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The 11 Most EXPENSIVE Video Game FLOPS Ever
MojoPlays
Follow
12/4/2024
Category
😹
Fun
Transcript
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00:00
Welcome to Mojo Plays and today we are getting out our calculators to work out who lost the
00:12
most.
00:13
These are the 10 most expensive video game flops ever.
00:16
There are a lot of reasons a game could lose money, budget too big, sales too small, management
00:20
too poor, bringing a game from development to consumer is a costly affair and these guys
00:25
didn't handle it well.
00:27
Before we continue, we publish content all week long so be sure to subscribe and ring
00:31
the bell to get notified of our latest videos.
00:35
40 million, this is Vegas.
00:44
One of the fastest ways for a video game to suffer a massive financial loss is to be cancelled
00:49
before completion, cutting off the chance to save any of the costs with sales.
00:53
A prime example of this is Midway and Surreal Softwares This is Vegas, an open world action
00:58
adventure game that reportedly burned through 40-50 million dollars in development costs.
01:04
Once more let me say that, 40-50 million.
01:08
The cancellation happened just one year after the games trailer and screenshots were released
01:12
with plans to launch on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
01:15
Although there is justified speculation, the reason for the cancellation has never been
01:19
fully explained.
01:22
50 million, Darksiders 2.
01:40
Let's move on to a game that actually released.
01:43
Darksiders 2 is a hack and slash action adventure game that at the time of its development was
01:48
considered one of the most expensive video games ever made.
01:51
I'm sure you've heard of it, but chances are you probably didn't play it.
01:54
Two years after the game failed to achieve widespread success, the Nordic Games CEO criticised
01:59
its budget as ridiculous, stating, we can produce a product of the same quality at a
02:03
lower cost.
02:04
50 million dollars is just absurd, I can't afford that.
02:09
Can't afford 50 million dollars?
02:11
You mustn't be doing that well.
02:12
Remain.
02:13
A warrior's life is never easy, old one.
02:16
Aye, not easy, but simple.
02:19
52 million, The Secret World.
02:23
The choice is yours, remember this.
02:30
Be mindful of the voices.
02:31
Listen to the voices that whisper in your sleep.
02:35
In 2012, EA and FunCon invested heavily in The Secret World, and when I say invested
02:40
heavily, I'm talking heavily, and if you aren't aware, MMORPGs are one of the hardest genres
02:45
to gain continued commercial success in.
02:48
The game was ambitious, but actually well-received, but as expected, it struggled to compete with
02:52
the established titles like World of Warcraft.
02:55
At launch, the game sold only 200,000 copies, resulting in a 52 million dollar loss in sunk
03:01
costs.
03:02
Just to put that 200,000 copies into perspective, World of Warcraft's 2020 expansion, Shadowlands,
03:07
sold 3.7 million copies on day one.
03:10
I don't know if you know this, but 3.7 million is a lot more than 200,000.
03:25
70 million, Shenmue.
03:33
Your son, I'm alright, but Hazuki-sensei…
03:41
My father?
03:42
Sega's highly ambitious open-world action-adventure game Shenmue had a development cost of over
03:48
70 million dollars between 1999 and the year 2000.
03:52
The budget was spread across these years, with part of the budget going towards the
03:55
creation of Shenmue 2.
03:57
You might not expect Shenmue to have been a financial failure, because ironically, while
04:01
the series is now celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time, it only sold 1.2
04:06
million copies, and fell far short of recovering its massive production costs.
04:10
I think the financial failure was worth it.
04:12
But I'm not as good as father was.
04:24
80 million, Defiance.
04:31
Trion Worlds MMO third-person shooter Defiance was just one of those games that struggled
04:42
to gain traction among gamers, even with a marketing boost from its tie-in sci-fi TV
04:47
show.
04:48
A real boomery kind of marketing technique if you ask me, what is this Skylanders?
04:52
The game took 5 years and over 80 million dollars to development, but its downfall was
04:56
largely attributed to a shift in its business model after launch.
05:00
Just as a paid title in 2013, Defiance switched to a free-to-play model in 2014, significantly
05:05
reducing its ability to recoup its massive budget through direct sales.
05:10
And switching to a free-to-play after only a year on the market is never a good sign.
05:22
90 million, Halo Titan.
05:25
As one of the most popular action franchises in gaming history, it's no surprise that
05:29
a massive amount of resources went into developing an ambitious MMORPG created by Ensemble Studios
05:34
between 2004 and 2007, often referred to as Halo Titan or Project Titan.
05:40
Much to everyone's disappointment, the game was cancelled before completion, leading to
05:44
90 million dollars in losses for the studio with no chance for financial recovery.
05:50
As the precursor to Halo Wars, Halo Titan remains shrouded in mystery more than 15 years
05:55
later.
05:56
I just want to know one thing, can I have some of that 90 million?
06:00
80 to 100 million to human.
06:16
Trapped in development limbo for a decade, Microsoft and Silicon Knights action RPG to
06:22
human ended up costing an astronomical 80 to 100 million dollars before its lukewarm
06:27
release in 2008.
06:29
The game's lengthy development cycle involved a serious first for game development which
06:34
included multiple platform shifts, from PlayStation to Gamecube to Xbox 360, each incurring hefty
06:41
expenses.
06:42
The only console it didn't touch was the Xebu.
06:44
Enhancing its troubles, a legal dispute over the game engine led to a recall, which further
06:49
hurt its reception.
06:50
To human sold only about 700,000 units, which was good enough for a regular game, but not
06:55
for one that had been in development for more years than GTA 6.
07:00
100 million, APB All Points Bulletin APB All Points Bulletin took an astonishing
07:17
15 to 20 years to development, which is too many years.
07:21
During this time, the project amassed a staggering 100 million dollar budget, which realistically
07:26
isn't that bad for two decades, but still way too hard to recoup.
07:31
Despite the extensive development period, the game launched feeling incomplete and failed
07:35
to impress both gamers and critics, ultimately leading real time worlds to declare bankruptcy.
07:41
In the end, APB couldn't recover from its enormous costs and its servers were shut down
07:45
in 2010, the same year it was released.
07:48
I know you already know that, I just wanted to dig the knife in further.
08:00
200 million, Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League
08:03
The most recent entry on this list is Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, an action shooter
08:18
released in 2024 as a spin-off to the popular Batman Arkham series.
08:22
Joint MCU style universes in video games needs more exploring, but this is an unfortunate
08:27
cautionary tale.
08:28
The game was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, with many players viewing it as a
08:32
hollow cash grab despite its high production value and polished visuals.
08:37
Critics and fans alike criticised its unnecessary implementation of live service elements, which
08:42
made it feel like a slot machine at a casino, rather than a satisfactory game.
08:54
Concord Consider this entry 1.5, because these videos
09:03
can take a bit of time to come out, so between writing and video editing, a beautifully tragic
09:07
game by the name of Concord released, so instead of getting rid of the 10th entry and moving
09:12
everything up, I'm just going to squeeze in an extra one.
09:14
Try and stop me Mojo!
09:16
Please don't fire me.
09:17
At the end of August we saw one of the most abysmally marketed games of the last 30 years,
09:23
With 700 concurrent Steam players on launch day, the game was estimated to have sold less
09:27
than 25,000 copies.
09:30
That should cover their budget right?
09:31
Oh wait, they spent $400 million dollars.
09:35
I don't need to tell you guys this, but 25,000 copies doesn't get you out of a $400 million
09:39
dollar hole.
09:42
Arguably Billions, E.T.
09:54
The Extraterrestrial
10:05
Often blamed for triggering the video game console crash of 1983, Atari's release of
10:10
E.T.
10:11
The Extraterrestrial is widely considered the biggest video game disaster in history.
10:15
Although the exact financial loss remains uncertain, Atari reportedly spent $20-25 million
10:21
just to secure the movie rights, a figure that, adjusted for inflation, equates to approximately
10:26
$56-70 million dollars.
10:28
When adding development costs, the total becomes even more staggering.
10:32
We all know this story, undersold by millions, cartridges buried in a desert, nearly destroyed
10:37
the entire industry and caused billions in losses for companies that weren't even associated
10:40
with them.
10:41
It's just a damn mess, and I for one will probably never stop talking about it.
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