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[ReBurn]

I mean, ET was the lynch pin for the 1983 NA videogame crash. It wasn't the only culprit. ET was heavily marketed by Atari as a big holiday 1982 game. They spent millions on advertising. They also apparently pushed retailers into overstocking inventory, and reassuring them that the game will sell in mass droves. The game did sell really well as they projected, but there was also a lot of refunds that may have caused havoc with retail outlets. Pac-Man for the 2600 had the same effect. Pac-Man one of the top selling 2600 cartridges. But it was kinda slammed for being a bad port, it saw a lot of refunds too.

Duke Nukem Forever; as someone who use to frequent the 3Drealms forums back when the game was under development. I went to those forums to join the modding community for Max Payne 1 in 2001, and hung around. I remember being on those forums when the DNF2001 trailer hit. I remember being on the forums when George Broussard closed down 3D Realms in 2009.

The long winded development and many restarts did its toll on the company. They were trying to turn things around in 2009. But in the end the game was picked up and finished by GearBox and released in 2011. I always equated to DNF as the 'Chinese Democracy' of videogame development... I am talking about the Guns & Roses album. It was destructive for 3Drealms in its original form, but didn't really disrupt the game industry.

I want to add Shenmue I and II to the list. Because they cost Sega a lot of money and almost bankrupted the company.

I've never agreed that ET was the lynchpin. I've always seen it as the scapegoat. It was never the worst video game ever made. Considering the overall 2600 library it was a fairly decent open world adventure game for the time and it was a reasonable challenge on the highest difficulty. It was a rather poor licensed game effort, though.

Anyway, Atari was already on the fast train to financial ruin without spending 20+ million 1982 dollars on the video game rights to ET. They also released the 5200 in 1982 and it was a commercial failure. And they'd done an enormous amount of hiring in 1982 to try to maintain their market dominance in light of tighter competition in arcades, computers and consoles through brute force. When you toss in the glut of third party shovelware being produced at the time there was no avoiding the implosion, even without ET flopping.

 

[The Stig]

Even without recency bias Concord has to be right up there.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

It'd be the one with the biggest budget. So, which flop me had the biggest budget?

Concorde... really? recency bias anyone..?

It's like people were born yesterday.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I've never agreed that ET was the lynchpin. I've always seen it as the scapegoat. It was never the worst video game ever made. Considering the overall 2600 library it was a fairly decent open world adventure game for the time and it was a reasonable challenge on the highest difficulty. It was a rather poor licensed game effort, though.

Anyway, Atari was already on the fast train to financial ruin without spending 20+ million 1982 dollars on the video game rights to ET. They also released the 5200 in 1982 and it was a commercial failure. And they'd done an enormous amount of hiring in 1982 to try to maintain their market dominance in light of tighter competition in arcades, computers and consoles through brute force. When you toss in the glut of third party shovelware being produced at the time there was no avoiding the implosion, even without ET flopping.

For sure, there was a lot on in the 80s that contributed to the industry collapse that was already in motion. E.T.'s release coincided with a major recession (worst since the Great Depression, at the time) and had a larger than life story attached to it (mass returns to disappoint millions on Christmas, leading to the landfill site) that helped to immortalize it as THE flop everyone thinks about.

 

[DeVeAn]

What about Battleborn?

 

[POKEYCLYDE]

Brink was pretty bad.

 

[Gaiff]

Concorde... really? recency bias anyone..?

It'd be the one with the biggest budget. So, which flop me had the biggest budget?

It's like people were born yesterday.

Are you guys joking? How many AAA games lasted 15 days before being unceremoniously put down?

 

[Neff]

Immortals of Aveum was such a big flop that OP forgot to include it.

125 million production + marketing and it sold nothing.

 

[Gaiff]

Immortals of Aveum was such a big flop that OP forgot to include it.

125 million production + marketing and it sold nothing.

Sold astronomically more than Concord and had a lower budget.

 

[Azelover]

It was E.T. because it brought down the entire medium with it.

Concord is pretty explosive in a negative way, but there is Astrobot and other games The industry will be OK.. E.T. was much worse.

 

[Neff]

Sold astronomically more than Concord and had a lower budget.

Was pointing out a notable omission, not comparing.

Don't worry, I think your champion will go uncontested for some time.

 

[bitbydeath]

The reason is that Sony are fucking retards.

Agreed, I think it was the dumbest move they have ever made.

 

[hussar16]

Most probably Concord.

And imo people overstate 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.

But the fuckton of copies is what caused a whole gaming crash because of low quality shit games.lol

 

[BigDeadFreak]

Surely it's Rise of the Robots.

 

[MrCunningham]

Never seen that, I'm guessing it was more MS paint than Photoshop

I would say that it is more like 'mypaint' digital paint program than either one. The software bundled with Udraw was some paint/ colouring program. But there were other interactive games released for the tablet as well, like comic book creation, animation software, etc.

To be honest, I was wrong about the Wii version, which came out in 2010. This one may have actually sold pretty well. The PS3 and 360 versions released in 2013 were what caused THQ to financially go bankrupt. THQ manufactured too many units and they undersold.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Dustborn: The BIGGEST Failure In Video Game History

This is unbelievably bad...

www.smashjt.com

 

[Musashipan]

Concord by far

 

[MrCunningham]

But the fuckton of copies is what caused a whole gaming crash because of low quality shit games.lol

This is the impression I get too. From what I understand Atari was pressuring retailers to overstock 2600 games that they thought would be mega sellers. Pac-Man most certainly was one of those games, and so was ET. Both games are arguably two of the best selling 2600 games as well, but there were a lot of unsold units that were crushed up and dumped into landfills.

The 2600 Pac-Man port had a pretty abysmal reception upon release, but it was still one of the most highly anticipated games for the system. Apparent;y it saw a lot of refunds at retail. ET costing Atari a lot of money to secure and advertise, this game also saw a lot of refunds too. Which honestly was what caused a crash. Retailers just sick of dealing with Atari's bullshit. It's funny because my dad had both games for his 2600 when I was a kid so I had access to both.

 

[hussar16]

This is the impression I get too. From what I understand Atari was pressuring retailers to overstock 2600 games that they thought would be mega sellers. Pac-Man most certainly was one of those games, and so was ET. Both games are arguably two of the best selling 2600 games as well, but there were a lot of unsold units that were crushed up and dumped into landfills.

The 2600 Pac-Man port had a pretty abysmal reception upon release, but it was still one of the most highly anticipated games for the system. Apparent;y it saw a lot of refunds at retail. ET costing Atari a lot of money to secure and advertise, this game also saw a lot of refunds too. Which honestly was what caused a crash. Retailers just sick of dealing with Atari's bullshit. It's funny because my dad had both games for his 2600 when I was a kid so I had access to both.

At the time so many people tried to make games for a quick buck but understanding devlopemnet at all. It worked until it didn't. Know i feel like we are in the same boat. Quick buck least effort because everything is to expensive to make

 

[MrCunningham]

At the time so many people tried to make games for a quick buck but understanding devlopemnet at all. It worked until it didn't. Know i feel like we are in the same boat. Quick buck least effort because everything is to expensive to make

I'm not really sure if Pac-Man for the 2600 was a 'quick buck' kind of game. Pac-Man was released in arcades by Midway in 1980. It was one of the most demanded home ports for the 2600. Atari did get the exclusive on the home port of Pac-Man and it did give them a license to print money, basically. The port that was released in 1982 did sell a lot of copies, it might have even sold better than ET. It was deemed as one of the worst home ports of the game and did get a lot of push-back at retail.

ET was a big investment for Atari, but was pushed out the door fast to hit a holiday 1982 deadline.

But there also seemed to be issues with Atari trying to push Activision games out of the retail space, by getting retailers to overstock their games. Activision, and all of the other third party publishers were unlicensed, Atari didn't like them releasing games on their console. Due to court hearings, it was not illegal for companies like Mattel, Activision, Parker Bros, Sega, to manufacture their own 2600 carts. This is why Nintendo made sure to keep third parties locked down with lock-out chips and security measures.

 

[Trilobit]

This has been a very entertaining gaming month with all the Concord stuff.

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

It's Concord, nothing else even comes close.

 

[Fluffytheterrible]

Concord, followed by Redfall and Suicide Squad

 

[ConkerTheSquirrel.]

Probably the months leading up to the launch of the Xbox One, with Concord being a close second.

 

[adamsapple]

Honorable mention goes to Forspoken which led to its entire development studio being absorbed into the publisher.

 

[simpatico]

To me it's Concord for a few reasons. Sony needed an exclusive hit for enthusiasts. Pre reveal, Concord had a shit load of hype and chatter. A brand new Sony-quality FPS SP/MP franchise. This console generation has been very whelming and this was the ray of hope. In a generation defined by shadowy unannounced hope titles, this was one of the biggest. A studio so dank that Sony just had to buy it before they even released a game. Then we got the reveal. An absolute clownboat on a lolercoaster. It got mocked heavily and even the most optimistic fans could only say "maybe they will scrap all the art and delay it another year". Firewalk rebuffed all the prerelease critiques as nonsense and released their bejeweled turd into the world. I think maybe outside of Morbius, it was the most talked about online entertainment products without making a single cent for their trouble. Gamers have been thoroughly oppressed since GG, and this game was the embodiment of their oppressors. The sheer number of thirsty Xbox fans, shat on gamers and rambunctious onlookers all passed through this multifaceted bomba crystal to make something special. A big AAA release garnering less than 1k peak Steam players. The PSN trophy for getting 1 kill had less than 1,300 owners on the day they shut it down. Pathetic.

 

[FStubbs]

Will Concord take PlayStation and Xbox down? Will Concord dramatically impact how Nintendo releases their next console?

Nope - so Concord isn't in the same zip code of disaster as E.T. was.

 

[CityHunter1981]

Clearly Conchord. ET had a super small developer team, as common at that time. The install base was also much lower compared to these days.

Also ET was completed in a couple of months, Conchord took 8 years…

 

[StreetsofBeige]

And dont forget, not only did Concord take forever to make and cost a ton, and got shut down asap with refunds.

But Sony even bought out the entire company for it.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Funny, when I was like 5-6 and got my brand new Atari 2600 I loved ET. I felt it has always gotten a bad rep as did Zelda 2 on NES.

 

[TheKratos]

Suicide squad for me. I didn't even know Concord existed till last few days, definitely colossal commercial failure, Concord's only argument is its budget but it was a new IP by a new studio, in an oversaturated shit market.

But SS was made by freakin Rocksteady! A big studio with critically acclaimed Batman franchise fucked up big time with a similar budget like Concord. A studio that released jack shit since 2015, had all the time in the world, a mega budget, experience and the Batman universe AND STILL FUCKED UP.

Nothing beats SS imo.

 

[Michael Slayer NY]

Toca Boca Games, in my opinion is the biggest bomb for children gaming industry

 

[SweetTooth]

Where is Halo infinite? It basically killed on of the Biggest franchises ever

 

[Spyxos]

For me that would be Duke Nukem, I've been waiting forever for that game. I had so much fun with the predecessor, I knew every secret and played a lot of multiplayer.

Even though Concord is a huge fail, I had no expectations of the game so it's nowhere near it.

 

[PeteBull]

Will Concord take PlayStation and Xbox down? Will Concord dramatically impact how Nintendo releases their next console?

Nope - so Concord isn't in the same zip code of disaster as E.T. was.

Just for comparision, from official wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)

E.T. was met with initial commercial success, being among the top four on Billboard magazine's "Top 15 Video Games" sales list in December 1982 and January 1983.[30] The game sold over 2.6 million copies by the end of 1982.

Concord allegedly sold 25k copies worldwide and sony decided its not even worth keeping servers alive for it after a week of data right after launch, got closed after 2weeks