Gaming History's Worst Decisions
GamerFeed has a very interesting thought-provoking article where it discusses the worst decisions made in the videogame history.
I can't help but agree with GamerFeed on the list there. Some of the worst decisions ever made by the videogame industry in its history are:
a) 1993 - Nintendo abandoning the CD-ROM based add-on for it's console for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System thus paving the way for Sony to develop the PlayStation on a similar idea unchallenged. Needless to say, this proved to be a blunder; the PlayStation is already a part of gaming legend.
b) 1982 - Atari's rush to cash in to Spielberg's blockbuster movie E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and make a game out of it in a jiffy giving the developer/programmer Howard Scott Warshaw (an experienced 2600 programmer) just 5 weeks to come out with the game. As a result of this, a very poorly developed game spawned with shabby graphics and details and overall a very poor game. Atari produced millions of copies but it bombed miserably. The E.T. brand name flopped in gaming.
c) 1995 - EA's pre-mature flirtation with Madden gave EA Sports gave it a lot of trouble with investments in big license owes and delays shook the company to the core. It had a lot of trouble with it in 1995-96 pushing the games for 64-bit next-gen gaming. All that is now history though, as Madden NFL is one of the hottest things today. But EA will never forget that year.
d) 1995 - Sega's Saturn launch was a surprise event that was announced at that year's E3 at LA by Tom Kalinske, the then Sega's president. He announced that the futuristic console was available from that day on the shelves of stores! This surprise tactic didn't work as fans were not ready, there were only 5 games developed for it and the PlayStation launched in time and dominated the show despite it was an early hit. It was a classic case of taking to a battle without full preparedness with the only surprise as the weapon.
e) 2005 - The Hot Coffee scam in GTA. Thinking that a scam involving a secret code unlocking a sexual content in the game would increase sales exponentially. Actually it was a mini-game made up of sexually oriented activity with one of the female characters in the game. Despite the fact the mini game is not btainable without the use of cheat devices, parents and higher-ups went into a frenzy with the content. The ESRB immediately re-rated the game AO (Adults Only), and it was pulled from store shelves. Rockstar attempted to recover by re-editing the game without the malicious content and releasing it as a "Second Version", but the damage had been done.
There are more flop decisions in the GamerFeed feature article. Please click here to read more such interesting flops.
Thanks GamerFeed
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