Great Games That Sold Poorly (at Least Initially)
It's no news that artistic success doesn't have to go hand in hand with commercial one. However, sometimes it's hard to believe that the titles which are successful and popular to this day were complete commercial flops in their first years.
Table of Contents
- Great Games That Sold Poorly (at Least Initially)
- Shenmue and Shenmue 2
- Planescape: Torment
- Okami
- Psychonauts
- System Shock 2
- Quake Champions
- The Evil Within 2
- Original War
- Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
- Bulletstorm
- Tales from the Borderlands
- Grim Fandango
Okami
- Release date:2006
- Genre: arcade with RPG elements
- Greatest advantages: Graphics, music, brush, Amaterasu
The console Okami managed to bring video games closer to "typical" art with the use of a celestial brush (i.e. a magic brush with which we attack bridges, pave our way through destroyed areas and make the world a place more friendly to people and animals).
Visually, it's an amazing experience, as the game brings stylistics reminiscent of the Japanese sumi-e painting technique, with a suitable soundtrack and the character of wolf-goddess Amaterasu completing the picture. But in Okami the artist is the player, having a real impact on the world of the devastated, old Japan.
In the first year, a little over 200,000 copies of the game were sold. It wasn't an embarrassing result. Unfortunately, considering the studio's commitment to production and promotion, it was still not enough. This title may have covered its development expenses, but despite the countless number of awards and consistently high ratings, it didn't allow its creators to earn enough to catch up with the competition.
I admit it – the bitter-sweet story of Princess Aurora fighting with enemies (and sometimes with friends) in the land of dreams has completely stolen my heart. Child of Light skillfully combined a sensational story layer, expressive characters, and a difficult turn-based combat system, referring to both classic jRPGs and the roguelike Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately, commercial success didn't follow the artistic one, and Ubisoft stopped creating similar productions. Too bad.
