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[Akuji]

biggest flop ... means the expectations needed to be there at first..
very difficult question.
A few come to mind but i cant really remember how big it was at the time.
Mass Effect Andromeda was a big one.
Anthem was quite big, but started the series so not nearly big enough ...
Halo Infinite is a recent one and therefore is like the big one in my mind right now.
Battlefield 2042 also was a bid dump.
Overwatch 2 maybe, dont know enough about the game.
Warcraft 3 Reforged, but warcraft wasnt big enough at the time of release.

Difficult question iam sure im missing some big ones.
Either Mass Effect or Halo Infinite for me.

 

[Kings Field]

The Day Before and Concord

 

[Damigos]

From the list Concord as one wouldnt "expect" it from Sony.
Outside from list i think Redfall was the biggest. It let everyone down when MS needed an excellent AAA exclusive the most. After Redfall it seems MS changed their strategy to become a huge publisher and leaving behind hardware and exclusives
Also Halo infinite. 1 year delay and still a mess didnt help MS either

 

[Sentenza]

It's Concord and THIS IS NOT "recency bias" either.
Simply stated, NO other game that costed as much as Concord bombed as hard and as quickly.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

Guys, most surely concord will come back as a F2p some months later, when all the craze is calmed. I don't think they're gonna just throw away the entire investment, they'll be designing a way to monetise it and (maybe) come up with a more attractive design

 

[West Texas CEO]

I know ET isn't in recent memory, but damn, that landfill story is something else, lol

 

[DenchDeckard]

Which ever game lasted less than 2 weeks.

 

[Mownoc]

The Virtual Boy. A console discontinued 5 months after it launched, yikes!

In terms of software it's hard to think of anything on the scale of Concord. There's been games that have sold less of course but not ones with close to the budget.

 

[Fabieter]

Concord bombed really hard but I think it's number two. The biggest bomb is the day before imo.

 

[Bernardougf]

 

[pasterpl]

Cocnord

 

[violence]

The pc verson of Duke Nukem Forever was a good time.

 

[SaucyJack]

C'mon stop pretending those were worst flops than concord....

You're really not comparing like with like.

Concord has had a disastrous launch, and if that ends up being the end of the story then I'll agree with you.

However, they've pulled the plug pretty quickly and decisively and I would be shocked if there wasn't a relaunch. A relaunch could still flop but that remains to be seen.

 

[darth.shrimp]

Concord hasn't caused an industry crash (yet), so my vote goes to ET.

 

[Sentenza]

Concord hasn't caused an industry crash (yet), so my vote goes to ET.

The "caused an industry crash" argument is mostly bollocks because "the industry" back then was basically nothing.
Its crash at the time was comparable to, say, Games Workshop failing and "crashing" the market for collecting and painting miniatures.

P.S. It's also worth stressing that while ET was overall a failure defined by bad decisions, insane licensing costs and poor production, they still sold 1,5 million copies of the 4 millions they printed.
That was also an insane decision in itself, in a market where there were 10 million consoles in total.

 

[diffusionx]

Guys, most surely concord will come back as a F2p some months later, when all the craze is calmed. I don't think they're gonna just throw away the entire investment, they'll be designing a way to monetise it and (maybe) come up with a more attractive design

There is no “craze.” The issue is that nobody wanted to play the game. Including when it was an open beta you could play for free.

If Sony spends another dime on this game, it’s too much.

 

[Hunnybun]

The sheer number of live service games in that original list is pretty telling. There's a lesson in there.

Is something that's THAT big a risk really sound business? I mean at what point are you better off just heading to Vegas and chancing your arm on the slot machines?

Business isn't just gambling. I'm amazed at how recklessly publishers have been chasing this jackpot.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

It's not only about money but also legacy and impact on the brand.

Though Concord seems the trendy answer, there are other factors to be considered. For example, Halo Infinite confirmed the official death of a big gaming IP, now irrelevant. If that's not bombing, tell me what it is. Concord/Firewalk is a nobody.

I'd go with Suicide Squad, though. The radius of the shockwave is unparalleled.

- It burnt 200M but also the confidence of future buyers, since that game belongs in a legacy franchise.

- It turned a top developer, Rocksteady, into an inclusive circus.

- As a result, Warner is looking forward to externalizing developments/IPs to other devs.

- Last but not least, SS was the "awakening" for many gamers, that now don't buy into any DEI bullshit.


The bombastic failure of Concord owes a lot to Suicide Squad. If this causes the fall of Hermen Hulst and the cancelation of future projects, it might be a tie.

 

[FewRope]

It is Concord, I dont think people truly understand the consequences of what is happening with that game yet

The Day Before was a scam from the start, that is not a flop

 

[hinch7]

Concord. Made a massive company look like a complete joke. 8 years dev time, only to last not even a couple weeks and would've had more devs who worked on it than players.

Game will be a wake up call to the VG industry.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Surprisingly, I played a good amount of those titles from OP's poll.

The only ones I haven't played are E.T., Concord, LawBreakers and Suicide Squad. And for the latter, I do plan on playing since the gameplay looked fun, I'm just waiting for the price to drop to like €15.

 

[Hudo]

Probably Stadia.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

ET was a fail but one guy programed it in a week.

Concord had insanely long development time to make a cringe trend chasing hero shooter with modern audience level ugly character designs and anti-marketing gamer hating social media publicity from devs.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It’s gotta be Concord.

8 years, something like $250 million to buy the studio and develop the game, nobody fucking bought it, and they shut it down in. 2 weeks and refunded everyone.

That’s not just a flop. It didn’t just lose money. It was NEGATIVE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT return on a huge investment, and a big brand-damaging embarrassment on top of it.

I don’t think anything else can compare to that.

 

[Vyse]

Most probably Concord.

And imo people overatate the failuer of ET's game. Sure the game sucks and they were left with many unsold copies, but it still sold a fuckton of copies.

I had one back in the day.

 

[FewRope]

It’s gotta be Concord.

8 years, something like $250 million to buy the studio and develop the game, nobody fucking bought it, and they shut it down in. 2 weeks and refunded everyone.

That’s not just a flop. It didn’t just lose money. It was NEGATIVE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT return on a huge investment, and a big brand-damaging embarrassment on top of it.

I don’t think anything else can compare to that.

Quite literally 100 million $ more or less down the drain, it's absolute insanity. If this was PS3 Sony would be cooked right now

 

[sainraja]

Its not coming back, bro, they pulled the cord coz didnt want even to waste cash for servers upkeep, thats how lil ppl bought/played that game in first and 2nd week after launch, this game got stigma of big failure, even youtubers keep dunking on it for ez reach

You could be right. He could be right. The game ending so quickly is unprecedented and the game coming back, if it does, would also be unprecedented. When it comes to concord, it's too early to call it as it has already done what no one expected. Ya never know. Now, of course, if FIrewalk, as everyone else is predicting, is shut down by Sony... we will find out sooner.

 

[nkarafo]

E.T. wasn't even the worst game on the Atari 2600. I know it gets all the blame for the "videogame crash" but i think that's unfair. Every console before the NES had pretty bad games because the developers wanted more from systems that could barely do anything.

 

[DenchDeckard]

James Sawyer Ford having a breakdown looking at these poll results.

I kid bro! - All love.

 

[sainraja]

Most people here seem to be using the criteria of "how quickly was the game shutdown by its publisher" to name concord as the biggest failure. If that is the only criteria, then yes, the title goes to Concord.

 

[mdkirby]

ET closely followed by concord. ET in today’s money would be a 325mil loss…and nearly killed the industry. Concords effects would be quite so pronounced but not insignificant and the financial loss won’t be too far behind when including marketing costs.

 

[Three]

Depends who's perspective. Bomb for the consumer or bomb for the developer.

If it's consumer I would say The Day Before. If it's developer then it's difficult to judge without knowing budgets/financial expectations.

 

[TheStam]

Still pissed about Anthem. The bones of that game was amazing, they just had no idea how to do itemization, interesting quests... how to run a live service game basically.

 

[Alpha Male]

There will be absolutely NO BESMIRCHING OF E.T.

 

[poppabk]

Prefer this image. This was the genesis of the modern day gaming flop - stuff like ET was just shovelware garbage and they knew it was garbage. Diakatana was giving a massive push and they intended for it to be good, they just completely misread what people wanted.

 

[Laptop1991]

Based on recent events it's Concord obviously, of the games i actually played, Duke Nukem Forever after all the years waiting for it, but it doesn't compare to Concord really.

 

[Ammogeddon]

Definitely Concord but thanks for reminding me about all those other stinkers.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Still pissed about Anthem. The bones of that game was amazing, they just had no idea how to do itemization, interesting quests... how to run a live service game basically.

Yeah as far as my personal level of disappointment, Anthem would be #1. Looter shooter/Destiny competitor with robot suits and Iron Man style flying. Made by BioWare’s “A team”, (remember the supposed reason Mass Effect: Andromeda sucked was because the A team were all busy working on Anthem).

What an absolute turd of a game. And they planned to reboot it as Anthem 2.0 until a bunch of high profile people quit and they ended up canceling that project.

Man it would be such a miracle if Dragon Age 4 isn’t a total dumpster fire.

 

[adamsapple]

 

[ReyBrujo]

While Concord was bad, there was only one game that had more cartridges manufactured than consoles were in the market. The landfill, the worst video game ever created tag, I doubt it will ever be surpassed.

 

[Euler007]

Very objective a couple of days after they announce the closure. Let's do that poll in 20 years.

 

[I'm nobody]

Op forgot skull and bones, the first AAAA game.

Forgot haze ps3

 

[Sentenza]

Most people here seem to be using the criteria of "how quickly was the game shutdown by its publisher" to name concord as the biggest failure. If that is the only criteria, then yes, the title goes to Concord.

It's not the only one. it's just that Concord is a failure under multiple other ones.
For instance there are probably hundreds of games on Steam that sold even less copies that Concord.

Do you you where the difference lies? None of them were multiple-years-in-development. multiple-millions-in-budget, triple A products. Most were garage games made by one or two dudes in their spare time.
Hell, for all the joking and memeing we made about it, let the fact that "Sex With Hitler" actually has a peak of concurrent users on Steam that more than doubles Concord's one sink in.

 

[Sentenza]

While Concord was bad, there was only one game that had more cartridges manufactured than consoles were in the market. The landfill, the worst video game ever created tag, I doubt it will ever be surpassed.

it had 4 million cartridges, for 10 million consoles on the market (which is still insane).
And they still sold roughly 1,5 million copies, for a game that had a development cycle of "1 guy working on it for 5 weeks". Most of the loss with ET comes from licensing fee (20 million dollars), marketing and then printing and retiring unsold cartridges.

 

[Robot Carnival]

I voted for ET due to the industry wide effects it caused, even though it sold a lot. but if we're going for pure budget and sales, definitely between Suicide Squad and Concord. both spent so much time just to completely crashed due to ignoring what the core players want. I hope companies take notes after this year's failure, but I highly doubt it.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Concord and its not even close.

ET selling 1.5 million copies and Concord sold around 25k?

What are we ever talking about here?

 

[Magic Carpet]

Voted Andromeda just because people actually wanted it and were looking forward to it.
Soul crushing.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

I spent a lot of time as a kid playing E.T. and didn't think it was that bad. Look at it's contemporaries at the time, there was a LOT of trash on the Atari and it fit in. To me it's biggest mistake was just it's expected sales volume.

I non-ironically love the Duke Nukem game.

From the characters, to the politics, to the time spent and the money my vote is for Concord as the biggest fail ever.

 

[consoul]

The "caused an industry crash" argument is mostly bollocks because "the industry" back then was basically nothing.

I don't know man, it was early days, sure, but the crash of '83 wiped a $3.2 billion dollar market clean. Industry revenue dropped 97%.

No modern flop could tank the industry like that. E.T. didn't do it alone, but it was the high profile title that made consumers lose interest in videogames. I don't think it can be topped.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Based on the above, it'll be Concord or Babylons Fall.

I lean Concord since a first party game should do better than a random action/RPG by Platinum Games. Also, Sony bought out the entire Firewalk studio for Concord, shut down servers in 2 weeks and refunded gamers with an apology. Platinum Games employees also dont to anti-White people rants on Twitter. And Babylon's Fall servers actually still lasted a year before being pulled.