What's the biggest commercial flop you have worked on?

[Juste]

We do have a lot of gaming guys both on the development and retail side here on the forum. Out of curiosity, what is the biggest flop you have worked on in the gaming industry? Either development or marketing/saleswise? Please note that I am not talking about the quality of the game, just games that did not sell like expected.

For me, one game stands out. Back in 2002 when i worked for Atari we released this little gem in time for Christmas:


This wasn't one of our biggest priorites but it was Christmastime and we were behind budget so we really made an effort to ship some numbers. Much joy was had when we received an order for 1000 units from our biggest electronics chain after pitching it time and time again. Less so when they returned 990 units in February. Overall I think about 90% of the sold units were returned.

[spiffy]

Do movies count too? Son of Mask bombed pretty big. Effects vendors don't get residuals though, so it wasn't any skin off our backs.

[Canuck]

Please note that I am not talking about the quality of the game, just games that did not sell like expected.

Sounds like your game was both bad AND a commercial flop! Bonus points!

[Juste]

Sounds like your game was both bad AND a commercial flop! Bonus points!

Yeah, this one was awful. Not every game that bombs is though.

[meeper]

Superpower

mobygames.com/game/superpower

(can't link yet, sorry)

[WarrenM]

I guess it would have to be The Wheel of Time. It was a pretty decent game but it didn't really sell all that well against Unreal Tournament and Quake 3.

[Foxstab]

Superpower

(can't link yet, sorry)

LMFTFY!

[Fishbreath]

Superpower

mobygames.com/game/superpower

(can't link yet, sorry)

I still have a Superpower disc around somewhere.

[cliffski]

[amandachen]

Yeah, The Movies could have been a tight little tycoon game. Pity.

[Athryn]

I guess it would have to be The Wheel of Time. It was a pretty decent game but it didn't really sell all that well against Unreal Tournament and Quake 3.

Probably because it was an FPS and at the time, the idea really didn't work for most people.

[Charles]

I worked on Pariah. That was the biggest flop, both critical and commercial. I still laugh that IGN gave it 8/10.

Commercial but not critical flop was MDK2. But that's largely because Interplay seriously fucked us in distribution channels, printing only 35k copies for the first run of the game, assuming it would fail. And then it was sold out everywhere... and people couldn't buy it until they did a second run nearly two months later.

[Robert Sharp]

I thought WoT was better than I expected it to be. But damn, I really wanted it to be something else (genre-wise). So I agree with Athryn, here.

[TheTrunkDr]

I worked on Pariah. That was the biggest flop, both critical and commercial. I still laugh that IGN gave it 8/10.

I've never really paid much attention to sales numbers so I don't really know for sure but probably the same for me.

[kerzain]

I thought WoT was better than I expected it to be. But damn, I really wanted it to be something else (genre-wise). So I agree with Athryn, here.

^^^ Huge was my disappointment after downloading the demo the day it went live, only to find it it was a damn shooter. I hadn't done any research, but I was expecting (hoping for) the second coming of Betrayal in Krondor (RPG based in a contemporary literature fantasy universe). I have since learned to practice a little due diligence before getting too excited. It took a while to get over my initial reaction, but because I do love me some shooters, I bit.

[Shimarenda]

^^^ Huge was my disappointment after downloading the demo the day it went live, only to find it it was a damn shooter. I hadn't done any research, but I was expecting (hoping for) the second coming of Betrayal in Krondor (RPG based in a contemporary literature fantasy universe).

This sounds exactly like my wife's experience, including the BAK part. She downloaded the demo, which took a while over our dial-up at the time. She tried to play it for about an hour, finally quitting in a mix of frustration and mild nausea.

[John Reynolds]

I loved WoT. I was in the middle of my shooter craze at the time and alongside Hexen/Heretic I thought it was one of the most fun games I played in the late 90s. Probably played through the entire single player 4-5x before it got too dated for my tastes.

[bluemax]

Probably Rock Revolution, although I doubt Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light came close to hitting Square Enix Eidos lofty sales expectations.

[Dravalen]

I worked on not one but two spectacular flops over my 5 years in the industry.

Probably has something to do with me being so jaded and out of the industry now.

[Shadari]

I doubt Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light came close to hitting Square Enix Eidos lofty sales expectations.

Sorry to diverge a bit but that's sad because that was a damn good game that everyone should have bought. Do you have any idea how well the game sold?

[Slainte Mhath]

Does testing count? I was one of a pool of early alpha testers for Gods & Heroes : Rome Rising back when it was a Perpetual property years ago. I submitted dozens of bug reports and discussed the gameplay and design over several months in the testers forums. To finally see the game released by a new developer last year with essentially the exact same incomplete design and very little updating was heartbreaking.

[bluemax]

Sorry to diverge a bit but that's sad because that was a damn good game that everyone should have bought. Do you have any idea how well the game sold?

GoL? No because Square Enix cut our contract before the project finished and didn't pay us for several months of work. The bitter part of me hopes that several executives/high level producers lost jobs over that project. That project was mismanaged at so many levels. I supposed that is a fairly typical story for the games industry though.

[meeper]

I worked on not one but two spectacular flops over my 5 years in the industry.

Probably has something to do with me being so jaded and out of the industry now.

Was Sims 2 really that big of a commercial flop? My understanding was that pretty much anything with 'Sims' on the cover was issued a special writ from the Federal Reserve to print copious amounts of money.

[kerzain]

Way to rub salt in the wounds~

[Telefrog]

Does testing count? I was one of a pool of early alpha testers for Gods & Heroes : Rome Rising back when it was a Perpetual property years ago. I submitted dozens of bug reports and discussed the gameplay and design over several months in the testers forums. To finally see the game released by a new developer last year with essentially the exact same incomplete design and very little updating was heartbreaking.

If testing counts, then my contributions as an early (before general beta) tester for both Hellgate: London and Elemental: War of Magic are entries into the hall of honor.

[Athryn]

Was Sims 2 really that big of a commercial flop? My understanding was that pretty much anything with 'Sims' on the cover was issued a special writ from the Federal Reserve to print copious amounts of money.

Maybe he meant The Sims Online, which was the one Sims game that was a huge flop.

[Telefrog]

His link was to the PSP version of The Sims 2.

[Marcin]

Manifesto Games and Instantaction, both misguided attempts to "create" independent game publishers from wishful thinking and an industry known "name" (Greg Costikyan and Lou Castle, respectively).

[Dravalen]

Was Sims 2 really that big of a commercial flop? My understanding was that pretty much anything with 'Sims' on the cover was issued a special writ from the Federal Reserve to print copious amounts of money.

I'm pretty sure it never broke even since I seem to remember overrunning schedule by 2x or so. Besides it was a bad IP to license for a PSP game.

We had some killer turnover after that project too, all kinds of horror stories from that place. I remember one of our team getting yelled at for spending too much time(outside of 9-5) with his wife who was in the hospital due to some serious health issue.

[JoshV]

Oh man, if as a Tester counts:
Sports Illustrated For Kids Football -- GBA
Sports Illustrated For Kids Baseball -- GBA

Though I don't know if they actually sold well or not, they were low budget and were running into hardware limitations. For example, the football one couldn't get 11 players per side, so only had 8. I have to admit that I still thought it was mostly fun in a NFL blitz kind of way, though neither game reviewed well.

As a developer:
The Sopranos -- I think it was PS2 & 360 or something silly like that.
Boy that was a stinker. I think everybody involved was happy to be done with it. The very concept of the game was pretty dumb, and they probably spent more securing the likenesses and the actual actors than the rest of the development budget. I don't have any sales figures for this one either, but metacritic score is scary low.