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
System Shock 2
- Release date: 1999
- Genre: Action RPG
- Greatest advantages: Plot, atmosphere, combat mechanics
System Shock 2 turned out to be a breakthrough in so many ways that it's difficult to even outline its revolutionary potential in a few sentences. Believe it or not, but the combination of a first-person shooter with horror was not the industry standard at the time. And the creators of System Shock 2 also added RGP elements, a cyberpunk lore and an original storyline.
SHODAN turned out to be such a fascinating antagonist that it somehow exceeded the popularity of the game itself. Today, it is recognized even by players who have never had the opportunity to play the original System Shock. The notoriously lying and bluffing AI is only one of the advantages of this atmospheric shooter, which we recently had the opportunity to experience in a decent remaster.
With this awareness, it's mind-boggling to realize that by April 2000, sales of the game did not even exceed 60,000 copies! Yet at the same time, Josh Randall's production won as many as seven Game of the Year titles and a lot of smaller awards. How come? It's very likely that players were discouraged by rotations in the team working on System Shock 2 and bugs that often appeared in the first version. In this case, however, the objectively high quality of the game ultimately translated into commercial success. In a way, at least. What do we mean? Well, the BioShock games – the spiritual heirs of System Shock – achieved excellent financial results.
