Biggest Fail Game of this Year?

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Comixbooks

Fully [H]
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I know most people don't use the word Fail anymore but there were some pretty big bombs this year. You had entire studios shut down because of game reception which is pretty hard to fathom but it did happen as tragic as it was.

The Day Before
Starfield
Immortals of Aveum
Gollum
Diablo 4
Redfall

I own two of the game in the above list because I bought into the hype. You have some games in Fail recovery mode like Redfall and Diablo 4 and Starfield.
They might still come out on top sometime down the road.
 
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The Day Before was never a game, so it doesn't count.

Gollum, by far, because they actually put effort into it.
 
Armenius said:
The Day Before was never a game, so it doesn't count.

Gollum, by far, because they actually put effort into it.
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The Day Before counts. It got a full release on Steam as shit as it is. That said, Gollum seems pretty bad from what I can tell.
 
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Gollum is in recovery 21 recent reviews that are mixed even though the studio shut down.
 
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vegeta535 said:
I would say Gollum with Starfield a close 2nd.
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Given Starfield's sales, its hard to call it a failure. The title is certainly disappointing in many respects but many people have enjoyed it and sunk hundreds of hours into it. It's hard to call it a failure even if it deserves most of the criticisms leveled against it.
 
I did not know-remembered right away about the Gollum game (after thinking I remember hearing about the game maybe saw a trailer at launch or before, never heard anyone talking about playing that game) , so that could be my vote, but that could be release date in the year bias. Would like to see post first 30 days sales, usage, etc... because on launch it went quite hard with all the promos/bundle/gamepass, etc....

Starfield for what it could have been for Xbox platform versus what it seem to be and the hype that it had (best sellers on day one despite being on gamepass), maybe it was still a nice enduring success after all, I don't know, but it does not feel like what Skyrim-Morrowind, etc... being an xbox exclusive would have been.
 
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I remember hearing about gollum, i honestly didnt know it actually came out
 
Alan Wake 2 would be the worst game I played this year. I typically don’t play well known failures so for me this was a fail and I rated it 5/10 which really means the game wasted my time.
 
Diablo 4 and Starfield might have gotten the super vocal nerds in a tizzy, but they're both successful games. Immortals seems disappointing, but probably not that bad. Trick is, it was disappointing enough to tank the studio, so that's pretty bad. Even though I didn't think Redfall was as bad as some people, it was a VERY high profile black eye for Arkane and Microsoft. It was supposed to be a huge exclusive. Instead it made them talk about losing another round of the console wars. I think Gollum takes the cake, though. The game is considered an all-time disaster AND it killed the studio.
 
Domingo said:
but they're both successful games.
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Success or not is only relative to expectation, Microsoft bought ZeniMax 7.5 billions which can change them.

The success bar can become different than the usual, that game did cost 300 millions to do, market and support in the futur, made $750 millions in sales incredible success.

How much of a game changer in gamepass subscription, Xbox sales and build the Xbox brand, how much it needed to boost the hype for the next Elder Scroll it needed to do, to make that 7.5 billion work can be different than the usual game revenues, cost to make the game math, as some amortization of the acquisition will be added to the cost, buying Bethesda making potentially Activision acquisition harder is part of the cost and so on.

Maybe the acquisition make sense in part if the Elder Scroll is at least 40% of what Skyrim was and something like Starfield is at least 20% of what Skyrim was or some internal metric, that could make a usually very profitable game not a success, which is obviously unfair if we are to judge the game in a vacuum.
 
Domingo said:
Diablo 4 and Starfield might have gotten the super vocal nerds in a tizzy, but they're both successful games. Immortals seems disappointing, but probably not that bad. Trick is, it was disappointing enough to tank the studio, so that's pretty bad. Even though I didn't think Redfall was as bad as some people, it was a VERY high profile black eye for Arkane and Microsoft. It was supposed to be a huge exclusive. Instead it made them talk about losing another round of the console wars. I think Gollum takes the cake, though. The game is considered an all-time disaster AND it killed the studio.
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In the short term in terms of early sales, sure but starfield has done significant damage to Bethesda's brand reputation due to the increasing hostility and disappointment at it
 
peppergomez said:
In the short term in terms of early sales, sure but starfield has done significant damage to Bethesda's brand reputation due to the increasing hostility and disappointment at it
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People say that, but was their reputation all that good before Starfield came out? Think about all the disappointing crap they've come out with since Skyrim. Like Oblivion before it, even Skyrim is a game cited as being saved by the modding community as the base game is filled with bugs and quality of life issues. I'd argue its gameplay mechanics and design felt dated even when it was new. Even as far back as Oblivion, Bethesda has been a studio that's pushed out games that are sub-par in quality and that's not even getting into the fact that their gameplay designs and mechanics felt outdated even a decade ago. Fallout 76 was the quite possibly the biggest shitshow the industry had ever seen on release.

To be honest, I'm not surprised Starfield is what it is. I've never understood the reverence people have had for the studio. What surprises me is that anyone else is surprised by this given their track record. Though I suppose people are now finally starting to realize what kind of studio Bethesda is and we have games like Cyberpunk 2077 to compare Starfield to which only serve to drive that point home. Of course, on launch Cyberpunk 2077 was a shitshow as well. I haven't forgotten that either. Though no one would have accused the game of feeling dated. It had many issues due to being largely unfinished but that wasn't one of them.
 
I've thought they borderline suck/are aggressively mediocre since FO3 and know their success is due to lies, marketing, and their "glory days" of Morrowind and Oblivion, which they've been coasting on for a good 15 years now. But now with the release of starfield, I think a lot more people are getting wise to how bad or just mediocre. their games are, hence the damage that the game may well have done to their rep. Then again I could be wrong and gamers could be gullible lemmings able to be fooled d by good marketing and atodds sweet liittle lies. It will be interesting to see how good the pre-orders for TESVI will be. "Gamers. Gamers never change."
 
I am not sure so many people can put so many hours in Skyrim that they bought 3 different time fooled by marketing, marketing can make you buy once, not play more than a very limited amount of time.

Dan_D said:
People say that, but was their reputation all that good before Starfield came out?
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What would explain those pre-release and first 24 hours sale numbers ? IF not reputation, the genre and scope could have pushed them, but were the trailers that special ?
 
The Day Before is a massive fail. They did release a game and sold exactly 0 copies on Steam as Valve keeps the money for a month before giving to devs, and in this case they will give refunds to everyone.
I think it's a scam, but not aimed towards players but investors. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
"Oh we delivered the game but it flopped, sorry but your money is gone, it happens with bad investments".
 
Dan_D said:
People say that, but was their reputation all that good before Starfield came out? Think about all the disappointing crap they've come out with since Skyrim. Like Oblivion before it, even Skyrim is a game cited as being saved by the modding community as the base game is filled with bugs and quality of life issues. I'd argue its gameplay mechanics and design felt dated even when it was new. Even as far back as Oblivion, Bethesda has been a studio that's pushed out games that are sub-par in quality and that's not even getting into the fact that their gameplay designs and mechanics felt outdated even a decade ago. Fallout 76 was the quite possibly the biggest shitshow the industry had ever seen on release.

To be honest, I'm not surprised Starfield is what it is. I've never understood the reverence people have had for the studio. What surprises me is that anyone else is surprised by this given their track record. Though I suppose people are now finally starting to realize what kind of studio Bethesda is and we have games like Cyberpunk 2077 to compare Starfield to which only serve to drive that point home. Of course, on launch Cyberpunk 2077 was a shitshow as well. I haven't forgotten that either. Though no one would have accused the game of feeling dated. It had many issues due to being largely unfinished but that wasn't one of them.
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I liked Fallout 4, I never played TES series. Though FO4 was notable for being a step back in how dynamic the story was and limited dialogue options with real change in outcome. Starfield seems to be like FO4 in that regard. But putting it in the same list as something like Gollum is just crazy.
 
The downfall of Bethesda is such a sad story, because I loved Oblivion (especially the shivering isles), Skyrim, Fallout 3 was also quite fun... But everything since has been slowly declining in quality...
 
For me, it was most definitely Diablo IV and Starfield....

Both of which I was extremely excited about, played for about 30 hours each, and then reverted back to their superior counterparts: Grim Dawn/PoE & Skyrim/Fallout4 respectively.
 
t1337duder said:
Do Early Access games that go on sale for significant discounts before they even release count?
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I bought a game on Steam years ago while it was still in development. They promised all of the DLC to come, all the extras for those who bought early.

It didn't pan out that way at all for me. I did not complain as I should have, I just let it go and gave them 0 support going forward.
 
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