Gaming is a fickle and twisted world to try and enter. Every year hundreds of new releases come to platforms, all vying with one another in the hopes of emerging victorious. Sadly the norm is much less explosive. Games that development teams have poured hundreds of thousands of hours into producing fail left, right and center. It’s a common thing in all media industries. Nary a week goes by when some movie or album release hasn’t floped, so why should games be any different?
Well in some respects they are. Granted, many games that could be categorized as having flopped fail purely because they’re not very good. Gameplay could be awful, the visuals could be janky as all hell, even the game itself may have been released in an utterly broken state. There are some gems out there, mind you. Games that failed (or saw middling success) commercially, and yet were good enough to establish a cult following or even become the apple in the eye of critics the world over.
So let’s take a look at some of those shall we. Looking at 5 of the most tragic gaming flops of the last generation isn’t going to be easy and it isn’t going to be pretty. Some of the titles mentioned in the following pages were absolutely incredible and you may have even loved one yourself. Yet it seemed to just die and fall away from existence. Whether it didn’t sell well enough or just didn’t grab the gaming communities heartstrings, the tragically flopped will always have a place in our hearts.
Anyway enough yammering on, time to get flopping.
Just a quick note here. We are avoiding handheld titles here because they pretty much transcend generations and most planes of existence that humanity can comprehend. Okay? Good.
Alpha Protocol
Ever watched a James Bond flick and wanted to be a spy? Well Alpha Protocol allowed you to do just that. You could set yourself up exactly as you wanted and take on missions with your own personally crafted spy guy. This was done through the use of Advancement Points (awful naming) which were put into any of the main character Thornton’s ten skills. These would improve things like weapon damage, even opening up the opportunity to use special skills like the Chain Shot which allowed Thornton to pick up a bunch of enemies and automatically shoot them quicker than usual.
Where Alpha Protocol really made itself shine, and as a result is one of the tragic flops you’ll find here, was in its dialogue system. Now we all know that having three different options for speech is nothing new. Games like Mass Effect have offered up a gaggle of options for use in conversation since their inception. The same can also be said for the different attitudes used within them. Where Alpha Protocol differed itself from contemporaries was in the way it had inter-character conversations running in real time.
This did also occur in other titles, but the idea of it was used much more often in Alpha Protocol. It gave every conversation a sense of urgency and ensured that the player was constantly engaged in the dialogue rather than just speedily reading what went on. If you didn’t reply to an NPC in the allotted time, you were penalized in some way or lost the chance to get something out of the conversation entirely. It made Alpha Protocol something special. A unique selling point that really should have helped the game sell achieve success.
And yet it didn’t. Whether the reason was a low advertisement budget from SEGA or the fact it came out at the end of May among a bunch of other games that didn’t sell well (including one further down this list), Alpha Protocol simply didn’t sell well enough for SEGA to keep the franchise going. They ditched a game that was different from almost everything else out there. Admittedly Alpha Protocol didn’t exactly take the critics by storm, but it did garner some higher ratings than other success stories. The game does still sell, with developers Obsidian Entertainment stating that they’d consider doing a sequel for the game.
Binary Domain
Another SEGA published title here. Binary Domain had all the promises of a great game, and actually delivered on that promise. Developed by Yakuza Team, the title aimed to tell a story of humanity through the use of robots. We aren’t going to spoil the story for you here. Suffice it to say, the tale it weaves is one of intrigue and conspiracy which everyone should at some point endeavor to experience. Moment to moment gameplay wasn’t particularly special in itself. It was a third-person cover shooter. What did make Binary Domain a little different however was its use of consequences.
You never went into battle alone. Instead, you were flanked by comrades who would suggest pathways to success. It was up to you to choose which one was taken. this all sounds pretty normal and nothing special right? Well fling that idea right back out the door because Binary Domain created something unmatched in its consequence system. If you never listened to one of your colleagues, they wouldn’t work as hard for you in battle. This would also affect story points in the game, particularly the title’s ending.
Another area where Binary Domain was utterly special came in the form of its AI. It’s going to sound a little odd being here in text because these are all things we’ve seen before. Just imagine them in their purest possible form of complete awesomeness and you’ll get the gist. Enemies would tactically decide where to push you to stall your advance. They would set up pincer movements or leave false openings to lure you into a trap. This is where that consequence system came into light once again. If you had a member of the team who didn’t like you, they would be a chink in your armor against such attacks.
Binary Domain saw critical praise and is still seen as a cult game among many. So why the hell did this game fade into nothing? The reasons are likely numerous. One of these is most likely a lack of advertising once again by SEGA. The publisher was so far into the ropes by now they couldn’t see the ring. Cash was tight and Binary Domain could have saved them. Sadly their lack of showing people that the game was actually out didn’t help. Oh and a little something called Mass Effect 3 was being advertised everywhere for release the following week so every possible avenue was bought up.
How much of a commercial flop was Binary Domain? Well by April 2012, two months after launch, the game had sold a not-so-grand total of 20,000 units.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
This is one that everyone probably remembers for the majestic nosedive it took into the list of flopped titles. The game itself was very well received and sold better than many probably expected. Just not quite enough – but we’ll get to that later.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a risky leap taken by 38 Studios to create a whole new franchise. Backed by EA and having creative giants such as R.A Salvatore, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was already posed to provide something special. To give the game credit it sort of did. The game didn’t exactly break any massive walls down in the world of gaming though to be honest. Third-person combat was there and it was good – just not incredible. A crafting system and leveling methods were also thrown at the player from all angles.
What Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning really did to make it one of the flops no one wanted to see was that it created a game where all of the systems worked well, while establishing a whole new universe. For a completely new company like 38 Studios, this was an achievement that could be ranked alongside landing on the moon or not vomiting while Two Girls One Cup is shown after eating soup. The game had everything it needed to springboard to success.
Such a shame then that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning fell so quickly into a pit.
It sold over 1.2 million units by the end of its first 90 days which, lets be fair, is a pretty good amount of sales for a new title which was releasing just a month before the goliath that was Mass Effect 3. The problem was that the game was made using a massive amount of funds given to 38 Studios by the Rhode Island State government who, like any lender, wanted its money back. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had to sell at least 3 million units to at least break even so 38 Studios was shut down and the assets sold off to refund what Rhode Island had paid.
Blur
This one is going to invite some controversy, we get that. Blur was, however, a massive flop in gaming’s seventh generation and it really should not have been. The game was fundamentally sound, offering a take on Mario Kart-style gameplay with more realistic visuals than those found in “kart” racers.
In a rare move at the time, cars were given detailed damage models which allowed licensed vehicles like the Dodge Viper and Lotus Exige to be warped by damage taken during racing. That might just sound normal right now, but when you took into account that all sorts of nigh-on-ridiculous attacks like missile shots were coming from all angles it kind of raises a smile just thinking about the possibility.
Blur was even made by long-time racing veterans Bizarre Creations who you may know better as the team who brought Project Gotham Racing into the world before it was summarily stamped out by Forza Motorsport. Tracks were based upon real-life locales and the amount of stunts that could be pulled actually made Blur into a game which could stretch a smile across anyone’s face. It’s a shame that this game became one of the flops, and even more of a shame in that we can’t really see why.
Blur came from a good development team, with Activision Blizzard backing the title as publisher, and was met with a fair amount of critical praise among reviewers. Maybe it was just too soon or too late for the world of arcade racing to take in a new franchise. We may never know. After selling only 30,000 units, no one will ever know.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Before we go any further into this, we all know why Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine flopped. Its publisher, THQ, died a monumental death and all of its licenses went up in the air. So that’s one problem. The second reason why this title died was the sales figures. It launched in Europe the same week that Dead Island was first birthed into the world. Now when you put a franchise that much of the gaming audience hasn’t really heard about up against the advertising behemoth – which also had zombies – of Dead Island, the battle was only going to come out one way.
So Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine died a horrible yet honorable death. Here’s why it shouldn’t have. The game was a huge risk that sort of paid off for developers Relic. It scored fairly well among critics with a Metascore of 74, but it scored a complete win with fans of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Up until the launch of Space Marine, Warhammer 40,000 fans had to make do with recreations of their favorite tabletop hobby.
This was far from a bad thing because Dawn of War – also made by Relic -was widely regarded as a good game. What Space Marine did was bring the franchise to life with an almost-terrifying level of attention to detail. Every building and every character was made to fit into the lore perfectly. Nothing felt out of place and, most importantly, you actually felt like a Space Marine while playing it.
You never dodged behind cover to avoid damage. You instead took the damage and ran headlong into your enemies, slaughtering them in visceral executions to regain health. There wasn’t a blocking mechanic for melee, just pure unhinged chainsword-grinding combat. Add to that a surprisingly fun multiplayer element which allowed players to create their own Space Marine with customization options using parts unlocked during gameplay and you had a near-perfect rendition of a much-loved universe that broke the boundaries of tabletop gaming.
It simply wasn’t to be it seems, which is a shame since Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine finished on a surprise cliffhanger which may now never be finished. We think we speak for every Warhammer 40,000 fan out there when we say that this is one of the most tragic gaming flops of the last generation of gaming.
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