Every now and then, an absolutely terrible game will hit the shelves and the entire internet will get up and complain. It’s often the case that the complaints don’t come in until far after the release of the game, however.
In some rare cases, these hated games manage to bring in millions of dollars in revenue and make the developer stinking rich before the players clock on to what’s going on. It’s even worse when players pre-order these titles, only to find out how terrible they are at launch.
Here’s a look at the 6 most hated games that still brought in millions of dollars in revenue for the development team working on the game.
The War Z
This game could perhaps go down as one of the most hated games of all time. The main man behind The War Z is none other than Sergey Titov, the same man that built the laughably terrible Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing.
Nobody quite realized this at the time leading up to the launch of The War Z, however. During his time in the dark, Sergey Titov had mastered the art of cloning popular, trending titles to cash in on crazes before other developers jumped in on the action.
The War Z was designed to be a competitor to DayZ, it got hastily pushed out to players in a ‘beta’ stage to try and capture the market that DayZ Standalone was supposed to cater to. The game launched with a variety of different packages, some going for $70.
The game wasn’t actually that bad in the beginning. It wasn’t amazing, but there wasn’t enough to get angry about. Eventually, a series of events played out that lead the game to being the most hated in history.
Firstly, items were added to the in-game store that could be purchased with real money. This started as basic convenience items, but it quickly became a store for players to buy rare ammo, attachments, and even bullet-sponge body armor.
Later, The War Z developers added an option that allowed players to open the in-game store at any point whilst playing to quickly buy items whilst out in the field. Run out of meds and ammo? No problem, you can just buy some more!
Things quickly got worse. Despite the developer stating that their anti-cheat was one of the best in the world, their game quickly became one of the most hacked in the history of video games. Their best anti-cheat method was essentially the community manager tracking player stats and then going in-game to ban people manually.
The hacks got so bad that eventually the main hack creator actually stole the game code and started his own version of the game. The hackers stole the game code and Sergey and co essentially gave the hackers he rights to continue making the game. (maybe after an exchange of money?)
Star Wars Battlefront 2
This one is still fresh in our minds. Star Wars Battlefront 2 launched in November 2017 and quickly drummed up the most amount of hate any EA game has ever received. When you take a look at EA’s track record, that’s saying a lot.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 was plagued with microtransactions. Thankfully, the gaming community spoke up about it and they were ‘temporarily’ disabled. Despite the huge outcry, Star Wars Battlefront 2 still debuted in November 2017 as the second top-selling game, just before Call Of Duty: WW2.
There’s no doubt that December would have been a good month for the game too, considering their tied-in marketing campaign with The Last Jedi theater release.
No Man’s Sky
More fittingly known as No Man’s Lie, No Man’s Sky is the perfect example of why you should never pre-order a video game.
Leading up to the release of No Man’s Sky, Hello Games and lead developer Sean Murray mentioned so much about the game, claiming it to be this huge open world multiplayer sandbox space game. We were lead to believe that the world was filled with mystery, combat opportunities, and the potential to meet up with your friends.
We quickly found out that none of this was true. Instead, we had a game that let you do cut and paste tasks on procedurally generated worlds. The game had potential, sure, but it was nothing like the development team made it out to be.
Despite their huge lie, Hello Games sold millions of copies during pre-orders. Thankfully, the development team has been working hard since to turn No Man’s Sky into a game that’s actually worth playing.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Aliens: Colonial Marines quickly went down as one of the worst Alien games in history. This time around there was a lot to say about the content of the game, as opposed to the decisions the developers made.
Colonial Marines was filled with bugs, the AI was terrible, and the graphics were pretty terrible. The multiplayer co-op was also poorly implemented, and overall the game was a mess.
Despite all this, Colonial Marines rode the success of previous games to become the biggest release in 2013 in the UK. At the end of the year, the game sold 1.31 million copies.
Destiny
Destiny was another example that bears similarities to No Man’s Sky. Whilst Bungie didn’t quite lie about their game, they did do an absolutely amazing job at cherry picking moments in their game to showcase to the press.
Destiny was also marketed super well, and they managed to bring in hundreds of millions in pre-orders alone. When Destiny launched, it turned out to be a very lacking title, especially by Bungie’s standards. Gameplay was limited, and it wasn’t until the Taken King DLC that the game actually became worth picking up.
Call Of Duty Ghosts
Call Of Duty Ghosts is often referred to as the worst Call Of Duty title of all time. The singleplayer was so devoid of challenge and the multiplayer did little to mix things up beside adding unbalanced killstreak rewards.
There are plenty of reasons why Call Of Duty Ghosts went down so badly, but it still managed to sell 19 million copies in just 4 months.
Summary
What are your thoughts on this list? Are there any games on this list that you enjoyed despite all of the negative reception?