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Top 20 Biggest Video Game Fails of the Decade (Watch Mojo)

BY2K

BY2K

Membero Americo
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,682
Québec, Canada


20. The PlayStation Classic
19. The Xbox One Pre-Launch
18. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
17. Crackdown 3
16. Always-On DRM
15. Metal Gear Survive
14. The Wii U
13. The PlayStation Vita
12. Mighty No.9
11. No Man's Sky Launch (emphasis on Launch)
10. Assassin's Creed Unity
09. Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight
08. The Fall of Telltale Games
07. Fallout 76
06. Anthem
05. Battleborn
04. Radical Heights
03. Mass Effect: Andromeda
02. Duke Nukem Forever
01. The PlayStation Network Hack
 
RestEerie

RestEerie

Banned
Aug 20, 2018
13,618
The PSN hack was within the last decade? Wow...it seems like quit awhile ago from my perspective
 
Ramsay

Ramsay

Member
Jul 2, 2019
3,623
Australia
I'd say that Fallout 76 should be above the PSN hack, given the issue with the support tickets leaking personal information.

Decent list otherwise.
 
3bdelilah

3bdelilah

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,615
Haven't played all of them, and I'm sure some are missing, but I definitely agree that it includes:
- Mass Effect Andromeda, which was a massive letdown compared to the Shepard trilogy.
- Assassin's Creed: Unity, which despite having had a great premise and stellar ambition for the then next-gen AC, the execution was awful
- Fallout 76, which stripped Fallout even more of its gameplay core, and the corporate decisions made that rightfully got shit on by the community
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Andromeda doesn't deserve to be that high/low.
 
shadowman16

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,972
Combichristoffersen said:
Duke Nukem Forever as #2 and Fallout 76 as #7? Should be the other way around, if anything.
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If anything, DNForever should be lower purely based on it finally getting released this decade, which seems like a miracle in itself. Pity it wasn't any good...

And yeah, 76 should be way higher, the fact that its still having hilarious problems (like the whole hack that lets people steal all other items from other players which occurred just this week...) its just amazing how a game can be such a flaming trainwreck and yet keep on going, plowing through more towns causing untold destruction... Sure is funny to watch though.
 
Raijinto

Raijinto

self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
10,091
Wow totally forgot that the PS Classic was like an actual thing that happened.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,051
Radical Heights doesn't deserve to be there at all. It was a last hurrah from a studio that was months from closure, and no-one had any expectations from it. If anything Lawbreakers was a bigger failure - or more specifically, the marketing for lawbreakers.
 

Giantjames

Member
Jul 18, 2018
22
Surprised that Battlefront 2 Launch wasn't on this list. That launch basically had gaming discussed beyond their normal circles and started agencies looking into gambling within the industry.
 

Rogue Agent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,529
I'm not sure if it counts but since there's stuff like the PSN Hack that's an action done by outside forces, there should also be stuff like GamerGate and the Blizzard-China stuff even though that's got nothing to do with a particular game or console.
 

Deleted member 47654

user requested account closure
Banned
Sep 10, 2018
2,612
2 Bioware games on the list, damn.
And then you can find at least 2 Bioware games in every best of the decade list.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,419
Order of the list makes very little sense, but it is wild to remember the PSN hack was this decade (and it's a pretty good pick for number 1).
 
Chainsawkitten

Chainsawkitten

Member
Nov 28, 2017
735
Sweden
Weird list. Their definition of failure is stuff that made the companies lose "a ton of" money, but some of those don't seem to fit (and their reasoning for the entry makes no mention of financial losses...). No Man's Sky made bank.

Seems more like a list of "things that performed below expectations or were disliked by gamers regardless of financial results, while avoiding talking about anything too political".

So the kind of list where "they released a bad video game that ultimately turned a profit" is worse than including gambling in games with a target audience of children, placating authoritarian regimes, legitimizing Nazis, toxic workplace cultures or a massive sexist harassment campaign.
 
CrocodileGrin

CrocodileGrin

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,155
Not sure how Battleborn made it in the Top 5. There are worse in the lineup. One game missing and what I would replace with Battleborn would be Lawbreakers. At least BB has less than one more year to go with its servers, while the Lawbreakers servers barely even last a year after release.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,419
Also, you think they'd include uDraw, since that sunk THQ at the start of this decade.
 
Triggerhappytel

Triggerhappytel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,051
Giantjames said:
Surprised that Battlefront 2 Launch wasn't on this list. That launch basically had gaming discussed beyond their normal circles and started agencies looking into gambling within the industry.
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Good suggestion. F2P mechanics had been in paid games for years, but BF2 was so egregious it began changes in legislation in some countries.
 
Mbolibombo

Mbolibombo

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,043
I dont really think Radical Heights belong here, BKP were already doomed.
Radical Heights was scrapped together in a haste to see if they could survive after the failure that was Lawbreakers.. which is probably the game that should be presented on this list over RH.

Vyrance said:
Xbox One reveal and WiiU should be much higher
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Wii U launched a couple of new franchises which are going to be staples in future Nintendo releases.. I think they deduct some failure points because of that :p
 
BrickArts295

BrickArts295

GOTY Tracking Thread Master
Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,767
Additional ones I could Think off:
-Death of THQ
-Fez 2 Cancelled
-Diablo 3 Launch
-Death of Lucasarts & Cancellation of 1313
-Mass Effect 3's Ending
-Doritogate
-38 Studios Closure
-Digital Homicide Lawsuit
-Battlefront II Launch
-Swatting
-EA closes Visceral
-Arkham Knight's PC port
-Sony ending various online servers
-Switch Voice Chat
-Artifact
-Sim City Launch
-Diablo Mobile Reveal
 

Deleted member 15476

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,268
In a way #1 is justified for my case. It basically killed any chance to invest in Sony's ecosystem and pushed me towards PC gaming.
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
10,196
Metal Gear Survive sure ain't great but I wouldn't say it failed at what it set out to do. I can't imagine many people were going in with high expectations, if anything I've honestly seen more people come away with a more positive opinion than they expected to have. And it's obvious the budget wasn't very high so I doubt it was much of a financial failure, either.

The rest of the list is pretty solid though
 
lazygecko

lazygecko

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,628
Grats to Command & Conquer 4 for earning a spot in the top 10.

Although C&C4 is a much worse product overall, Blizzard deserves some credit for screwing up the story conclusion even more in Starcraft 2, even when they didn't have the added benefit of rushing it out in less than a year. That kind of fail takes some effort when you have all the time in the world to wrap it up any way you'd like.
 

Deleted member 49535

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 10, 2018
2,825
Agree with the list but not the order. No Man's Sky shouldn't be higher on the list than Xbox One, Vita and Wii U.
 
CaviarMeths

CaviarMeths

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,655
Western Canada
A lot of these were just "product was bad" but not necessarily financial disasters like the opening said. A lot of them didn't even have long-term consequences. Like clearly Blizzard is doing ok after Diablo 3's launch, as it went on to be one of the best-selling games of the decade (though tbf D3 was featured under 'DRM').

Final Fantasy XIV snubbed again though. The launch was such a disaster and happened at such a vulnerable time for the company that it almost ruined Square Enix, one of the biggest publishers on the planet.
 
NippleViking

NippleViking

Member
May 2, 2018
4,488
Xbox One's pre-launch fiasco should be much higher. The momentum and mindset it established was conducive to them losing cost half their userbase, and the generation itself. It produced a level of controversy and vitriol I'd never even before or since.

Similarly Wii U should be higher. I'd argue that it's probably the greatest failure if we're defining this based based on financial costs.
 
Damn Silly

Damn Silly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,194
Unity shouldn't be on there (it was a fine game outside of those glitches which were fixed soon after launch) and Gamergate absolutely should be.
 
Blade24070

Blade24070

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,003
I'm sure many would disagree, but ME Andromeda shouldn't be anywhere near top 3. Just my opinion.
 
SofNascimento

SofNascimento

cursed
Member
Oct 28, 2017
21,322
São Paulo - Brazil
Saying that Mass Effect Andromeda is a fail is unfair with other failures. It was worst, it was a crime. A tragedy of biblical proportions. This game doesn't deserve a single bit of its game file. It doesn't deserve half a bit. 1/4 of a bit. 1/8. It deserves nothing.
 
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