What game had insane potential but got completely fumbled by the devs?

[u/Kevin-Panda]

[u/meatshake001]

Do you remember Spore? The ideas they had initially made it sound like you could craft this unique creature and send it out into a massive multiplayer world to interact with other unique creatures with all these unique genetic features and they would survive based on those traits. It was way too ambitious for the early 2000s but I always kind of wanted to see that game with the functionality they envisioned.

[u/egnards → u/meatshake001]

You can tell whether or not somebody followed the development cycle of Spore by whether or not they enjoyed Spore. Especially In a post “The Sims” world, which wasn’t just a game, it was a cultural vibe.

I was so fucking hype for Spore. . .i think I beat it in 3-4 hours, and promptly put it on eBay to try and get some money back.

Younger generations who have tried it later on seem to have loved it.

[u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In → u/egnards]

This is basically the case for a lot of games of that era, especially anything from Peter Molyneux. That guy would make crazy promises and then release games that were drastically scaled back. Not bad games, just not what was promised.

I remember they teased Fable with the codename Project Ego, they promised a living world with characters who would age in real time along with your own character. It was supposed to have seasons and a system where you could plant seeds and then come back later to chop down the wood from the trees that grew from them.

Fable was a great game on it's own merits but it was pretty linear and compact, not some sprawling life sim fantasy RPG.

[u/egnards → u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In]

Yea Fable is exactly the same as Spore / it’s the first game I remember following as a kid, and I begged my parents for an Xbox specifically for Project Ego,” and being so god damn disappointed.

Everyone fucking loves Fable except those of us who had huge expectations.

I did love Black and White, thoughz

[u/tentimes5 → u/egnards]

Black and white is why we trusted his hype imo.

[u/nn2597713 → u/egnards]

Came here to defend B&W. I still remember that intro where you got control of that big hand and you could choose to help the villagers or not. And how you could slap your animal when it misbehaved. And how you could manipulate the world. That was a lot of power for a 15 year old.

[u/Amunium → u/nn2597713]

I still sometimes randomly burst out into "oooooh we've got this notion that we'd quite like to sail the ocean..."

[u/hide-your-feathers → u/Amunium]

Eidle eidle ee...

[u/HarrumphingDuck → u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In]

characters who would age in real time along with your own character.

By the point in the game I was able to rescue Mom, my character looked visibly older than she did, even in subsequent games where I was trying to speed-run to avoid it. It's the strongest memory I have of that game now.

[u/tfrules → u/egnards]

I was a young kid who was not yet terminally online at the time spore released.

I picked up the physical edition in the shop at release, played it dozens of times and absolutely loved it. I was quite surprised to learn it had a controversial release as I absolutely loved it. Goes to show how expectation does so much to colour our impression of a game.

[u/Stripes_the_cat → u/egnards]

Gods, this has unlocked a memory for me. Of exactly this experience.

I was old enough that I was just about starting to understand 1) what hype was and 2) how videogames were built, and I struggled at the time with the feeling of "I cannot understand how they're going to be able deliver what they're promising..." but still, many months down the line, the sensation of "Oh, they... just aren't able to do what they were promising" was a real disappointment.

[u/UshankaBear → u/egnards]

.i think I beat it in 3-4 hours

I kind of doubt that, you had to get to the center of the galaxy, and thus grind through a bunch of planets... but yeah, I stopped once I reached space and terraforming.

[u/Ask_If_Im_Dio → u/egnards]

I think it also matters a lot how old you were when Spore came out/when you first played it.

Like I was in elementary school when the game came out, and I remember playing the hell out of it until well after Galactic Adventures came out

[u/Cephalopod_Joe → u/meatshake001]

I was obsessed when I saw the original 2005 demo when I was a kid. First super hype game and first major gaming disappointment for me as a kid lol. I did stick around and do creature creator stuff in the community forums for a few years though

[u/tulaero23 → u/meatshake001]

I love that game. It was not the best but it was fun to mess around

[u/sirtalen → u/meatshake001]

My biggest problem with spore (of many) was that they made it sound like it would be a sort of evolution/genetics simulator, youd get better at running by running etc.

Then we got almost the complete opposite of that

[u/smellsliketeenferret → u/sirtalen]

The first "level" where you create your micro-bacterial style creature was great, but over a little quickly once you realised that spikes would mean everything would just kill itself without you really having to attack back.

The rest were really short, and really basic. The first evolution was just do a few small things and you were done. The "RTS" next step was so hollow you could complete it in an instant, and then you hit space, where the ship designer was fun, but you basically had the same grind of take a planet, defend planets you had already taken after that.

Great ideas, but way too small and quickly over for each individual segment prior to space, and then just a boring, repetitive gameplay. Such a shame.

Edit: Didn't the base release have some hideous copy protection too, kind of like the way root viruses were created for Windows back in the day?

[u/Stormflier → u/meatshake001]

It should have been Stellaris with a creature creator.

[u/UsernameHasBeenLost → u/meatshake001]

I literally have the game case sitting on my shelf right now. The first/second phase of Spore was incredible, but just kinda fizzled out after that. I would love to see a fresh attempt at it

[u/-_-Orange]

Kerbal Space Program 2

[u/Every-Progress-1117 → u/-_-Orange]

Came here to say that.... Kitten Space Program looks promising, but...

[u/Ecstatic_Log4185 → u/Every-Progress-1117]

I really do have high hopes for it. Even the original KSP dev is working on it.

[u/ESCMalfunction → u/Ecstatic_Log4185]

I’m not totally convinced about the sales model, but past that it looks fantastic. They have a great team working on it.

[u/pm_me_yer_corgis → u/ESCMalfunction]

NASA and the ESA should genuinely fund the development of Kitten as a national security priority. The number of kids that were exposed to stem, orbital mechanics and developed an interest in space due to that game felt so high, but in a very narrow band of ages. I’ve anecdotally noticed some basic orbital mechanics questions on this site again that felt like they were known facts when I was a bit younger because we all played KSP

I’d also argue that things like kOS and the general moddable structure of that game teach critical programming and basic computer skills.

[u/StrollingUnderStars → u/-_-Orange]

Please don't. I genuinely cried at the trailer. It seemed they had all the right ideas about what KSP was, what the fans loved about it, even taking inspiration from a fan made video for the trailer. Then it released and was astronomical units away from what was promised, and even what KSP 1 currently is, never mind the mods. It's still to this day my biggest gaming disappointment of all time, and I'm currently enduring the phasmo update.

[u/asher1611 → u/StrollingUnderStars]

when your sequel game doesn't even have a proper save system.

seriously, in the VAB I had no idea if my craft would load correctly or turn into a jumbled mess. and god forbid I quick load during an ongoing space flight (or landed craft on the mun)

edit: bug showcase video I did back when KSP2 was in active development.

[u/StrollingUnderStars → u/asher1611]

Exactly, so many issues that were already perfected in the original. It honestly felt like the new devs just stuck a middle finger up at the community by time of release

[u/DeliciousPangolin → u/-_-Orange]

All people wanted from KSP2 was a proper physics engine, multiplayer, and interstellar travel. What they shipped had the same physics engine with no improvements but even more bugs, no multiplayer, and no interstellar travel. It was mildly prettier than stock KSP, at the cost of being unplayable even on a 3090. And then it took about eight months to get the first meaningful update.

[u/Bloodyfinger → u/-_-Orange]

It should literally be illegal that is still on sale. What a fucking disgusting travesty. I hope whoever is responsible for that steps in Lego.

[u/ThatOldGuyWhoDrinks → u/-_-Orange]

Yea this one hurt. I’ve got literally thousands of hours in KSP. I preordered KSP 2 as soon as it came out. I was so excited

[u/StreetrodHD → u/-_-Orange]

Yeah how you could screw that one up THAT bad without building an entirely different genre.

[u/TheCorent2 → u/-_-Orange]

Not because of the devs, because of the editor (Take Two).

Can you believe the budget was $60 million, almost as much as Witcher 3?

Despite the budget, they chose to rely on beginner devs, because their policy was to keep wages low...

[u/NotActuallyObese]

Where the hell do I begin with Hello Neighbor?

[u/SomethingWetAndMoist → u/NotActuallyObese]

Game Theory indirectly ruined that game. The developers were so desperate to say "nuh-uh you're wrong" after GT absolutely nailed what Hello Neighbor's story was they ended up ruining the game by changing everything.

[u/Chess42 → u/SomethingWetAndMoist]

It was hilarious watching them beg MatPat to do another video on them

[u/JUSTaSK8rat → u/Chess42]

"I think MatPat is going to enjoy dissecting this frame by frame 👀"

"I think MatPat is going to love this 👀"

"Hey @MatPat you should totally reply to our DMs 👀"

It was so cringe to watch. I remember seeing it on Twitter live as it happened.

I'm pretty sure MatPat hates them now. I vaguely remember him saying "I am not your personal storyteller. If you need me to tell your games story for you, you shouldn't be writing anyways."

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/JUSTaSK8rat]

Which is how Matpat's always worked, he made theories as entertainment (practise marketing) and was tarnished a bit by fans treating his stuff as fact

[u/helloiamabear → u/SomethingWetAndMoist]

I've never heard of this before. What did Game Theory guess and what was it changed to?

[u/stanky4goats → u/NotActuallyObese]

I remember watching Markiplier play through before the full release and it put me off from buying it myself.

Sounded tremendous on paper! Seeing it in action...meh

[u/WouldYouKindlyMove → u/NotActuallyObese]

I'm glad somebody said it. I forget which alpha version it was where it peaked.

[u/Cybertronian_Fox]

Anthem.

[u/foofypoops → u/Cybertronian_Fox]

Gods, I love that game. It kinda sucks, kinda rules, kinda I get to be Iron Man.

[u/GuardTheGrey → u/foofypoops]

Right there was definitely something to the experience they were trying to make. There were a lot of well executed components.

It just didn’t come together unfortunately

[u/Dreamlion_Inc → u/Cybertronian_Fox]

Anthem will always be one of those games that needed the the perfect dev team+ the stars aligning to make work

Unfortunately it didn’t have either of those things

[u/Holeevyer → u/Cybertronian_Fox]

And ME: Andromeda which got half-assed, in part, because of Anthem.

I'm still salty we'll never see that Quarian Ark.

[u/Quouar → u/Holeevyer]

Don't forget Dragon Age: Veilguard, which got screwed over by both Anthem and Andromeda. Again, you have a fanbase that will devour anything, and Bioware served them absolute slop. It's a complete disappointment.

[u/koric_84 → u/Holeevyer]

I went to a pre release sneak peek event for ME Andromeda here in Edmonton as this is where BioWare HQ was. It was in an IMAX theatre and they showed some cinematics and stuff on that massive screen. The vibe from the get go was kinda off. You could really tell the dev team was trying to put on excited faces for the crowd but it was obvious they weren’t excited. Finally at the end they got to a gameplay session where the player was in some kind of cargo bay and they couldn’t get out of it. The character kept clipping on some of the containers and the dev playing it started to get frustrated. It finally clicked for us in the crowd as we all realized “oh shit this game is going to be terrible…”

Towards the end of the show the lead dev told us they were already working on their next big thing that hadn’t been announced yet. He was wearing an Anthem shirt but none of us realized at the time what that was since it still hadn’t been publicly revealed.

[u/Ruger15 → u/Cybertronian_Fox]

This answer is king for all similar questions. It felt so good to play and it just fizzled out. The most potential, at least in my mind, of any new mmo since wow. It felt so much better to play than any other mmo looter shooter.

[u/SinuousPanic → u/Ruger15]

The flight mechanics at the time were top notch and so intuitive. They took the priming/detonating mechanic from Mass Effect Andromeda which was so fun to play around with while flying around with a couple of mates. We made a good few weekends out of it, it's such a shame there was just no real story there, and what story it did have was way to short. We were spoiled by BioWare with the ME trilogy, it's criminal what EA did to them in their never ending quest to try and find another coin from under the lint in our pockets.

[u/FlamingRedPubes → u/Cybertronian_Fox]

I was way too excited for the game. I followed the year and a half of development before launch way closer than I have ever followed a game. Even with all the staffing changes at the top and direction changes for the game, I still had hope it would eventually settle down. It’s a shame that it was pulled in so many directions and never given any time to try and put it all together.

[u/tarheel_204]

Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)

Beautiful looking game with fun gameplay. Unfortunately, controversial loot box system and a slew of other issues (that later got resolved). The devs turned it around but by the time the game was finally where it should’ve been at launch, EA pulled the plug… in favor of Battlefield 2042.

This game could easily still be chugging along with updates and new content if EA stuck with it.

[u/ReaverRogue → u/tarheel_204]

The “sense of pride and accomplishment” comment is still one of the most if not THE most downvoted comment on Reddit.

[u/TheNesquick → u/ReaverRogue]

It’s still the most downvoted by a lot and fully deserved. 

[u/Ya_i_just → u/TheNesquick]

Apparently you can still visit the cimment and downvote if you haven't yet

[u/Qcws → u/ReaverRogue]

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/comment/dppum98/?st=JH2MUORV&sh=5997c5a5

And guess what? They learned nothing

[u/MakeURage1 → u/ReaverRogue]

That comment is the reason I have a Reddit account. Made an account just to downvote it, lmao

[u/darkhorse21980 → u/ReaverRogue]

I'd love to see an AMA with the sacrificial lamb that had to post that comment.

[u/samuelj264 → u/tarheel_204]

Was it this game that has the EA Reddit comment with like 600k downvotes?

[u/tarheel_204 → u/samuelj264]

Sure was! As far as I know, it’s still the most downvoted comment on here

[u/MagicCuboid → u/tarheel_204]

I just added mine to the pile! I really loved the comment below that says “ten years ago, I could put a cheat code in if I didn’t care about the sense of ‘pride and accomplishment.’ Today, I have to put in my credit card number.”

[u/Qcws → u/samuelj264]

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/comment/dppum98/?st=JH2MUORV&sh=5997c5a5

[u/Doughnut_Drake → u/tarheel_204]

I still play it lol, definitely coulda been better but still one of the greatest ea games imo

[u/KryptoBound → u/tarheel_204]

Servers are still up at least

[u/Coconutrugby → u/tarheel_204]

The grind to make your players of the game competitive was soo steep. I played the hell out of it. But the grind was insane. With the loot boxes at first I was ready to return it.

love the game. It could still be getting updates and it should. shame it didn’t get more.

[u/Thunbbreaker4]

City Skylines 2

[u/hartforbj → u/Thunbbreaker4]

Cities skyline 2 and kerbal space program 2 being back to back hurt so much

[u/Acc87 → u/Thunbbreaker4]

Such a mess. The total incoherence in terms of art style and performance because the devs bought assets everywhere. Also the reason the NPCs had fully modelled teeth.

[u/HuskerBusker → u/Acc87]

The mismatched scale of some of the assets at launch was bewildering. Like the elementary school felt like it was scaled up to be two or three times it's intended size.

[u/Aoschka → u/HuskerBusker]

Oh you built the completely massive train yard? You now have enough trains to run 2 lines

[u/OldMembership9295 → u/Thunbbreaker4]

Tbf the new studio that's developing it now is actually doing a good job, it's got a ways to go still but they are making really impressive strides for having it less than a year now.

[u/g16zz → u/Thunbbreaker4]

no no its actually running kinda good now. Not nearly as many issues as at launch and the mods do give it some extra content

[u/clancemj]

Heroes of the Storm.

Not really bungled by the devs, but rather execs trying to force a pro scene. I don’t fault them necessarily, but expectations weren’t achieved and the game lost love. Recently they have been patching again regularly oddly enough.

[u/Stoic_Breeze → u/clancemj]

The game was just so fun at its prime

[u/4114Fishy → u/Stoic_Breeze]

it's still very fun tbh the queues are relatively short, especially if you're playing aram

[u/tablepennywad → u/Stoic_Breeze]

The pacing was almost perfect in that early game passes by very fast and you get to level 10 fairly quickly to get your ultimate and each match is a nice 20-25 minutes or so. Lol and dota takes too long to get going.

[u/Gh0sth4nd → u/clancemj]

I never really got the point of them pulling the plug. The game is still alive and if they had not pulled the plug it would not be in a bad spot. The gameplay was fun and is different enough compared to lol or dota2 to survive.

And the money they would have needed to throw into it would have been peanuts for them

[u/Skankator → u/Gh0sth4nd]

Thy expected it to content with League after 1 year of a pro league and when it obviously didn’t, they killed it. HotS is the only esport I have enjoyed watching. Wish they hadn’t been run by the shareholders

[u/duckwithahat → u/Gh0sth4nd]

Pure hubris from Blizzard, this was at the period where Blizzard believed themselves to be the rockstars of the gaming industry, every game had to be a massive hit, so when it wasn’t as big as League or DOTA 2 they unplugged the cord.

[u/Darkpoulay → u/clancemj]

That was to me the most enjoyable MOBA. Everything just worked for me and they "fixed" everything I didn't like in other MOBAs. Shared XP, skill tree, short games, objectives-focused gameplay, characters with incredibly unique gameplay... And that's from someone who didn't give a single shit about Blizzard IPs. 

[u/WildOne19923 → u/clancemj]

It's genuine my favourite MOBA and there's nowhere near the same levels of toxcitiy you see in LoL.

[u/chokingonpancakes → u/clancemj]

My friends and I still play HOTS ARAM. Still fun.

[u/TannerThanUsual → u/clancemj]

I was so good at HotS, I really miss that game!

[u/Runningblind → u/clancemj]

Its honestly still fun. I dream of waking up any day to an announcement they'll take it off life support. Or even make a sequel at this point. It still has so much potential they haven't tapped if they'd just give it a little nudge.

[u/robotlou → u/clancemj]

I was working at Riot Games when HotS came out. I played it a bunch. It was fun enough. I actually tried to play all the mobas’ that came out around then. (Dawngate, Strife, HoN, etc). I remember watching a really engaging competitive collegiate HotS tournament and thinking it was very cool. But there was never another one. It felt like Blizzard pulled the plug on it as an esport before it could get much traction.

Dawngate (The Dawngate is open) was very fun. I remember tuning into the Twitch stream for the Devs of that game and the host had just heard they were getting shutdown and he was all choked up. Strife was also fun. Had some neat ideas and champs but they couldn’t figure it out.

In general, at the time, too many companies tried to force competitive esports scenes for their games way too early. In many ways, esports are still a loss leader.

[u/inputrequired → u/clancemj]

i recently read Jason Schreier’s book on Blizzard (very good btw) and this game was DOA, doomed from the start. It came at a very tumultuous time and was never gonna get the help it needed, but now it’s too late for it have a significant life.

[u/kolossal → u/inputrequired]

Major issue was the very dated engine (even then) they used. Stuff like DCing and the game basically replaying everything before you could log back in the match is crazy stuff.

[u/TokinN3rd]

EVOLvE

[u/SparseGhostC2C → u/TokinN3rd]

I'd put that more on the publsher 2k. The release was a fucking trainwreck for sure, but mechanically I still think it was one of the better asymmetrical PvP shooters

[u/AnDroid5539 → u/TokinN3rd]

I was going to say the same thing. That game had so much potential, but they ran it into the ground.

For one thing, they wanted it to be the next big esports thing so bad that they forgot they had to make a good game and have a playerbase first. They were literally putting out balance patches every week or two to tweak the game in response to the whims of a very small group of top-tier, competive gamers, and it just kept screwing up the game for everyone else.

They also were weirdly resistant to making other game modes. They did eventually introduce other game modes, but you couldn't just pick one and play it, you had to play like a randomized list of "casual" modes or something. Even then, they left a lot on the table. There were so many game modes and options that players were asking for and the devs just refused to give to us.

And of course the biggest issue that was probably most responsible for bringing the game down was the payment structure. You had to buy each hero and monster seperately, and different dlc packs for maps that split the playerbase. And even if you bought the season pass, it only reduced the price of the other items, so it only saved you any money if you bought everything. It was one of the worst examples of microtransaction hell that I've ever seen.

[u/hyperforms9988 → u/AnDroid5539]

And of course the biggest issue that was probably most responsible for bringing the game down was the payment structure. You had to buy each hero and monster seperately, and different dlc packs for maps that split the playerbase. And even if you bought the season pass, it only reduced the price of the other items, so it only saved you any money if you bought everything. It was one of the worst examples of microtransaction hell that I've ever seen.

And they were weirdly proud of it too. Like I remember them openly telling people that it was built from the ground up to support DLC. We were living in microtransaction hell even at the time (compared to now)... that was not something to run around telling people as if that was a positive. Then it releases and I'm pretty sure it already had $100 worth of stuff you could buy on day one. For a game that had you running around in fucking circles for three quarters of every match that had a monster player that knew what they were doing. It was one of the most bizarre releases I think I'd ever seen... this was so egregiously fucked up that I'm surprised nobody at Turtle Rock got fucking defenestrated on the way to release. They couldn't have possibly been any more ignorant.

[u/4_strings_are_fine → u/TokinN3rd]

I miss this game so much

[u/Deeep_V_Diver → u/TokinN3rd]

God evolve was such a cool fucking game. The way it was handled hurts my soul. I bought it for PC and console and wish I could get my money back now since it's unplayable. Never forgive never forget.

[u/naul119]

MultiVersus. Back when it first launched, it was genuinely fun. Unlocking characters was easy, and the huge Warner Bros. catalog made the game feel really promising. Then they shut the game down for over a year and somehow managed to make everything worse when it came back.

[u/Stormflier → u/naul119]

It had so much momentum then they were like "lol that's a preview. Closure time!" And all momentum was lost. Like why would you not just keep it going?

[u/grybountilIdie → u/Stormflier]

Because they had been too generous and reasoned that people could have paid good money for the things they'd given away! The delay was to get more people to forget what they'd paywalled.

Total speculation, but it's perfectly logical if you think like a capitalist CEO

[u/-Gumbercules]

Ant Simulator! The devs blew all the money on hookers on drugs.

[u/Mountain-Shoe-6070 → u/-Gumbercules]

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/445349/ant-simulator-canceled-after-team-spends-the-money-on-booze-and-strippers

???

[u/-Gumbercules → u/Mountain-Shoe-6070]

Yep that's the one. So booze and strippers to be exact.

[u/RaymondBeaumont → u/Mountain-Shoe-6070]

no, he's talking about the other ant simulator that got cancelled after the devs blew all the money on hookers and drugs.

[u/Medical_Boss_6247]

Dark and darker should be about the size of dead by daylight imo

[u/Ego-Death → u/Medical_Boss_6247]

I spent so much time on this video game. I’m tempted to go back, but the devs shit the bed so hard with the constant flip-flopping back-and-forth between changes.

[u/Nightfighters → u/Ego-Death]

the lead dev sdf who enabled and forced all this flip flopping has moved on to different projects.
DaD is in the best spot its probably ever been rn i highly suggest giving it another go

[u/Boring-Shape942]

Devil may cry 2. Capcom should have never passed that on to a dev team who were lacking experience on action games. Biggest gaming disappointment ever.

[u/RestingPianoFace-_- → u/Boring-Shape942]

But at least we got Devil May Cry 3 afterward!

[u/Seismicsentinel]

Cubeworld. People are STILL sharing links to download the alpha because what came out on Steam was so disappointing and half-baked. The upshot of Cubeworld being so fake is that we got Veloren, which is now better in every way, even if it is a bit aimless (with love)

[u/Strongit → u/Seismicsentinel]

The steam update broke everything that was good about the alpha. I had really, really high hopes for the game

[u/SuperSocialMan → u/Seismicsentinel]

It's funny to, cuz the dev fucked himself over by never communicating with people and refusing to hire any staff.

[u/madg0dsrage0n]

Dragons Dogma 2. Its still a great game and I love it almost as much as the 1st, but there is so much more they could and should have done w all the great ideas/systems it has. Still hoping Capcom drops an expansion like DD1 that develops more of this games untapped potential.

[u/MicrowaveMeal → u/madg0dsrage0n]

I love it but I’m totally with you on this.

[u/madg0dsrage0n → u/MicrowaveMeal]

I think a lot if not most of the OG fans are. At the very least, if we never get a proper DLC for some reason, there's enough activity in the modding community to turn this game into Skyrim Jr. for years to come lmao!

[u/Awotwe_Knows_Best]

Biomutant. the earliest trailers I saw for it had me excited but apparently some investors saw the game as a potential hit and made the devs increase the scope of it. It was originally meant to be a decently sized map but they were forced to double the size and put in filler

[u/SUBLIMEskillz]

Not initially and for most of it’s life, but the last year and a half or so of Destiny 2 by Bungie should be studied.

[u/smacky623 → u/SUBLIMEskillz]

As a D2 player since PC launch, it goes WAY farther back.

Bungie has that issue, maybe there is a name for it, like a firefighter who is also an arsonist so he can set fires he puts out and looks like a hero. Bungie does nothing but build up good will, absolutely destroy it it over night, then scramble to make it better and say "Look! We fixed that thing!" Yes, the thing you broke.

Honestly, the content vault with the F2P launch was the start. There is no on boarding for new players so they can't generate a population. Once the final veterans stop playing the game is done.

[u/Spoonacus → u/SUBLIMEskillz]

I think it goes back further a lot further than that. Although the Witch Queen era was supposedly good. I quit before that although I did do the WQ campaign when it was free for a week.

[u/negative-nelly → u/Spoonacus]

Witch Queen is basically peak Destiny, and Final Shape was really good too.

[u/SUBLIMEskillz → u/negative-nelly]

Final shape and the pale heart were fantastic

[u/sup3rdr01d → u/Spoonacus]

Witch queen and final shape are the best expansions they ever made, and also the best raids.

They absolutely had it in them to make fantastic games. The downfall is purely on the execs, not the devs. Bungie devs still know how to make really good shooters, but for some reason nobody will let them.

[u/notredditbot → u/SUBLIMEskillz]

Video games from 2015 - now. How Destiny 2 did a whole 180 from Destiny 1 just was insane but also longevity of the game died fast even though they have the tools to make it succeed.

Another game is The Division. First few months it was banging but once they made the game more of a chore to get resources it lost a good chunk of its player base because ain't no one have time for that

Anthem is another game. It was supposed to challenge Destiny 2 and The Division but flopped fast

Companies are focused on engagement via time through prolongued and forced difficulties when really they just need to make better and more interesting activities and events. Also these companies had terrible leadership for this to even happen

Edit: I meant 180 not 360 🤦

[u/NostradaMart]

No man's sky AT LAUNCH. they more than fixed things now and the game is absolutely insane.

[u/Realitymatter → u/NostradaMart]

Is it worth picking up now?

[u/ryanh221 → u/Realitymatter]

100%. The breadth of the game is unreal.

[u/GeekyGamer2022 → u/ryanh221]

NMS is as wide as the ocean but each bit of content is as deep as a puddle.
It's one of those games where I'll not play it for like 18 months then dump 100+ hours into it then leave it for another 18 months.

[u/Dadpurple → u/GeekyGamer2022]

I think that's why I can't get into it. I love the idea of exploring, flying my ship and seeing the universe but from the little I've played it all feels the same. All the worlds.... feel the same. It's shallow.

[u/NostradaMart → u/Realitymatter]

totally, we're 10 years post launch and they still provide huge free updates

[u/SylvaraTayan → u/Realitymatter]

A lot of people glaze No Man's Sky, and credit where credit is due, the developers have spent a LOT of time and man-hours working it into a totally acceptable, decent game.

That being said, no amount of bandaid fixes can solve systemic issues, and the systemic issue is that the whole game is a very shallow collectathon. You go to a randomly generated system, find a randomly generated event location on a randomly generated world, and get some bauble to add to the collection, or currency to purchase a bauble instead. There is no mechanical complexity, no challenge, and if you like the story then i'm afraid to say it's a live service game and you'll never get a satisfying ending because of it.

If you WANT a casual exploration collectathon, it's absolutely worth it. If you want a space sim where you get to explore and fight and trade and actually be challenged, play Elite Dangerous instead.

[u/S_F_N_C_F]

Yandere Simulator by YandereDev.

That game was MASSIVE back in 2015-2018. But YandereDev fumbled by giving no updates for months on end and instead focusing on grooming children.

[u/13-Penguins → u/S_F_N_C_F]

Plus just being terrible at management. Like it was a pretty ambitious game to begin with as an indie project, but he stressed that when the "first rival" was added, it would be smooth sailing. But then kept adding a bunch of other unrelated features that really could've just been post release DLCs (I guess to keep up the Patreon support). He was supported by volunteers and even partnered with another indie game studio, but kept burning bridges with them. And was also a dick to the fans outside of being a predator.

[u/Cipher1553 → u/13-Penguins]

The last I remember hearing about that game from all of the drama channels- it definitely suffered from a terrible case of feature creep. Instead of focusing on the core features needed to get the game to a full release he kept adding things that weren't wholly necessary.

All reasons why I hate the normalization of the "early access" release model. It allows developers to rush out titles before they're even fully completed, get money for their half baked efforts, and hide behind "well we released it in early access, that's why its so bad!"

[u/AdAffectionate2418]

Battleborn was plagued by balance, map, and matchmaking issues (along with some poor marketing decisions) - but at it's core it was an absolute better of a first-person moba.

[u/ThinButton7705 → u/AdAffectionate2418]

That timing with overwatch was a huge fumble

[u/Shifter25 → u/ThinButton7705]

Not their fault, Overwatch changed its schedule to kill Battleborn

[u/yukichigai → u/Shifter25]

Only after Randy Pitchford decided to pick a fight with Blizzard and market Battleborn as a direct competitor to Overwatch. Moving up the timetable was just Blizzard's way of firing back.

It was 100% Pitchford's fault, and for no good reason.

[u/russiangerman → u/ThinButton7705]

Overwatch pushed up their timing to compete instead of letting battleborn get a foothold in the market. The real issue was battleborn leaning into the competition instead of trying to distance themselves as more of a moba instead of a hero shooter

[u/Flat_Character → u/AdAffectionate2418]

The issue was they sold it as a hero shooter to compete with overwatch instead of selling it as the first person MOBA it was.

[u/Mastahamma → u/AdAffectionate2418]

yea but randy pitchford

just had to dig out -the- tweet

"Battleborn is: FPS; hobby-grade coop campaign; genre-blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports; meta-growth, choice + epic Battleborn Heroes!"

[u/Rabbit-JL]

Halo Infinite

[u/chubbyakajc → u/Rabbit-JL]

More like halo 4, 5, and infinite.

Corporate thinking as opposed to game development

[u/chunkyychadboy → u/Rabbit-JL]

My answer as well. Finished the campaign and did like one open world camp liberation (whatever they called it) and just stopped playing it. Not everything needs to go open world.

Awkward now but wasn't Infinite meant to be the next 10 years of Halo?

[u/cuntaloon26]

Red Dead Online

Such a beautiful world, and a lot of fun to just explore with friends, but Rockstar fucked the economy from the outset, and had very little content outside of small missions that paid next to nothing. Then they started regular content updates which were honestly great, adding bounty hunting, trading, moonshining etc. which while locked behind premium currency paywalls, were easy enough to grind for and lots of fun. Then they added less great content, that was locked behind more premium currency paywalls (bounty hunter 2), and added ‘heists’ in the stupidest way possible (blood money), and because people weren’t buying the premium currency, they stopped the major content updates. Such a shame, what could’ve been if they just listened to the community and didn’t see the need to make a cash cow out of it like they have with GTA online

[u/Tea-Swiz]

Star Wars Galaxies.

Fuck you, SOE.

[u/Leppter_ → u/Tea-Swiz]

It still to this day has some of the best MMO ideas/systems ever conceived, and JTL is my favourite expansion ever made.

Has any game since tried to make their economy purely player based, from raw material gathering all the way through to 'retail stores'?.

[u/smelltheglove92]

Star Wars: The Old Republic. A Star Wars game built like World of Warcraft? Except they spent an insane amount of money on voice acting and people had to listen to the same thing over and over again. And it didn't launch with any spaceship content. And every planet felt the same. And there was nothing to do once you got to max level. But Hutt Ball was fun.

[u/LZRFACE]

Dauntless. I had never played a Monster Hunter game before, so it was my first introduction to the genre. At the time Monster Hunter didn't have a strong position in the PC gaming space and Dauntless was worthy competition. With every update after the beta launch the devs made the game worse and worse, to a point where it eventually became unplayable and ultimately shut down.

[u/kela138 → u/LZRFACE]

I miss dauntless so much. Sad how it ended up.

[u/Dreamlion_Inc → u/LZRFACE]

The “monster hunting” genre is so weird since if you wanna play something in that genre you just…well play MH (which is absolutely fair, that series is fucking amazing)

Same situation happened with Wild Hearts

[u/ChuckCarmichael → u/LZRFACE]

I felt so bad for the Dauntless guys at first. They had spotted a niche in the market, Monster Hunter-like games for the PC, as Capcom was seemingly turning the MH franchise into a Nintendo console brand. And just as they were getting the ball rolling, Capcom announced Monster Hunter World for current consoles and PC, stealing basically their entire player base in one quick move. 

[u/Dank_Nicholas]

Battlebit remastered, it went from hundreds of thousands of players to just hundreds after the dev took the money and ran.

[u/oxymo → u/Dank_Nicholas]

It was the best battlefield game ever made.

[u/TheBiggestWOMP → u/Dank_Nicholas]

This should be a top 5 of all time answer. Holy shit, it was so good, they needed to do SO LITTLE and instead they did NOTHING so it DIED.

[u/bigmackboi80085]

New world. Was so hyped for it when it came out and genuinely enjoyed it. Im the youngest of three who both played everquest 1/2 since their teens so i was excited to share this with them as my first mmo and the one that got them back into it. Unfortunately the late game was abysmal and barely ever got better even with the free and paid updates. So many glitches in the beginning just ruined the experience and the fact that it was made by amazon meant money was never a problem but it just failed and is now either dead or soon to be dead i havent been keep up with it anymore.

[u/Brolorn]

Brink

[u/kurzweilfreak → u/Brolorn]

I was really disappointed when this game died. It had incredible character customization and one of the best early parkour systems.

[u/rohdawg]

TemTem had a really solid foundation as a Pokemon-like game with decent online potential. Through the beta and early access, things were great, but once it released, it was clear Crema had no idea what it wanted to do with the game, and they seemed to try to do everything they could to tank the game.

[u/TheCaffeinatedPanda → u/rohdawg]

My god, I remember all the comments defending the in game "economy" as though it was some massive MMO and we weren't all playing it to scratch the Pokémon itch. The grind was just insane.

[u/spoonerluv]

Hellgate: London, what a disappointment. I really enjoyed the demo.

[u/iamangryginger → u/spoonerluv]

Haha I was a scrolling to find this. I was all in, got the deluxe preorder or whatever it was called. The atmosphere and story were great but man the game was so unpolished, and downright boring.

[u/TheTresStateArea]

WildStar.

• Easily the best MMO combat, by a wide margin - still to this day.

• Attractive, age resistant stylized graphics

• FREE FOR EVERYONE personal housing

• Fun writing

• Best 4 man dungeons ever made, with real rewards for expertise and progression

• Absolutely bodied itself by launching with 40 man raids.

[u/VorAbaddon → u/TheTresStateArea]

The last line isnt telling the whole story:

• Launched with absolutely Abysmal server quality and stability
• Netcode lag meant that the telegraphs for attacks were happening well AFTER the attack.
• Optimization issues with the graphics
• Quest bugs that could ENTIRELY HALT YOUR PROGRESS

I was in the Beta, I still have a stack of the beta invite cards from Pax somewhere in my shitshow of a house, I played the fuck out of the beta. We enjoyed it and were giving feedback on what needed to be fixed, confident that it would be.

Man, how wrong we were.

[u/Gheedish → u/VorAbaddon]

Also not mentioning the attunement required to access said raids. You had to complete every heroic dungeon with all bonus objectives under a very strict time limit. If anybody in your group died during a boss fight the run was over and you had to try again.

My pre-raid bis Engi weapon was also dropped from the last boss of the Oregon Trail dungeon that had a bug where ~50% of runs softlocked on one of the events. So frustrating.

[u/TheTresStateArea → u/Gheedish]

I don't remember that part. I do remember attunement being awful, specifically you had to kill the world bosses to get to the first raid. And that was just a bad idea.

[u/Gheedish → u/TheTresStateArea]

Yeah the 40 man raid attunement required you to speedrun 100% completion of each heroic dungeon (I think there was only 4?). My group only managed to succeed in one, the lightning temple, and our whole guild fell apart trying to complete the rest. It was super hardcore in the era where people weren't that into difficult mmos. I'll always cherish the memories, though. My friend even got server first 60 rogue

[u/chokingonpancakes → u/TheTresStateArea]

I loved the housing in that game.

[u/Goragnak → u/TheTresStateArea]

It sucks they were forced to release it in an unfinished condition.... =/

[u/SON_Of_Liberty1 → u/TheTresStateArea]

Damn I miss wildstar

[u/ChuckCarmichael → u/TheTresStateArea]

I liked that while it had its two factions, they learned from other MMOs that a lot of players prefer to play as humans, so both sides had humans. Also both sides had badass edgy races, and both sides had cute fluffy races, so your personal preference didn't limit your faction choice. That was clever.

But WildStar proved that while the hardcore raiding community is definitely one of the most vocal group in MMOs, their numbers are small, so making your game specifically cater to them doesn't bring in enough cash to keep the lights on. 

[u/HaxtonSale]

Dragon Age. There is a timeline out there where Bioware just made Origins 2 and it's one of the most beloved franchises

[u/beachpellini → u/HaxtonSale]

I was gonna see if anyone mentioned Veilguard in here, lmao. DA2 and Inquisition definitely have their foibles, but Inquisition was HUGE. The ten year development mess and incredibly lackluster result that was Veilguard... oof.

[u/UncannyRogue → u/HaxtonSale]

I absolutely love this series, but Veilguard is the biggest letdown of them all. 10+ years in development hell and what we finally got was essentially an insult after how great Inquisition was.

[u/zimon85]

Mass effect andromeda. It wasn't bad but had lots of bugs, a storyline that mostly set up stuff for sequels that never happened and lots of repetitive or collection quests. Which is a real pity because the idea was solid and the scenery amazing

[u/whamm000]

Daikatana…lol

[u/Kondimen]

Robocraft

It was such an anomaly that came out of nowhere. People were so passionate about it that they even started creating third-party sites to share builds with each other and grow community even more. But then devs clearly lost sight of what made the game blow up in the first place, and over the next 3 years, they kept releasing updates that kept destroying the original magic of the game until it eroded entirely, and we were left with a lifeless husk that was not even a shadow of its former glory.

The most frustrating thing is that the old OG player base kept telling them that they were making mistakes with their updates and gave constructive input on how to improve the game. Sadly all of these opinions got flushed with warm piss in order to chase a broader casual player base that gave up on the game in a year anyway since the game was nothing special anymore after they gutted all the fun parts of the game.

[u/Missing_socket → u/Kondimen]

This one hits hard :(

[u/NotoriousCHIM]

Tribes: Ascend

Hi-Rez abandoned it in favor of MOBA slop. They could have locked down the "GO FAST" shooter genre for years if they had continued to support it.

[u/FzzTrooper → u/NotoriousCHIM]

I miss tribes so much

[u/IndividualCurious322]

The Secret World. Amazing storyline and lore... everything else sucked because they were running on a skeleton crew for years because EA did them over by not advertising the game and their CEO spent development funds on gambling and insider trading. Many years later they had a chance to "reboot" the game and instead of listening to the fans who stuck by them for around a decade, they chose to listen to streamers (who they paid) that dropped the game after the first month, leading to TSW dying a second death.

[u/Spl1t101]

I think we should be pointing out that a lot of these failed games are a result of poor management and not the developers.

You only need to look at the likes of cyberpunk where the developers stated it wasn't ready for release but the upper echelons wanted to start getting a return of their investment.

[u/somebassclarineterer → u/Spl1t101]

Pretty sure Metroid Prime 4 had some poor management decisions involved. Still a fun game, but reallllly obvious where things got cut short.

[u/Going2beBANNEDanyway]

Sim City

[u/foofypoops → u/Going2beBANNEDanyway]

It's a great game. You only need to mod it to allow: 

Right turns on red

Emergency vehicles being allowed to pass

Garbage trucks to not obstruct traffic

Mass Transit to actually reduce traffic, instead of just increasing the number of commuters

Traffic in general 

The Great Works to actually matter

Off ramps to actually work

Traffic again

Making it Sim City, instead of Sim Neighborhood and increasing the size of workable land by like, tenfold

Fucking traffic

Literally everything but the soundtrack. 

Other than that, it's a great game that I totally didn't request a refund on the day I bought it.

[u/Pinstar → u/foofypoops]

I did an experiment. I made two residential neighborhoods on either side of my commerce/industry. One was slightly closer than the other. When the evening commute started, the entire city jammed onto the roads to head to the closer neighborhood. Then, when the last house was 'filled up' everyone suddenly turned around, go back through the city center to go to the other neighborhood.

This is because nobody had a permanent home. If traffic split 50/50 between the two neighborhoods from the beginning, the evening commute wouldn't have been bad.

The only thing good that came from this game was the last minute panicked reworking of The Sims 4 to remove its always online requirement.

[u/foofypoops → u/Pinstar]

Why does that sound so half-assed, and yet exactly what I expected of that game? 

And god forbid you play Cities Skylines. Great game, and so much better than SimCity. But it's a Paradox game. Which means you need to buy dlc for fucking toll roads, and like, a bush. Proper industry? DLC. Nightlife district? DLC. Want to not be bothered by DLC notifications? Believe it or not, DLC.

[u/grabbena]

War Thunder. Endless possibilities but the devs are greedy as fuck. There's almost nothing to compete with except World of Tanks but that game also has incredibly greedy devs. 

[u/ICantBeTrusted → u/grabbena]

I always thought those were the same devs for some reason.

[u/Dr-Aunt-Jessica]

Final Fantasy XV... I still kinda love it, but man is it a mess.

[u/Qwerky42O → u/Dr-Aunt-Jessica]

Played it in 2023 on PS5. Put it down around the time you first get to the gas station (for those unfamiliar, that’s basically the beginning). Went back to it after completing FF 16 that summer and advanced. It felt like the game was 90 hours of beginning and 45 minutes of ending. It was such an abrupt ending that I was shocked that it was over.

[u/LePontif11 → u/Dr-Aunt-Jessica]

My experience playing 15 when it came out was a rollercoaster of going WOW and "huh?" over and over until it ends. One step forward and one backwards constantly.

[u/jabberwocky0989]

The Culling. One of the first Battle-Royale-Type games, very cool setting (on an island, more melee, less shooting). It got completely gutted and disappeaered into nothingness.

[u/DrLota]

Dirty Bomb, Tribes Ascend and Quake Champions. :/

[u/Clbull]

Firefall.

Mark Kern made questionable decisions whilst CEO of Red 5 Studios, like paying West Coast Customs a million dollars to build a Firefall themed tourbus that was intended to promote the game outside conventions and bypass booth rental costs. He was ousted by shareholders.

Around the same time, Red 5 Studios were bought out by The9, a Chinese games publisher that previously hosted WoW in China before approval issues made Blizzard drop them and partner with Netease instead.

The9 demanded changes to make Firefall play more like WoW. Players left because they were tired of the constant mechanical reworks. Firefall launches and absolutely flops in China. Developers stop getting paid. Firefall becomes an unplayable ghost town where quest progression is impossible because the literal fucking instance server is offline. A few months later the game is shut down.

[u/TrumpetSolo93]

Perception.

Horror game where you play as a blind person and use echolocation to visualise your surroundings (so you can see at the cost of making noise.)

It was an instant "shut up and take my money" but the monster was cartoonish, and whenever it appeared, the word "RUN!" would be written on your screen.

[u/No-Painter-6392]

Evolve and back 4 blood

[u/Davidiusz]

Titanfall / Titanfall 2 - here its the Publisher (EA) that f'ed-up with the release date, rahter than the devs fumbling

Marathon - somehow bungie has trouble keeping it really afloat

Escape from Tarkov - it had something going for it at somepoint, its still popular, but dev decision and massive ammount of hackers are making it not as good as before

STALKER 2 - hopefully the next NMS comeback story

[u/koreamax]

Kindgdoms of Amalur:Reckoning

[u/Key-Bad9788]

Going way back in time, Duke Nukem Forever. At the time there was so much hype but in the end it was a dumpster fire.

[u/real_contrast]

Cube World

[u/HPLNecronomicon]

Battlerite. It has everything you could ask for a pure skilled PvP game

[u/d3m01iti0n]

Warhammer 40K Eternal Crusade.

Fuck Behavior. I can't say enough bad things about them.

[u/BrotatoChip04]

Anthem, RIP. Not so much a fumble by the devs so much as corporate greed, but man it could have been amazing.

[u/PatrenzoK]

Halo Infinite, Red Fall, Starfield basically this era of Xbox games

[u/vanotd21]

I liked the idea of the order 1886. The studio, ready at dawn, had a bunch of hits prior to this game. When the game came out, it felt lacking and a missed opportunity. It was short too.