Elysion
Banned
I‘m sure we all know examples of musicians/bands who had one big hit single, but were never able to repeat that success ever again, and eventually faded back into obscurity. My question is, have there been comparable examples in the gaming industry?
To answer the question, it’s probably best if we first define what a ‚One-Hit-Wonder’ in a gaming context actually is. I’d say there are two ways to define the concept:
1: A particular developer that made a game that was critically and commercially very successful, but would never again come close to that level of success.
2: A game franchise that had one big, successful entry (usually the first one), but whose subsequent installments didn‘t come close to that success, and thus faded into relative niche status (or never had sequels at all).
I‘m actually having a hard time thinking of any examples. Sure, there are franchises like Driver, where the first game was the most successful and had by far the biggest impact, but while the sequels might not have had the same critical and commercial success, they weren‘t exactly niche either, so I don‘t think that counts. The same goes for development studios; I can‘t think of any that had only one big hit, while the rest of their output is (relatively) forgotten and obscure. Maybe someone else knows any examples?
To answer the question, it’s probably best if we first define what a ‚One-Hit-Wonder’ in a gaming context actually is. I’d say there are two ways to define the concept:
1: A particular developer that made a game that was critically and commercially very successful, but would never again come close to that level of success.
2: A game franchise that had one big, successful entry (usually the first one), but whose subsequent installments didn‘t come close to that success, and thus faded into relative niche status (or never had sequels at all).
I‘m actually having a hard time thinking of any examples. Sure, there are franchises like Driver, where the first game was the most successful and had by far the biggest impact, but while the sequels might not have had the same critical and commercial success, they weren‘t exactly niche either, so I don‘t think that counts. The same goes for development studios; I can‘t think of any that had only one big hit, while the rest of their output is (relatively) forgotten and obscure. Maybe someone else knows any examples?
