Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review/List of commercial failures in video gaming

List of commercial failures in video gaming
I've been trying to improve this list and need help cleaning up the page so I can make it become a Featured List. Give me your thoughts about improving it. GamerPro64 (talk) 20:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you've heard it before, but more pictures wouldn't hurt. Also, you could expand the lead a bit - I think you may need a firmer definition of "commercial failure" before you nominate it for FL.  Vantine84 (talk) 14:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I added a picture of the Nintendo 64 DD and thinking about adding Ōkami. I would like to know what games and consoles to add to the list, also. GamerPro64 (talk) 18:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It might be beneficial to put up pictures of the more famous failures on the list - E.T., Psychonauts, the Jaguar. It might make the article a little more high-profile.  Probably easier to find good shots of those topics too.  Also, the Virtual Boy picture is kind of in an awkward position - can you move it up some, or realign it to the left?  Vantine84 (talk) 12:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I would also request a picture of the digiBlast since List of commercial failures in video gaming has a redirect for it. Can someone upload a picture for it? GamerPro64 (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you discuss Okami, I would recommend discussing it as Clover Studio's overall library, which has been unsuccessful save for Viewtiful Joe. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 18:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments: This is an interesting article. But surely there is no way to list every single game that was a commercial failure. What if there is no sales data, e.g. System Shock 2 was a commercial failure but I have been unable to locate any figures. Coincidentally, why isn't System Shock on this list (see System Shock)? Consider moving the article title to "List of major commercial failures in video gaming"; this would help narrow down the list to only major titles. -- Noj r (talk) 06:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I need a second opinion on this before I move this. GamerPro64 (talk) 06:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly some kind of objective limit needs to be placed on the article's scope; the article itself makes the claim that 95% of all games made would qualify for this list, so it would end up being quite unmanageable. Perhaps you could spin this into a list of products whose failures resulted in the demise of the company that produced it? That would be verifiable through reliable commentary. Just some examples would be Daikatana killing off Ion Storm, Shadowrun (2007 video game) killing off FASA, the Voodoo 5 killing off 3dfx, etc. Ham Pastrami (talk) 09:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Look, I love that people are giving me hardware and video game failures (and I may add them eventually), but I need someone to tell me what's right and wrong with this article. Does it have grammer errors? Should I fix some Dabs? Throw me a bone. I need help with the page. GamerPro64 (talk) 05:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Dammit, we're going to nitpick. In terms of modifying the scope, I think that any game which was a commercial disappointment/failure and had some resulting implication (for example, nearly/causing the company to shut down, killing off the genre, et al) would help to narrow the list (you could also split it into seperate lists for video games/consoles/etc. if it ever grows too large.)
 * Anyhow, in regards to content; there's some informal language and peacocky terms that might want to be trimmed, for example "brainchild", "flopped". Also, some statements are so strong they should have immediate citations ("One of the most notorious PC gaming failures"), et al. Also, a short intro to each game would be nice (RTS? FPS? et al). It's not present in every entry. -- Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ( talk ) 23:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment: On the subject of article scope, I think it should be very carefully limited to games, hardware and systems that are notable for being commercial failures. As was mentioned above, 95% of the market can be deemed "commercial failure" simply by virtue of not being successful. But that immediately means that most of those "failures" aren't really noteworthy. The noteworthy ones (IMO) would be the ones where a game or system was hyped, heavily advertised, and/or carried with it great expectations of having a big impact on the industry, and failed to live up to those expectations. (From my own experience, the Mega-CD and Sega 32X are good hardware examples.) I don't mean to overload you more with suggestions for scope, but I think it's important to narrowly define what meets the bar for this article.

Also, I submit that an article like this will be VERY difficult to keep going, honestly, because it requires a HUGE amount of research in order to avoid putting undue weight on certain items, and you're probably going to run into disagreements with fans of various systems and games despite what the numbers say. Be prepared to deal with a lot of churn and potential edit warring. (I generally dislike "List of" articles on WP because they usually stray too close to the various things WP is not. I apologize for my bias.) &mdash; KieferSkunk (talk) &mdash; 04:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)