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Historically, what do you think have been the worst game launches?
- Thread starter Chuck Berry
- Start date
John Marston
GAF's very own treasure goblin
My pleasure!
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fart town usa
Gold Member
Wiisports
Wildebeest
Member
WW2 Online.
aygomyownroad
Member
No Man Sky has since then been updated and has been warmly received and they are still selling units every time they release a new update. I wouldn’t put it in the top 3 after all of the efforts to put the game right.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Command and Conquer 4. It was terrible, and the reasons for this are:
No more base building
Always online in a time of patchy internet.
Rather than unlock units through the story you had to earn XP and had to play multiplayer to get good units.
It killed the franchise
Tams
Member
After all the 'they dun good now!1!', I can't believe the creatures are still that bad. Still.
No to mention the dearth of assets. Bases are literally copied and pasted without even the orientation of buildings changed.
The game feels utterly dead too.
But hey, now you have to wire up switches on a door properly or else it'll just stay open!
STARSBarry
Gold Member
for me
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Holammer
Member
tldr: horribly bugged release pushed out of the door way too early, Future Publishing did exclusive pre-release coverage in two magazines which resulted in a additional drama. Atari hired a marketing firm in a botched attempt to change the narrative, exacerbating the situation. On top of that, people involved tried to scrub the scandal out of existence.
Rockstar even joked about it in one of the GTA: San Andreas missions (timestamp).
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
I tried to play Lair, but the controls were just too awful.
Laptop1991
Member
Of the games i've bought and played on release, Dishonored 2 on PC, Watchdogs 2014 PC, GTA 4 PC port, games i noticed, yeah Cyberpunk was bad, i bought it a couple of months later cheap, Saint's Row, GTA DEF Edition, and Redfall of course, well quite a few PC ports in recent years to be honest.
Puscifer
Member
Halo 2, to this day the disappointment that it was a multiplayer first title with an afternoon completable campaign that ended the moment it got started makes me not be hyped for any game to this day.
I would say cyberpunk but honestly, the complaints were on the console side since that title should've been next gen only. At least that might've finally eclipsed Halo 2 though from a public standpoint lol.
I would say cyberpunk but honestly, the complaints were on the console side since that title should've been next gen only. At least that might've finally eclipsed Halo 2 though from a public standpoint lol.
Agent_Nobody
Member
I remember World War 2 Online having one of the worst launches I can remember.
From the wikipedia article:
“The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties. The game required that players download a 70 MB update before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had 56k modems, requiring around three hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the software bugs on the gold CD, even more updates became necessary. Three days prior to release, the colocation network facility had a bad fiber optic cable. This failure reduced the player capacity of the server cluster, from 10,000 players down to only 1200 players. As a temporary workaround, Playnet set up multiple copies of the game-world on different servers, distributing the network load, but at some cost in game play. This solution lasted for several months while the developers resolved the server-side issues, after which all servers were merged into a single game-world. Some features advertised on the game box were partially implemented, or missing, such as rank and high-command strategic features.
The combination of the above problems resulted in game returns, complaints from customers, and a drop-off in sales as word spread of the game's state. Subscription fees for the first several months were waived, until the major problems with the game were resolved. This helped to retain many of the players, especially the long-term fans of the project, but it was not long before Playnet had financial problems. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and cut costs, resulting in a number of lay-offs within the company. Statements from both the developer (CRS), and publisher (Strategy First), indicated that CRS wanted a longer open beta, but the game was launched anyway, due to financial reasons.”
en.wikipedia.org
I recall the game basically being completely inaccessible the week it released.
From the wikipedia article:
“The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties. The game required that players download a 70 MB update before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had 56k modems, requiring around three hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the software bugs on the gold CD, even more updates became necessary. Three days prior to release, the colocation network facility had a bad fiber optic cable. This failure reduced the player capacity of the server cluster, from 10,000 players down to only 1200 players. As a temporary workaround, Playnet set up multiple copies of the game-world on different servers, distributing the network load, but at some cost in game play. This solution lasted for several months while the developers resolved the server-side issues, after which all servers were merged into a single game-world. Some features advertised on the game box were partially implemented, or missing, such as rank and high-command strategic features.
The combination of the above problems resulted in game returns, complaints from customers, and a drop-off in sales as word spread of the game's state. Subscription fees for the first several months were waived, until the major problems with the game were resolved. This helped to retain many of the players, especially the long-term fans of the project, but it was not long before Playnet had financial problems. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and cut costs, resulting in a number of lay-offs within the company. Statements from both the developer (CRS), and publisher (Strategy First), indicated that CRS wanted a longer open beta, but the game was launched anyway, due to financial reasons.”
World War II Online - Wikipedia
I recall the game basically being completely inaccessible the week it released.
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Success
Member
The thread title is about the worst game launches.
If it were about the biggest game launch recoveries then I would agree.
Lucifers Beard
Member
I remember buying this on launch day and thinking 'What the fuck is this shit, this is nothing like what they had said it would be'. Just a massive pile of dogshit.Surprised no one mentioned Driv3r yet
Driver San Francisco was actually amazing though, but the franchise had already been killed at that point. Shame really.
Edit: To make it worse, being a kid I didn't have much money and had saved up to get this one (first two games were awesome!). I tried so hard to find the good in it, super disappointing.
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EDMIX
Member
Easily has to be CP2077.
This game literally changed genres.
From the shit show on last gen systems (btw I don't blame Sony or MS regarding that situation, this fucking game was revealed in 2012, as in the fucking game was literally be worked on PRIOR to that reveal)
From lying to gamers about the game's current state
Lying to gamers about the actual core content in the game.
Hiding review footage from gamers which is odd as if the fucking game is perfectly fine, why try to hide this by stopping reviews from actually showing THE ACTUAL GAME?
I can excuse bugs, nothing is perfect, I can excuse even glitches, what I can't excuse is a deliberate, purposeful intent to scam, lie, or manipulate gamers into believing the game is more then what it clearly is.
I can't stand this fake idea that the FINAL game, is suddenly what the real believed intent was, that isn't what I read on here, that isn't what i read on Youtube trailers literally showing the dates of those comments, there was a real belief that the game would have some of those elements based on how it was marketed and comments made by the developer and based on the belief that they would some how destroy Bethesda or something, it wasn't even some unimaginable things that gamers thought the game would be based on how dated some of those ideas are and how much folks kept making it sound like CDPR would beat Bethesda etc
-So saying something like "Their powerful engines and exchangeable parts make them perfect for tuning" ....that litearlly doesn't fucking exist in this game, like zero....BUT, such a thing exist in gaming, thus a gamer can't be at fault for buying the game for an element like this.
Its even funny to read the comments of people saying this will destroy EA and NFS, GTA etc. They clearly thought, what was being stated was true and you can see this funny ass before and after from trailer to release of comments that are pissed those elements don't exist, clearly they were lead to believe this, but MOST where, its why you even have content creators talking about shooting from cars, exchangeable parts, tuning, what are they to believe? They showed this in the trailer, they state it in clear english, I simply can't fault someone here.
They were lied to.
"Though I'm not a car guy gotta admit heavy duty junk customization combined with heavy duty cars sounds like a fun set."
"Same here pal.^^ Didn't care in GTA, Saints Row or Watchdogs... But for Cyberpunk I'm all in" As in, they believed those features are like what they find in those titles.
"I'm liking most of the cars and I like that we can customize them"
after release
"there is no customization for cars"
"This video is a lie"
" Welp you can go back to customize in Gta, saints row, or watchdogs" lol
"Hilarious seeing this now that the games out with him talking about how much vehicle customization there will be. You can buy cars, that’s about it."
Notice, prior to release, I can't find a single comment by really anyone that questions this feature, but shit why would you? Its 2020 and a game has a feature to customize a car...that isn't new, that isn't some wild thing for anyone to doubt, but this is just 1 of many things they lead people on with to scam them into buying a game that had zero element like that even remotely. Even showing someone shooting from the car in that trailer, it was clear they wanted folks to believe those elements exist in the game freely, why fucking show the cutscene of 1 mission when talking generally about cars? Its to make you believe at anytime...YOU can do that too. They knew exactly what they were doing with some of this footage and this is why I put them at the very top regarding this type of deception, this isn't merely talking about a downgrade or a few features that didn't make it, its literally a week before release or so when that trailer comes out, as in they fucking KNEW it didn't exist in the game, almost 3 years later, that feature is still gone, so its not like it was almost, close type thing.
I'm willing to forget a few bugs, but not the choice to go out of their way to lie to consumers about features that don't exist to try to sell...no scam people into buy a completely different game to the point of the genre being changed. No Man Sky had its issues, not enough that at release they are calling it a different genre though lol
This game literally changed genres.
From the shit show on last gen systems (btw I don't blame Sony or MS regarding that situation, this fucking game was revealed in 2012, as in the fucking game was literally be worked on PRIOR to that reveal)
From lying to gamers about the game's current state
Lying to gamers about the actual core content in the game.
Hiding review footage from gamers which is odd as if the fucking game is perfectly fine, why try to hide this by stopping reviews from actually showing THE ACTUAL GAME?
I can excuse bugs, nothing is perfect, I can excuse even glitches, what I can't excuse is a deliberate, purposeful intent to scam, lie, or manipulate gamers into believing the game is more then what it clearly is.
I can't stand this fake idea that the FINAL game, is suddenly what the real believed intent was, that isn't what I read on here, that isn't what i read on Youtube trailers literally showing the dates of those comments, there was a real belief that the game would have some of those elements based on how it was marketed and comments made by the developer and based on the belief that they would some how destroy Bethesda or something, it wasn't even some unimaginable things that gamers thought the game would be based on how dated some of those ideas are and how much folks kept making it sound like CDPR would beat Bethesda etc
-So saying something like "Their powerful engines and exchangeable parts make them perfect for tuning" ....that litearlly doesn't fucking exist in this game, like zero....BUT, such a thing exist in gaming, thus a gamer can't be at fault for buying the game for an element like this.
Its even funny to read the comments of people saying this will destroy EA and NFS, GTA etc. They clearly thought, what was being stated was true and you can see this funny ass before and after from trailer to release of comments that are pissed those elements don't exist, clearly they were lead to believe this, but MOST where, its why you even have content creators talking about shooting from cars, exchangeable parts, tuning, what are they to believe? They showed this in the trailer, they state it in clear english, I simply can't fault someone here.
They were lied to.
"Though I'm not a car guy gotta admit heavy duty junk customization combined with heavy duty cars sounds like a fun set."
"Same here pal.^^ Didn't care in GTA, Saints Row or Watchdogs... But for Cyberpunk I'm all in" As in, they believed those features are like what they find in those titles.
"I'm liking most of the cars and I like that we can customize them"
after release
"there is no customization for cars"
"This video is a lie"
" Welp you can go back to customize in Gta, saints row, or watchdogs" lol
"Hilarious seeing this now that the games out with him talking about how much vehicle customization there will be. You can buy cars, that’s about it."
Notice, prior to release, I can't find a single comment by really anyone that questions this feature, but shit why would you? Its 2020 and a game has a feature to customize a car...that isn't new, that isn't some wild thing for anyone to doubt, but this is just 1 of many things they lead people on with to scam them into buying a game that had zero element like that even remotely. Even showing someone shooting from the car in that trailer, it was clear they wanted folks to believe those elements exist in the game freely, why fucking show the cutscene of 1 mission when talking generally about cars? Its to make you believe at anytime...YOU can do that too. They knew exactly what they were doing with some of this footage and this is why I put them at the very top regarding this type of deception, this isn't merely talking about a downgrade or a few features that didn't make it, its literally a week before release or so when that trailer comes out, as in they fucking KNEW it didn't exist in the game, almost 3 years later, that feature is still gone, so its not like it was almost, close type thing.
I'm willing to forget a few bugs, but not the choice to go out of their way to lie to consumers about features that don't exist to try to sell...no scam people into buy a completely different game to the point of the genre being changed. No Man Sky had its issues, not enough that at release they are calling it a different genre though lol
Quasicat
Member
This is what I came to post. My friends and I were so ready for both of these, riding high off of the Mass Effect trilogy. I remember that I got Mass Effect Andromeda early and my friends drove 5 hours so we could play through the campaign together. We made it 2 hours before we quit and played Mass Effect 2. How frustrating.
Johnny2Bad
Member
I made the mistake of pre-ordering Cyberpunk 2077 and by the time I got it, I had read all the news about what a mess it was. I kept it on the shelf until I was satisfied that it had been patched enough to make it playable.
Unknown Soldier
Member
No one remembers it now but Diablo II basically didn't work for more than a year after it's original release
nkarafo
Member
Nah, just the American one.
In Europe or Japan nobody cared.
There was a C&C 4?
That's news to me.
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Kyle
Member
Yeah I'd have to go with this one as well. As a long time player of FF11 I was very excited for this release- got my big box special edition and everything. It's insane how they turned into this a truly great MMO. Well less insane and more like years of hard work I suppose.
EDMIX
Member
I love how that game was completely revamped and development overhauled to make such a great MMO. Sometimes I forget it released in 2010 and then again in 2013 lol
So its cool to see such a wild revamp or even with No Man Sky to the point of them delivering everything promised and then EVEN MORE BEYOND that (pun intend)
Only time will tell if CP2077 can even come close to that type of revamp, maybe it makes sense to just start on part 2 and have a real solid foundation to work with, with the other 2 being online focused things, those progressive elements make sense, but many who play single player games, are unlikely to return years later to try to play a single player game as if they will just magically forget or negate that first experience or something.
Kyle
Member
Yeah I have nothing but respect for Yoshi-P and the whole team behind him that made the game what it is today. Honestly it's pretty shocking to me that when push came to shove they strapped up and actually fixed the game. I remember when I was given my free subscription time due to the quality of the game and once it expired I was gone until ARR came about- and even then I was hesitant. I eventually circled back and played all the way through the latest expansion and will excitedly look forward to the next one, truly a fantastic MMO now.
The fact that they even felt the game was in such a state they couldn't in good conscience charge people a monthly fee is pretty crazy looking back on it. Also the fact that they just owned up to what they shipped at all when you compare it to other horror stories and botched game launches.
Here's a snapshot of the public apology by Yoichi Wada, former president of Square Enix thanks to the wayback machine:
FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
FF14,FFXIV,Final Fantasy XIV,Final Fantasy 14,Lodestone,Players site,プレイヤーズサイト,ロードストーン
web.archive.org
Then we have the launch of A Realm Reborn:
Then we have 10 years after ARR launch:
It's been a wild ride when you look back.
I guess I should circle back on No Man's Sky since I avoided it since the original release even to this day. I was pretty excited for the game when it was first revealed but I honestly have not even thought about it in so long. For CP2077 my PC could run the game pretty well so I didn't have a lot of complaints actually haha however I watched someone try to play it on a normal PS4 and I couldn't believe they just let it ship that way. Don't think that person who tried to play it on their PS4 will ever try the game again.
Team Andromeda
Member
Driver 3, Sonic 06, Ernest Evans (Mega CD), SEGA Touring Car (Saturn), APB, Motocross Championship, F1 Circus (Mega CD) Undercover AD (Dreamcast) Club Drive, The Getaway:Black Monday, Lair, Genji: Days of the Blade
The ones who say Cyberpunk really haven't lived.
The ones who say Cyberpunk really haven't lived.
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King Dazzar
Member
Even though I've been gaming for decades, its still more recent titles that come to mind - maybe my memory is fading or we simply still keep getting too many shockingly shit releases. Just look at Gollum, or dont would be good advice! But for sure Fallout 76 "it just works" erm no, no it doesn't. Cyberpunk was bad, but it kind of reeked of being a turkey before hand. No Mans Sky certainly had tremendous back lash on launch. I still think Redfall is quite fascinating in how it came to be, considering the amount of expectation and need for it to be at least decent and the amount of resource that could/should have been looking at it. A mention has to go to the mess that was Aliens: Colonial Marines too.
Patrick S.
Banned
Hellgate: London was pretty shit.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Cyberpunk by far the most notorious one, given the expectations. It was really funny seeing PC bros defend that mess just because you could turn on Ray tracing.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet: Brink.
Highly promoted before release, had lots of cool features, very stylish, ahead of its time in a lot of ways. However, the map design was trash and poorly balanced. The game literally died in like 48 hours and never recovered.
There was a lot I liked about it, was disappointed that there was no one to play with and the bots sucked. Full price game became completely useless just like that.
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Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
No mans sky... and I still can't forgive Sony for showing this crap at E3 instead of Gravity Rush 2.
Drizzlehell
Banned
Still, pretty high chance that it's gonna be garbage, remake or not.
Which is really sad. Flashback deserves better than a generic Ubisoft remake followed by a sequel by Microids...
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet: Brink.
Highly promoted before release, had lots of cool features, very stylish, ahead of its time in a lot of ways. However, the map design was trash and poorly balanced. The game literally died in like 48 hours and never recovered.
There was a lot I liked about it, was disappointed that there was no one to play with and the bots sucked. Full price game became completely useless just like that.
I remember paying a few cents on Steam and still felt cheated, the characters had big-nosed and their static was weird.... I played it online for 10 minutes and uninstalled it.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
I don't know, I think the perspective on Cyberpunk 2077 depends on where you played it. It was amazing on XSX.
But I'd say Pokémon Violet and Scarlet might rank up there. Game was a shitshow at launch.
But I'd say Pokémon Violet and Scarlet might rank up there. Game was a shitshow at launch.
Agent_Nobody
Member
Another I just remembered being a complete clusterfuck at launch was GTA Online.
The first week was pretty much waiting 2 hours and getting dumped in an empty lobby or getting glitched out for the initial race you needed to do, so even if you passed it after hours of trying it would stay in the race state; so basically an empty world with nothing to do (no pedestrian, no traffic, no missions etc). It was quite literally unplayable.
The first week was pretty much waiting 2 hours and getting dumped in an empty lobby or getting glitched out for the initial race you needed to do, so even if you passed it after hours of trying it would stay in the race state; so basically an empty world with nothing to do (no pedestrian, no traffic, no missions etc). It was quite literally unplayable.
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Swagballs717
Member
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are particularly offensive in my mind because those games being released so blatantly unfinished with worse graphics than other Switch games despite being the biggest franchise in the world, and still went on to break sales records
"Pokémon: You'll Buy It Anyway"
"Pokémon: You'll Buy It Anyway"
MLSabre
Member
Specifically, the early North American copies has a bug where players cannot progress beyond level 30. Being from an age where companies couldn't patch buggy games post release, they had to print another run just to have the patch. The company even sent a free copy of Rainbow Island Revolution.
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poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Yeah came to post this. I remember playing the demo before it launched and it was so obviously crap. Making the base weapon a melee weapon was just horrible in that type and era of FPS, it looked average and the hype had been way out of control.for me
Tedditalk
Member
I think this post encapsulates why cyberpunk 2077 is a case study into one of the most deceptive marketing campaigns of all time. While I purchased and like the game (now, brought it two days ago), nothing comes close to the level of deception this game had, as well as being broken for many systems. To this day, It still crashes. I only have four total crashes on my ps5, one was a random crash from a game I was playing, cannot even remember which one because it was just one time and never happened again. Three was from cyberpunk, and I am only 14 hours in. I cannot even imagine the ps4 version.
Chuck Berry
Gold Member
Battleborn? Lol
FUBARx89
Member
MCC being as dead as it is online without turning off input based matchmaking is a damn shame.
Freelance Yakuza
Member
Cyberpunk 2077
Sony removed it from PSN after CDProject said people should get refunds. Sony hates refunds. I know.
Sony removed it from PSN after CDProject said people should get refunds. Sony hates refunds. I know.
SCB3
Member
There is a fun game underneath that, thats the issue with Gamefreak/TPC, Pokemon is nto a hard game to get right but they just do not put the power behind it
Anyway, how did we get this far without a Fallout 76 mention! Unplayable at launch and yea eventually fixed but so damned broken, games actually pretty good now though