So what is the single biggest money loser in gaming history?

[Charlie]

So many canadates, so much money bled... but what game is the all time money loser?

The obvious front runner is E.T. for the Atari, but I think (even counting inflation) that Shenmue has to be the biggest loser ever. First off, it costed almost (or over, hard to figure out which) $100 Million dollars just to produce the game, and it bombed huge. Stores couldn't even blow it out at $20 or $10 dollars a copy.

Both E.T. and Shenmue were way overproduced, but I think Shenmue's expensive production cost beats out Atari's over-paid license to win out as video gaming's all time biggest flop.

[Dahne]

Does Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within count?

[Charlie]

Ouch... well it cost $137 million to make, and it made $61 million world wide in the box office and $79 million in tape sales and rentals, so it broke even almost, counting advertising and stuff.

[tom]

FOFT...Federation of ....(can't remember) Traders (Amiga/ST)

it got slated by the reviews after huge hype as being a 'Elite' beater, and Gremlin Graphics never recovered.


two other UK games. Bandersnatch and ....(I forgot the other one, hey I'm old with little memory left).
It got hugely advertised in all the press with huge hype and 'best thing to come to Spectrum since...', and it broke the company (Imagine)

[slurpeepoop]

The XBox over the last year.

[Jorpho]

Didn't Coleco pay $2 million for the rights to Dragon's Lair, but only managed to put out the awkward Adam version? $2 million must be quite a bit, accounting for inflation.

Maybe Battlecruiser 3K is up there, too.
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Shemale Brazilian

[IntvGene]

I dunno about Shenmue losing out to Atari.

Shenmue was still released in Japan, Europe and North America and while it wasn't a smashing success, it still spawned a CD movie, a sequel on two systems and a ton of merchandising. I know that there are additional costs in translating and updating the Xbox version, but I think that Atari took more of a bath with E.T. I never heard of Sega burying boxes of Shenmue games.

Of course, I don't know the numbers... I would like to see them if anyone has them.

[kainemaxwell]

Daikatana has to count on that list.

[Raedon]

Daikatana has to count on that list.

haha that is the biggest flop in the history of gaming.. It's so bad there are web sites popping to document the events that lead up to the desaster that was Daikatana.

[wberdan]

yeah i would think the ET license would be it....
it was a flop for the 2600, but wasnt it also a flop for the atari computers? what a piece of crap

willie

[hamburgler]

Resident evil:the movie.
I cannot bealieve they realeased this movie.It's just a big dissapointment for all RE fans including me myself.I'm hoping the next RE movie will be better.

[lionforce]

I enjoyed FF:TSW, not the best movie, but it was good IMO, however I would have enjoyed it alot more if the movie were based on one of the videogames, oh and I also enjoyed RE The Movie, I saw it 3 times in theaters , got the DVD and I am about to buy the Superbit DVD, I agree it definitely could have been better and I have a feeling that the second movie will be :P and yup E.T is definitely up there on the flops list

[Chunky]

i remember a story of some game, maybe a psx game, that they paid tons to make and a week before released it was on the net, and they estimated the loss at 70 mil or something. I forget i remember it on extended play story about game company security now.

[kainemaxwell]

Double Dragon and Street Fighter the movie had to be just as bad.

[christianscott27]

nintendo must have eaten some big losses on the virtual boy and sega racked up enough debt thru the 90s to nearly kill itself. never heard how bad it was numbers wise but there was a time when sega was supporting the gen, the sega CD, the game gear, the 32x, saturn, the master system overseas, pico and losing money on all of them.
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Suzuki gsx-r250 specifications

[CrazyImpmon]

Super Mario Bros the movie was, and still is a stinker

[Aswald]

Adjusting for inflation, 1982's Atari 2600 E.T?

[ManekiNeko]

I guess Acclaim really banked on Rise of the Robots, expecting it to be the next big thing thanks to its computer rendered graphics. Unfortunately, it was the ONLY thing that game had to offer. Mirage, the design team that created it, lasted just long enough to make a sequel. After Rise 2: Resurrection was released (and subsequently ignored by players), a stake was driven so deeply into Mirage's heart that even Acclaim felt it. Mirage went out of business, and Acclaim has been on the edge of bankruptcy ever since.

JR

[Arcade Antics]

I think (even counting inflation) that Shenmue has to be the biggest loser ever. First off, it costed almost (or over, hard to figure out which) $100 Million dollars just to produce the game, and it bombed huge. Stores couldn't even blow it out at $20 or $10 dollars a copy.

What about stores overseas?

Both E.T. and Shenmue were way overproduced, but I think Shenmue's expensive production cost beats out Atari's over-paid license to win out as video gaming's all time biggest flop.

Shenmue II (and III) would point at some kind of success somewhere along the way. Companies don't typically lose a ton of money on a game and make two sequels and a DVD of the title.

Millions of copies of E.T. were destroyed. Didn't happen with Shenmue. Sure, they sold cheap in the US, but that's not the same as filling a landfill with 'em.

Perfect Dark seems like a more likely candidate than Shenmue, at least in the money-making / flop sense.

[icbrkr]

Daikatana has to count on that list.

haha that is the biggest flop in the history of gaming.. It's so bad there are web sites popping to document the events that lead up to the desaster that was Daikatana.

What? Do you mean killing florescent green frogs don't make for a fun game?

Brian