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Failed Games That Damaged Or Killed Their Companies

Posted by Soulskill on from the cause-or-symptom dept.

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.'"

8 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. Enter the Matrix was OK... by SeeSp0tRun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you consider crashing every 20 minutes, losing any save data you had, and having some video sequences prevent any further progress due to crashing.

    ...and that was on a console!

    --
    Something witty.
    1. Re:Enter the Matrix was OK... by FinchWorld · · Score: 5, Informative

      Goldeneye N64.

      --
      "I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
    2. Re:Enter the Matrix was OK... by kenj0418 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I have yet to find a game based on a movie that hasn't sucked.

      ET For the Atari 2600?

    3. Re:Enter the Matrix was OK... by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Funny

      There was no trilogy. Please refrain from spreading such lies. Thank you.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
  2. Whatever games companies produce... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    once EA buys them it's game over.

  3. VtM:B by lavaforge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was another game that killed the company. There's even an interview about it somewhere here on Slashdot.

    Apparently it went way over budget, was laden with game breaking bugs, and had copy protection problems.

    It's a shame, really, because the last 5 years of fan patching have made it kind of enjoyable.

  4. TA: Kingdoms? Master of Orion III? by macraig · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What, no TA: Kingdoms and Cavedog? No Master of Orion III and Quicksilver? Lovell must be new here.

  5. Ten years from now - "WoW killed Blizzard" by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This doesn't take a huge heap of imagination, but I'm going to go ahead and predict that the unexpected, unprecedented success of WoW will be the end of Blizzard. This seems like a really safe bet based on any of the following scenarios:

    1) Activision big-brothers them into oblivion
    2) They get caught up making bad movies, rather than good games
    3) They are never able to make a successful sequel, or even another really profitable title
    4) Creative differences, anti-user angst, or other mis-management runs it into the ground (e.g. NGE) and the shop never recovers

    There's just too many dollars riding on WoW. Too much momentum. Surviving the end of that is going to either require masterful leadership or gigantic catastrophe.

    Come to think of it, didn't they name their next expansion 'Cataclysm'? ;)