While the act of creation is enough for some artists, everyone has to make a living at the end of the day. Critical acclaim does not put food on the table if consumers do not purchase a game. Unfortunately, the ten games below did not sell well upon release, even though they are now considered classics.
In some cases, the good faith from these beloved titles ended up having positive effects later on. None of these games made anybody a millionaire, but they are still more fondly remembered than many of their contemporaries that did sell well. Fortunately, it is easy to play many of these today.
10 Shantae
Before Shantae became a series, it was a single Game Boy Color adventure in 2002. Critics adored it, but it only sold about 2o thousand copies. This is due to two factors. For one, it came out almost a year after the Game Boy Advance was already around. Secondly, the character was hard to market. On a console for kids, Shantae’s design is maybe too steamy to appeal to younger ones. Fortunately, Risky’s Revenge revived the series in 2010.
9 Beyond Good And Evil
Michel Ancel recently retired from the gaming industry, but he leaves behind a wealth of classic titles, ranging from Rayman to Beyond Good And Evil. The latter did not sell well upon release, but managed to garner a cult following. A sequel has been in development for years, but shows no signs of a release anytime soon. A science fiction adventure game with an anthropomorphic cast was not exactly market gold in 2005, when shooters and RPGs were dominating the PS2 and Xbox libraries.
8 Okami
Hideki Kamiya is one of the industry’s most celebrated game designers. Unfortunately, not all of his titles have received the same love from consumers as they have from critics. Okami was considered one of the best games in 2006, but sales did not reflect this. An adventure game with a similar art style would be a hit today, but gamers were not into unconventional aesthetics fifteen years ago. The game has been re-released on numerous consoles, making it easy to access these days.
7 Shenmue
Shenmue was so expensive to produce, more than a million copies sold could not recoup the production costs. The first Shenmue meticulously creates a small Japanese town with a day and night cycle and individual NPCs with their own schedules, something absolutely unheard of in console games up to that point.
The slow gameplay did not have the same mainstream appeal of later open-world games like Grand Theft Auto, however. After Shenmue 2’s release, fans had to wait almost two decades for a third game.
6 Eternal Darkness
Nintendo does its best when it aims for a broad demographic. Both adults and children enjoy Mario and Zelda. While its attempts at bringing in an older demographic have been critically beloved, the sales rarely live up to expectations. Eternal Darkness uses the gaming medium to toy with the player, faking corrupt save files and pretending to shut off the GameCube. This creativity only amounted to less than half a million copies sold, unfortunately.
5 Grim Fandango
According to Tim Schafer, Grim Fandango did not necessarily sell poorly. Unfortunately, the increasing cost of development and shifting popularity away from adventure games towards first-person shooters caused Grim Fandango to be considered a failure. It also marked the end of the adventure game’s dominance. It was the last game Tim Schafer worked on at LucasArts before leaving to start DoubleFine, who is currently working hard on Psychonauts 2.
4 Bayonetta
The first Bayonetta was published by Sega and released on Xbox 360 and PS3. A sequel was in doubt due to poor sales, but Nintendo swooped in and the Bayonetta 2 became a Wii U exclusive.
Unfortunately, the console’s failure also meant few people played the second game too. The Nintendo Switch has so far been a massively successful piece of hardware, so hopefully Bayonetta 3 will finally earn the mainstream success the series and PlatinumGames deserves.
3 Psychonauts
Double Fine seems to specialize in niche products. It is a hard bargain today, but it was even more difficult to market an unconventional console game in the mid-aughts when Psychonauts first released. Less than one hundred thousand copies were shipped upon its first run. The game has since garnered a cult following, however, which led to the sequel starting development. Hopefully the 2021 sequel fares better. With Microsoft’s support, Psychonauts 2 has a higher chance of success.
2 Spec Ops: The Line
It is weird to think, but Spec Ops: The Line is technically a reboot of the Spec Ops series. This game has a dramatically different goal and style than the older titles, however. The 2012 game is a loose adaptation of Heart of Darkness and, by extension, Apocalypse Now. The story uses the medium to toy with the idea of choice in gaming. It is also a commentary on contemporary military shooters and their arguably irresponsible depiction of war. The marketing did not highlight the game’s psychological drama, misrepresenting what it was and causing many to pass by this modern classic.
1 EarthBound
On a console brimming with classic RPGs, EarthBound is often considered one of the best among them. The atypical setting, humor, and marketing were all considered factors in the game’s poor commercial performance. Even to this day, few RPGs are set in a modern day town. Yakuza: Like a Dragon comes close, and fans often compare it to EarthBound, so it is easy to see how the SNES game’s legacy lives on. The game did eventually receive a sequel, however, though it never came to the west.
