Amazing Video Games No One Bought

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a game that was poised to do very well, especially considering the fact that the game's world and lore were crafted by renowned fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore and the art design was courtesy of Todd McFarlane himself. Kingdoms of Amalur boasted a huge world with plenty of quests to undertake, giving players over 200 hours of gameplay. This amount of content might have been a little excessive to some players, but it was there and waiting for them just in case they wanted to traverse Amalur's five regions and play it all as a fantasy adventurer.

Unfortunately, the game suffered on store shelves and only sold 1.2 million copies by the 90-day mark of its release. This might sound like a decent number, but it's considered a failure since it needed to sell three million to break even. And as further bad news, the game's developer, 38 Studios, filed for bankruptcy after creating this game.

EarthBound is a legend among gamers, considered by some as one of the best ever made. But most people didn't actually play it when it was released in the '90s. It was known in Japan as Mother 2, and some collectors will pay almost anything to get their hands on a physical copy of the Super Nintendo cartridge. That's crazy, since the game only sold about 140,000 units in the United States, about half of what it sold in Japan in 1994. Some blame its lousy showing on bad marketing. Others point to its cartoony graphics, which gamers at the time didn't see as much of a selling point. But EarthBound became more popular as the years went on and actually spawned a sequel that was released in Japan in 2006, and a Wii Virtual Console port that came out in 2013.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the portable Nintendo DS hearkened back to the Grand Theft Auto games of old. Players controlled Huang Lee in a top-down style adventure in his quest to cause mayhem with the Triads of Liberty City. Despite being part of one of the most successful franchises in gaming, Chinatown Wars sold under 90,000 units in its first two weeks in America, making it a commercial dud despite its amazing gameplay. Maybe it was the fact that, at the time, the Nintendo DS was mainly thought to be a mostly kid-friendly platform. And, really, pretty much any Grand Theft Auto game is anything but "kid-friendly."

Okami for the PlayStation 2 is a major artistic success to its diehard fans, but its sales figures reveal it to be a definitive commercial flop. Okami followed the adventures of the sun goddess, Amaterasu, in a beautiful, cel-shaded world based on Japanese folklore and mythology. With gameplay inspired by The Legend of Zelda, it was a hit with reviewers. Meanwhile, it sold 200,000 copies in North America in 2006, and only 66,000 units in Japan that same year. Even after being re-released on the Wii and the PlayStation 3, Okami had trouble finding an audience. Its sales were so bad, in fact, that it literally set a world record. It was named "the least commercially successful winner of a game of the year award" by Guinness in 2010. That's probably not a great blurb to put on the front of your game box.

Why didn't Max Payne 2 sell well? The first game was enough of a hit to warrant a sequel, and the second installment earned great reviews. But whatever the reason, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne sold terribly. It might as well have been called Max Payne 2: The Fall of Take-Two Interactive's Earning Forecasts. The poor performance at retail might have made the process of getting Max Payne 3 a green light more difficult. Fortunately, the third game in the series managed to right the ship, selling four million copies in its first year.

Ryo Hazuki continued his search for revenge in Shenmue II, a Sega game released for the Dreamcast in 2001. The game took place in China, meaning players would get to explore a denser, more urban environment. Shenmue II got stellar reviews...but like lots of other Dreamcast games, sales didn't reflect its positive reception. Two years after it was released, it had only moved a paltry 100,000 copies. Then again, nearly 70,000 dedicated fans pledged a record-setting $6.3 million to Kickstarter to make Shenmue III a reality. Will that be enough to help the franchise come back for good? Time will tell.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is the strangest entry in an odd series. Premiering for the Sega Saturn in 1998, the game was the third Panzer Dragoon, and the only one in the series not to be a rail-shooter in the vein of Star Fox, but instead an RPG in the tradition of Final Fantasy. Fully in 3D and voice-acted, the ambitious game has been hailed as one of the best ever made, and ranks among the highest-rated releases for the Saturn. Original copies are now rare, but those who can get their hands on a copy are in for a treat, with beautiful art and sound design and turn-based, strategic aerial battles. It was one of the most innovative RPGs of its time, and still stands as an enduring example of what made Sega games so lauded in the '90s. If not for the fact that it came out at the end of the Saturn's life cycle, this gem might be much more well-known today—but it'd be no less well-regarded.

Lots of games get mixed reviews, but not many games have the distinction of holding down Guinness World Records for it. Enter Deadly Premonition, 2010's most polarizing game of all time. The only consensus is that it's either magnificent or it's a massive mess, and no matter which side you fall on, it's certainly unique. A open-world horror game, Deadly Premonition takes a genre more accustomed to tight spaces and controlled environments and brings it into the spacious fictional city of Greenvale, Washington. While on the surface things appear normal, with people going to work at the local diner and lazily running errands in the sleepy hamlet while your player character investigates a murder, after a closer look, the supernatural reigns. Taking many cues from Twin Peaks and Japanese horror, the game is a worthy experience for any gamer who likes a left-of-center experience more inclined toward immersion than strict action. You have to buy gas for your car; without coffee, you'll get sleepy. On top of this, it's an ugly game for 2010, with crappy combat, so it's no wonder it was never a runaway sales success. But it shares traits with many of the genre's classics, and has enough twisted monster designs and messed-up moments to make it a must-play for horror diehards looking for a throwback game they might have missed.

One of the risks with taking a distinctive style is that you risk alienating people if that style's not a hit. The final game from developer Pandemic Studios, The Saboteur is an open-world game in a World War II-era European setting—think of it like Grand Theft Auto for German-occupied France, as unlikely as that sounds. Not many games outside of wartime first-person-shooters really let you play around in this sort of environment, which scores the game points for uniqueness, and the setting informs the gameplay. Just as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had you staging gang wars to claim turf, The Saboteur sees you inspiring rebellion in French districts controlled by the Nazis; pick a fight with a German, and your allies among the citizens will fight beside you. Kicking Nazi ass is a grand gaming tradition at this point, and in that regard, The Saboteur stands with the best of them. It's a really unique setting, and the noir-inspired graphics add an innovative touch.

Designer Tim Schaefer is one of the few game developers with some degree of name recognition, and his unbridled sense of creativity has earned him a reputation over the years, through well-known hits such as Psychonauts and Grim Fandango. So as one might expect, this entry is a little difficult to describe. A rock and roll love letter featuring the likes of Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead, Lita Ford from the Runaways, and Ozzy Osbourne among its voice cast, Brütal Legend finds your lowly roadie player character and their party roaming across a heavy metal hellscape, securing territory through real-time combat and strategy. The game, while a poor seller, was praised for its wit and charm, and it's enough to keep the game worth playing even when its gameplay can sometimes feel muddled.