could have gone well, but it didn't.

04:10The Blue Blur has always had a rocky history with 3D games,

04:13so Rise of Lyric was already off to a not promising start.

04:18Shattered Crystal, though, the 3DS accompaniment,

04:20should have been a safe bet with its 2D classic gameplay.

04:24However, not even that could save the series from the disaster of Lyric.

04:28Review copies weren't given out at the time,

04:30and the end result was an absolute shambles.

04:33The only positive was seeing speedrunners tear the game apart with a heinous glitch.

04:37Shattered Crystal didn't exactly fly off the shelves either,

04:40resulting in a combined 600,000 copies sold.

04:44That's normally a loss on one game, let alone a double whammy.

04:49Whilst the animated show that ran alongside it did review well,

04:52the follow-up game on the 3DS, Fire and Ice,

04:54did little to bolster the hedgehog's new luck either.

04:56As a result, Sonic was left to cool his feet

04:58until Mania brought players back to that classic gameplay

05:01that they loved in the first place.

05:03Number 6, Dai Kitana.

05:05John Romero co-founded id Software,

05:08and it was responsible for groundbreaking titles like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake.

05:13However, that's not what his name is synonymous with today.

05:17Instead, it's the absolute spectacle surrounding,

05:19and including, the release of Dai Kitana,

05:22which stands as his biggest piece of hubris.

05:24Beside the claims about Romero making players his b**** in a provocative advert,

05:29the behind-the-scenes goings-on about this game were even worse.

05:33Initially pitched in 1995,

05:35it took a full five years and a rumoured $30 million budget

05:38to see Romero's darling brought to life.

05:41Reports of a rockstar lifestyle, a revolving door of staff,

05:44and other bold claims saw scepticism turn into annoyance over the delays,

05:49and the end result did little to quell anyone's frustration.

05:52With a projection of 2.5 million copies expected to be sold,

05:56Dai Kitana saw low-end chart numbers on release.

05:59In fact, by the end of its release year,

06:01it had barely sold 50,000,

06:03roughly 2% of its intended sales figure.

06:06Rightfully hailed as one of the worst video games of all time,

06:09the only good thing to come out from Iron Storm Studios was Deus Ex,

06:13and Romero thankfully had nothing to do with that.

06:16Number 5, Kingdoms of Amala Reckoning.

06:19Now, in the intro, I said not all of the games on this list were going to be bad,

06:23or rightfully ignored,

06:24and Kingdoms of Amala Reckoning definitely did not deserve its fate.

06:28It's not very often that you hear that a city has bankrolled the production of a video game,

06:33but it has happened.

06:35Well, to be less hyperbolic and more specific,

06:38it was developer 38 Games who requested a $75 million loan

06:42from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation,

06:45and it was granted.

06:47So, it would be fair to assume that there was a lot riding on the studio,

06:50and subsequently Kingdoms of Amala Reckoning.

06:52Fortunately though, pre-release it looked good,

06:55with its single-player RPG stylings looking very in vogue.

06:59It was bright, it was entertaining to play,

07:01and there was tons of life to it.

07:03All it had to do then, was sell well and find an audience,

07:07which, of course, it didn't do.

07:09Selling only a third of its intended break-even target of 3 million copies,

07:13Reckoning was dubbed a commercial failure despite scoring extremely well.

07:17Consequently, 38 Games couldn't make the repayments on their whopper of a loan,

07:21filing for bankruptcy before the game had even been out a year.

07:24Number 4, Battlefield 2042.

07:27Battlefield 2042, being an installment of one of EA's biggest franchises,

07:31had a ridiculous amount of money thrown behind it.

07:34And you can see why.

07:35After the lukewarm reception to Battlefield 5,

07:38this was supposed to be the return to form,

07:40a proper next-gen multiplayer FPS that put the franchise back on top.

07:45The only issue is,

07:46EA assumed that they could accomplish that without, you know,

07:50actually listening to what the fans wanted from a new Battlefield game in the first place.

07:55Rather than try to please the people already invested in the series,

07:582042 made changes to the map design, flow of battles, and class system

08:03in order to appeal to new, more casual players.

08:06Sadly, they did not court that new audience,

08:09and in changing so much, they also pissed off the hardcore fans.

08:13So when it became clear that the sequel could have done with a few more months in the oven,

08:16the player base tanked to ridiculous lows,

08:19with Battlefield 5 even boasting more players at one point.

08:23Later, hundreds of thousands of players signed a petition demanding refunds,

08:26making it clear that they, and EA, had wasted their money on this.

08:31Number 3, Marvel's Avengers.

08:33Whilst Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics' take on the Marvel's insanely high-grossing movie franchise

08:38didn't almost kill the gaming industry,

08:41it did threaten to sink the studio.

08:43Now this is a surprise, right?

08:45I mean, anything Avengers-wise should have been a shoo-in to print money.

08:48But that's only had both parties not failed spectacularly on launch.

08:52And that's because the end result of this game was a middling assortment of gameplay types,

08:56broken up with a mess of a currency system and repetition throughout.

08:59As such, critics and fans alike weren't rushing to buy it,

09:02with the player base dropping nearly 100% in the game's second month of release, in 2020.

09:07Sales from the opening weeks were positive,

09:10yet Square Enix reported a $63 million loss that financial year,

09:14and most of the blame was put on the Avengers.

09:17Square was still confident that live service models could work though,

09:21adding a much derided payment model a year later to try and make more money,

09:25which was then quickly removed.

09:27Fortunately for the publisher, the Final Fantasy VII Remake sold well in 2020,

09:30which didn't entirely force them out of the market.

09:33Better still, the Guardians of the Galaxy game in 2021 was positively received,

09:37removing a lot of negative aspects seen in the Avengers,

09:40but still, that apparently sold under expectations as well.

09:43Suffice to say, this was an expensive lesson for Square Enix.

09:47Number 2, Anthem.

09:49If one were to compare the futuristic Javelin spacesuits to the Icarus flight fable,

09:53it almost makes a decent parable.

09:55Almost.

09:56See, Bioware, hot off the back of the Mass Effect trilogy's success,

09:59dodgy ending aside,

10:01wanted to break free from the Mass Effect slash Dragon Age name that they'd made for themselves.

10:06And with great ambition and cost behind Anthem,

10:08they flew too close to the proverbial sun.

10:11Now, in its defense, it did look kinda good on pre-release.

10:15The early demonstrations of zipping around in Iron Man-esque suits,

10:18taking on enemies as a team in exotic locations, looked awesome.

10:22But looking awesome is not the same as playing awesome and on release.

10:26Anthem did not hold up to its charm.

10:29A lackluster launch did see some net return on the game,

10:32including microtransactions in-game as well.

10:34In EA's eyes, though, it massively undersold and was therefore deemed a big, expensive mess.

10:39As a result, planned content was dropped,

10:41as was an Anthem 2.0 revival,

10:44and the game was condemned to the bargain bin.

10:46Still, it was probably more fun to play than Mass Effect Andromeda, at least.

10:49Number 1, E.T.

10:51The Extra-Terrestrial.

10:52Ultimately, you can't do a list like this without the biggest flop of all time.

10:56The game so bad that it actually caused the great video game crash of 1983.

11:01The stinker that made Nintendo rethink their console branding,

11:05with video games being a dirty word in the wake of this debacle.

11:10And yep, of course, it can only be E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.

11:16A development time of only a few months was never going to be a good sign,

11:20but Atari insisted that this game would be ready for the holiday season.

11:24And the result was a terrible experience that literally ended up in a landfill in New Mexico,

11:29rather than in the houses of gamers across the globe.

11:32Whilst the total number of games buried varies,

11:35the impact it had not just on Atari, but gaming as a whole, was massively damaging.

11:40Atari itself reportedly lost $536 million in 1983,

11:45causing a massive blow to home gaming,

11:47and potentially the fate of future consoles at the time.

11:51Nintendo got around this stink by calling their new machine an entertainment system,

11:55lest it suffer the same fate.

11:57But still, it stands out for a time,

11:58that little alien freak almost brought an early death

12:02to one of the biggest earning mediums of all time.

12:05So, that's our list.

12:06I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.

12:08What do you think about these games,

12:10and why do you think they didn't resonate with an audience?

12:13While you're down there as well,

12:14could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,

12:15and head over to whatculture.com

12:16for more lists and news like this every single day.

12:20Even if you don't though, I've been Josh.

12:21Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.

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