Some things are simply not meant to be, and video games are no exception. Some games received such a bad reception that their failure ultimately led to their developer studio’s end.
In a Reddit thread from Oct. 10, players reminisced about some video game titles that were the last releases of some studios, with some of them being more or less deserving failures.
History tends to repeat itself, not only in the form of the events that take place but also with the same actors in different roles. Once-successful developer studio Maxis, known for games such as The Sims, SimCity, and Spore was forced to shut down after releasing the most recent SimCity. And some players put the blame on a familiar name, John Riccitiello, who at the time was EA’s CEO. Riccitiello recently stepped down from another CEO position at Unity amid controversy.
Aiming for perfection can sometimes lead you to wonderful results but more often than not will lead to failure. This is what happened with 3D Realms and its popular release Duke Nukem Forever. Simply taking too long to release the game is what ultimately turned out to be the end of the once-popular video game studio.
Sometimes mistakes can cost you so much that when you take a step forward, it takes you two steps back. This is exactly what happened to Daedalic Studios after it released Gollum. Negative reviews turned this company into a publisher.
Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games was shut down after its publisher, Square, denied them funds for the Sleeping Dogs sequel, leading United Front to take the remnants of that sequel pitch into an MMO called Triad Wars, which ended after beta testing.
When we take a look at this list, we can’t help but feel sorry for all the studios that went under just because of one release or poor management. But we hope that it serves as a lesson to game developers to listen to players’ opinions and deliver on promises that they make during the marketing phase.
