Gaming's biggest flops

The games industry can be a fickle world. A game could be fantastically made and receive rave reviews from the critics, but that doesn't always mean it'll be a commercial success, as many of the titles over the next few pages prove.

[MintBerryCrunch]

i have a problem with calling some of these masterpieces such as Shenmue and Okami flops even if they didnt sell as much as the devs wanted to...in no way shape or form are those games flops

[Stealth20k]

and okamiden is incredible

[Anon1974]

You can have the greatest game of all time...if no one buys it then it's a flop. Maybe it was a critical success, maybe and artistic masterpiece - but generally a flop is considered a flop if the production and marketing greatly outweigh the revenue.

It's a business thing, and Shenmue and Okami were flops. Great games, but flops. And that's the danger of video game development today. With games that cost so much money to develop, it's a risky business. You could create a masterpiece like Okami, that ruins your company. That's why there's hope with digital downloads. Developers increasingly are turning to smaller, downloadable games because the risks just aren't there like the big, AAA titles. You can afford to make a great game that doesn't sell and it won't necessarily put you and your staff out of work - and thusly you're more willing to take some creative risks.

I was sorry to see Grim Fandango on this list. That's one of my favorite games of all time and while I knew Tim left Lucas Arts after that - I didn't realize that Grim Fandango did so poorly in sales. I think everyone owes it to themselves to play through Grim Fandango at least once. That game was the pinnacle of the point and click adventure genre.

Edit below: Regarding Haze. Haze, despite the hype and the disappointment (being merely mediocre instead of AAA) didn't sell all that badly. It managed almost a million copies which is something 80% of games never achieve in their lifetime. Free Radical was struggling even before Haze's release and losing their Star Wars Battlefield didn't bode well for the company's long term hopes. Haze didn't do badly, but they needed to hit it out of the park and that didn't happen. Hardly a flop though. Just a note - the Haze team then were bought by Crytek and became Crytek UK. They had a lot to do with Crysis 2's development.

[-Alpha]

Well said, you hit the nail on the head.

That is exactly what a flop generally is understood to be, though there is also flops when it comes to hype.

Okami sadly flopped, but at least it wasn't hyped like games today are. It's a modest game. I also think it's nice it got a Wii port and a DS game. So at least it's still around

These days everything seems to get hyped to sell the most, kill something else, or get AAA 10/10 status.

Lots of games fail to meet hype and IMO causes games to flop on hype, despite being good games.

[Ryudo]

I think it's mostly about sales. I didn't bother reading the entire article because I hate sites that use that reload the page 10x trick to see the entire list for hits.

But everything I did read was about sales of said game, I can't see anyone in there right mind calling Shenmue a bad game.

But from a sales standpoint it flopped badly.

[Ducky]

Grim Fandago and Okami.

Makes me sad. =(

[Urrakia34]

How is Haze not on that list?

[gunnerforlife]

yeah that kinda shocked me loool
should of been on there not just for sales but for quality wise as well

[Lucreto]

Grim Fandago and Okami are my favourite games.

I will be getting Okamiden on Monday and I will spend all day with it.

[oneangle]

Hurts to see Okami on that list. Makes me wonder if we'll ever see anything like it again. Only thing I can hope for is a Move port.

[Seferoth75]

Sequel is on DS atm. Cant see it going to Move when HD development has killed enough companies and PS3 gamers are not exactly known for supporting games like this. After all it was the PS2 copy that completely bombed. Wii version outsold it with a much smaller install base.

[soren]

they dident sell well because of all the gamers in the world only 12% are real gamers no those who claim they are and only play shitty shooters or call of duty or judge a game based on the box art or only buy a game cus it has a man on it that looks mean and been juicing

[zeal0us]

E.T is probably the biggest fail of all, Think the game still leave a bad taste in Activision mouth lol

[tunaks1]

i would call madworld a flop, what its sales sitting at now?
0.62m
how much did it cost to make? Im sure it broke even.

[Invader_Quirk]

I'm 20 hours into Okami and the more I play, the sadder it makes me that it did so badly. I thought I'd never feel the same way I did as when I first played Ocarina of Time. I thought I was too grown up now to ever experience a game in that way again, but I was wrong. Okami does it.

[Relientk77]

I don't have Okami

but I want it

[Carnage]

God, I need to get a ps2 or a ps3 (that plays ps2 games) so I can get Okami for it!

[kevnb]

Grim fandango had to have sold more than that, those are sales of.an obscure game.

[NYC_Gamer]

yes,these games are flops sales wise.

[Venoxn4g]

Okami and Madworld are in my Top 5 games of all time.. :) sad that a lot of "gamers" don't appreciate a lot of great games instead of call of duty, halo etc. :/