Why Games Fail

It never feels good to buy a game and feel like you wasted your money. Gaming is one of the more expensive pastimes to have, especially with AAA games (or “AAAA” games, thank you, Ubisoft) beginning to rise in price, and with everything you have to worry about in this day and age, nothing kills you more than playing a game you don't enjoy.

There could be a variety of factors that can ruin a game – glitches, gameplay systems, story, performance – but I kinda wanted to understand why games fail. To talk about what leads a game to get refunded or put in the bargain bin.

Not Enough Time

Time comes for us all… and yet it never seems to be enough, especially when under an unrelenting crunch. Games get rushed out the door all the time before they're ready and it's become increasingly apparent in the last few years with broken launches and terrible ports. We've seen too many games that require patches in order to be fun or even playable.

While there are definitely stories where crunch was necessary to get a game out in a functioning state, it's usually not worth the mental and physical toll it can inflict onto a developer, and more often than not it leads to a worse game. Notable offenders include The Walking Dead: Destinies, Skull Island: Rise of Kong, and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

Too Much Time

That being said, some games are simply given too much time. Maybe it was announced too early, or it has a difficult development history. Either way, once it's known to the public, it needs to be released at a reasonable time, or else people forget that it exists or that hype reaches critical mass, and suddenly, people start sending death threats for every delay that is announced.

Games like Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana suffered from this. The lead directors of these games wanted to make their games the best they could be, going through engine switches and redoing assets while bigger and better games were already on the market. By the time they came out, they were seriously dated and only got their infamy for how long they took. It didn't help that they sucked in general, but a lot of their problems would've been solved if they simply finished what they started, saved leftover ideas, and cut plans for their next game.

Not Enough Money

Self-explanatory. Usually, more money equals a better game. That’s not always the case, millions can be wasted on polishing a turd, but it helps to have a budget and a proper scope. Without it, projects get shelved, features get cut, employees don’t get paid (or even fired, which is becoming way too freaking common), and studios get shut down.

Mighty No.9 comes to mind here. That successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $3 million? That wasn't enough to develop all the ports and keep all the promises made to the backers. It severely underestimated the costs, and it soon spiralled into the mess that was released. And with the increasing cost of development, there’s only going to be more.

Bad Timing

The release date of a game is really important, and if a big AAA game is released around that date, there’s basically no chance anyone will pick up a copy, especially if it’s a new IP against a much-anticipated sequel. For example, Binary Domain, a game made by the creators of the Like A Dragon/Yakuza series, was released in North America on the 28th of February 2012. While it looked like any other generic cover shooter of that generation, it came out to positive critical reception. It was too bad that Mass Effect 3, the long-awaited finale to a legendary trilogy, was coming out the very next week.

There’s also the fact that good games usually take a long time to develop and release, so chasing after popular trends could be disastrous. Call of Duty, Minecraft, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Surgeon Simulator 2013 – games that were hits would often have imitators trying to get a piece of the pie, which leads to oversaturation and that’s when the trend dies.

Too Much Confidence

One of the worst things people can do is bet too much on something and lose it all.

What do Drake and the 99 Dragons and Ride to Hell: Retribution have in common (other than being really crap)? They were expected to be much bigger, with stories spanning across multiple games and into a multimedia franchise. While some franchises like Pokémon did this successfully, it's because they had good marketing and gameplay to back it up. The foundation needs to be good enough to build on before you start turning your attention to other skews, or else it will all just collapse.

The best example of this has to go to Bob's Game. Never heard of it? Well, it was an indie game that the sole developer considered their magnum opus (despite it being their first game), and they wanted it on the Nintendo DS. To make a long story short (you're better off watching Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's summary on the matter), Bob's Game never did get more than a demo, and what could've been a cult classic has turned into a lesson about setting realistic goals and the importance of knowing your current situation… to put it in the kindest possible way.

I'll also mention the "10-year plan" that most live service games have. A majority of them don't even last two years before getting shut down because the very foundation isn't good enough to satisfy players until the next expansion is released, especially when the price for entry is the cost of a full-priced game.

Bad Marketing

Word of mouth can only get you so far if you don’t have something unique to give to players. Gaming is a competitive market, and there are millions trying to get your attention. Games with great gameplay but terrible marketing usually don't sell all that well. I cannot tell you how many amazing games were hurt by this.

The worst thing to do, however, is to lie about your game. Claiming to have features that aren’t even in the pipeline or showing CGI footage instead of actual gameplay. If you wonder why in trailers for games they have a disclaimer that says that it's a "Work in Progress" or "Beta footage"? Well, you can thank Aliens: Colonial Marines and Watch_Dogs for that, both having trailers with much better graphics than what you’d get in the retail versions.

Not Possible

Sometimes, a game is impossible to develop, or at least at a level where it is enjoyable. Either because the developers themselves don’t have the skill to pull it off, there just isn’t enough time, or the technology of the time just wasn’t there. It’s good to have ambition, but be realistic. Trees growing at a realistic rate isn't the best use of resources.

A rather famous example is Jurassic Park: Trespasser. It tried to do a lot back in 1998 with a diegetic HUD, manual control of your arm, and smart dinosaur A.I. What came out, however, was no crosshairs, your health being tattooed on your boobs, a noodly arm, and extremely dumb dinosaurs… because the A.I. was removed entirely and all dinosaurs were just hungry and angry. It sold around 50,000 copies.

However, Jurassic Park: Trespasser has gone on to inspire better games such as Half-Life, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Far Cry. There are also plenty of people who have dedicated time and effort to mod it into a playable state and still update the graphics to this day. Simply put, sometimes the world isn't ready for some innovations.

Bad Luck

When it comes down to it, maybe it’s just plain bad luck. A natural disaster, a loss of data, key staff members leaving, mass layoffs, or higher-ups demanding bad changes – all of them are extenuating circumstances that just cause a game to not reach the expectations of the consumer. There is simply no help in avoiding it and it's up to the developer to adapt or die.

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In conclusion, I believe all games can be fun, even if it's not to everyone’s tastes and if you personally enjoy it, then it's worth the price tag on it  – don’t let me convince you otherwise (but please wait for a sale). However, when a game actively makes me want to stop playing or it doesn't get the love it deserves, it hurts. The people who make these games most likely love the medium and use it as their creative outlet to create unique experiences, and seeing their work fail can be heartbreaking.

There are a bunch of other factors that I didn't include simply because this article was already getting too long or I didn't take into account, I’m definitely not an expert, so leave it in the comments below why you think games fail.