10 Epic Fails of Video Gaming Industry

Video gaming doesn’t include only bright moments of success and the win. Wherever ‘teh win’ is, there is an equal amount of 'lol fail' lurking around. Here are some epic fails of both video gaming software and hardware that had happened through the last two decades.


10. I Am Error

Older players probably remember Zelda II and this popular sentence from the title. The old guy from the game who lives in a gigantic house (which looks small from the outside) and who is totally useless, keeps saying "I AM ERROR". Apparently his name was Error, (maybe the misspelling of Errol) but this sentence became an internet legend and our first example of epic fails.











9. Superman 64

In short, Lex Luthor has kidnapped some people, including Lois Lane, and put them inside a video game. Now, Superman has to enter that video game and fly through some floating rings to save them. However, due to really poor draw distance, player couldn't see anything further than 10 feet away. Game developers explained it as some kind of 'game feature' called Kryptonite Fog that weakens Superman's power of long distance vision (but he still could fly). However this really bad game hit the stores (and stayed there) in 1999. It was listed as the worst game on a Nintendo platform and as the worst comic book video game adaptation in history.











8. Atari 2600 (October 1977 – January 1992)

This console was wildly successful, especially during the 1980s, when Atari was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and for video games in general, similar to "Nintendo" and "PlayStation" in the later 80s and 90s. However, its fail has begun in 1981 when Pac-man for this console has been released. Based on popular arcade game, Pac-man for Atari 2600 was the one of the worst games in history. Epic fail was the graphic interface and annoying flickering ghosts. But even bigger fail was the fact that there were more Pac-Man cartridges built (12 million) than consoles owned (10 million).
Fail continued with some stupid title released year after (1982) like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial or ultra-douchebag game Custer's Revenge that featured a crude simulation of an apparent rape of a Native American woman named Revenge.
These three games, especially Pac-man and ET were cited as one of the main causes of the Video game crash of 1983. And apparently the crash of Atari 2600.











7. Gizmondo

Not to be confused with the popular tech site Gizmodo. This handheld gaming console with GPRS and GPS technologies was manufactured by Tiger Telematics and launched in 2005. Due to lack of games for it and the poor sale, by February 2006 the company discontinued the Gizmondo and was forced into bankruptcy. However they didn’t learn anything from this epic fail, because it’s been announced that the successor to the Gizmondo handheld, the Gizmondo 2, is expected to be released in 2008.











6. Nokia N-Gage

Nokia's attempt to break into the portable gaming market was awful. The two fails were: It cost more than twice than the Gameboy Advance (USD$299 at launch) and two, the design was awful. It was huge, with bad position of buttons that weren’t suitable, neither for gaming, nor for phone use. Nokia ended up with an expensive piece of equipment that failed both as a phone and a gaming gadget.











5. Intelligent Games

This proves that game can be masterpiece but still can fail miserably. First example is Grim Fandango, a funny and intelligent adventure released in 1998 that had initial boost in sales, but failed at later stages. Second is Psychonauts, game released in 2005 created by Tim Schafer (ex-LucasArts) creator of Grim Fandango and ultrapopular first two Monkey Island games. Following the same premise and being praised by critics, this game however initially sold fewer than 100,000 copies. Its poor sales have been blamed on a lack of marketing coupled with a high-end, US$50 price tag.
Third game shows an example that many years of hard work and mucho-mucho money (talking about millions) doesn’t guarantee success. The Last Express was released in 1997 after five years in development and 6 million dollars spent on it. The game was noted for taking place in almost complete real-time, using Art Nouveau-style characters that were rotoscoped from a 22-day live-action video shoot, and featuring intelligent writing and levels of character depth that were not often seen in computer games. However, despite positive critics, game sold only about 100,000 copies, a million copies short of breaking even.
 










4. Konami LaserScope

The premise of this device was simple: Say fire and kill ducks. And that is what this does. Although, not being too accurate. It is a head set that has a microphone in the front that picks up your voice along with every other background noise. However, this accessory wasn't very successful, but it did get its own specifically designed game. Just one game.











3. Virtual (Oh) Boy

Released in 1995, the Virtual Boy is considered Nintendo's only major failure in the home video game market. Virtual Boy is iconic for its monochromatic use of red LED lights. The use of the red LED lights was chosen for being the least expensive, the lowest drain on batteries, and for being the most striking color to see. However, the red monochromatic 3-D "virtual reality" system failed due to issues related to players getting eye strain and headaches when trying to play it.
Just try to look to this picture for more than 30 seconds. Huh! Imagine how hard it was to play Mario Tennis for more than an hour without getting any seizure.










Nintendo only shipped 800,000 Virtual Boys worldwide, so if you have one, you can sell it for a lot of money, because it is a hot collector's item now.



2. Shaq Fu vs. Charlie’s Angels

Probably the worst games ever, considering aforementioned Atari 80’s flicks.
Shaq Fu has been created in 1994 as a fighting game for SNES and Megadrive, starring the multi-talented Shaquille O'Neal. In short, Shaq is on his way to a celebrity basketball tournament, but he finds himself transported into another dimension via the backdoor of a kung fu dojo, where he must rescue a young boy called Nezu from an evil mummy who's trying to take over our world. On top of being quite possibly the worst video game concept ever, the gameplay itself sucked as well. There is a website dedicated to hunting down and destroying all copies of Shaq Fu: http://www.shaqfu.com/

So if you have one, you know where you can hand it over.











Charlie's Angels is another fail of videogaming, perhaps the first of this kind in 21st Century. This was a third-person action-adventure video game released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube. Charlie's Angels received poor reviews from critics, and main reasons were low quality graphics and bland, repetitive gameplay with limited number of available moves for playable characters and a storyline with little bearing on the Charlie's Angels franchise.











1. Sega Saturn

First place is reserved, totally deserved, for the biggest of all epic fails. To be precise, this was the ‘shot in the own foot’ of all epic fails.
Back in 1995, when Sega was ready to release the 32-bit Saturn, on that "Saturnday", 2nd September 1995, many gamers and Sega fans eagerly waited.
But, what happened next was the early release. A really, really early release. In May that year, at the E3 conference, Sega USA President Thomas Kalinske revealed that the whole ‘Saturnday’ thing was a ruse, and that the Saturn would be launched immediately. So gamers could buy a Saturn right away, if they had $399 lying around. This surprise launch gave Sega four months advantage over the upcoming rival - Sony's Playstation.
This actually should be an epic win. But the downslide started earlier they thought.
First, Sony immediately announced that Playstation will cost the more reasonable $299. Second, Saturn's early release meant it basically had no games, because most games from 3rd party developers were due to be finished and released in September (Saturnday, right). Third, Sega failed to include certain retailers, like Wal-Mart, in their May madness early launch. Feeling ignored by Sega, Wal-Mart subsequently supported Sony.

Epic fail - By September, the Saturn had sold only 80,000 units. Just on release, the Playstation sold 100,000.
Sega ended up losing around 267 million dollars from this Saturn's early release, forcing them to lay off 30% of their workforce.