From Buried Cartridges to Server Shutdowns: The 10 Biggest Video Game Flops Ever

Video games can generate billions and define generations. They can also crash studios, wipe out budgets, and become cautionary tales that industry veterans still whisper about. These ten stand out for the scale of their hype, the size of the losses, the speed of the collapse, or the lasting damage they caused. Rankings mix commercial disaster, critical reception, and broader impact rather than pure sales numbers alone.

1. Concord (2024)

Sony’s hero shooter from Firewalk Studios spent years in development and an estimated 200 to 400 million dollars. It launched at 40 dollars into a crowded free-to-play market. Concurrent players never rose above a few hundred on Steam. Sony pulled the game after roughly two weeks, issued full refunds, shut down the servers, and closed the studio. Few modern titles have failed this completely this quickly.

2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Atari paid a fortune for the movie license and gave one developer five weeks to finish the game for the holiday season. The result was confusing, frustrating, and widely disliked. Millions of unsold cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill. Combined with other poor releases, the disaster helped trigger the 1983 video game crash that nearly wiped out the North American console industry.

3. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024)

Rocksteady spent years and more than 200 million dollars turning the Arkham universe into a live-service looter-shooter. Fans rejected the tone, the multiplayer focus, and the shallow systems. Sales lagged far behind expectations. Warner Bros. reported a major financial hit. The game became a clear example of a beloved single-player studio forced into a genre that did not suit it.

4. Redfall (2023)

Arkane Austin, known for immersive single-player experiences, delivered an open-world vampire shooter locked to 30 fps on consoles, filled with empty spaces, weak AI, and technical issues. Sales stayed well under a million units. Microsoft later closed the studio. A talented team and a strong concept never connected with players.

5. Anthem (2019)

BioWare’s jetpack-powered looter-shooter looked spectacular in trailers. The finished game offered thin content, repetitive missions, and a live-service structure that never delivered on the E3 promises. Player numbers dropped fast. Planned overhauls were canceled. Servers eventually shut down. What was supposed to become BioWare’s next decade-long franchise instead became one of its most public stumbles.

6. Marvel’s Avengers (2021)

Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix built a live-service superhero game around the Avengers. Launch bugs, repetitive endgame content, and heavy reliance on microtransactions quickly turned excitement into frustration. Sales never matched the investment. The game eventually left digital shelves, and Square Enix later sold Crystal Dynamics. Even Marvel’s biggest names could not save a flawed live-service formula.

7. Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

Fourteen years of development hell produced a game that felt frozen in the 1990s. Outdated design, juvenile humor that no longer landed, and technical problems left fans who had waited more than a decade disappointed. The original studio collapsed under the weight of the project long before Gearbox finished it. The long wait itself became the punchline.

8. Babylon’s Fall (2022)

PlatinumGames and Square Enix promised stylish co-op action. What arrived felt empty, weighed down by aggressive monetization and sluggish combat. The player base never formed. Servers shut down before the one-year mark and the game vanished from digital storefronts. Another high-profile Square Enix experiment that failed to find an audience.

9. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (2023)

Daedalic Entertainment tried to turn Tolkien’s most tormented character into a stealth-platformer. The result was clunky movement, lifeless environments, and a story that drained any remaining goodwill. Critics and players tore it apart. Sales stayed low. Daedalic soon exited game development entirely and shifted to publishing. A beloved franchise met a forgettable, expensive misfire.

10. Too Human (2008)

Silicon Knights spent years developing this action RPG for Microsoft. It suffered from awkward controls, a confusing story, and mediocre combat. A lawsuit with Epic Games over the Unreal Engine led to court-ordered damages and the destruction of unsold copies. The studio never recovered from the failure.

These failures share common threads: excessive hype, rushed or endless development, misunderstanding the audience, or forcing live-service models onto games that did not need them. The industry keeps producing hits, yet the wreckage of these ten continues to serve as a reminder that even the biggest names and budgets offer no protection when the game itself fails to deliver.