Failed Games That Damaged Or Killed Their Companies

An anonymous reader writes "Develop has an excellent piece up profiling a bunch of average to awful titles that flopped so hard they harmed or sunk their studio or publisher. The list includes Haze, Enter The Matrix, Hellgate: London, Daikatana, Tabula Rasa, and — of course — Duke Nukem Forever. 'Daikatana was finally released in June 2000, over two and a half years late. Gamers weren't convinced the wait was worth it. A buggy game with sidekicks (touted as an innovation) who more often caused you hindrance than helped ... achieved an average rating of 53. By this time, Eidos is believed to have invested over $25 million in the studio. And they called it a day. Eidos closed the Dallas Ion Storm office in 2001.'"

Comments

Daikatana

[girlintraining]

Daikatana became synonymous with failure. But the cause of its failure can be traced back to John Romero's giant ego. He had convinced people that everything he wrote was worth gold. It's only fitting that in Doom 2, you had to shoot him in the head to beat the game. He's since retreated into obscurity, occasionally popping up in small gaming shops to assist in off-beat platforms.