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[Gp1]

It's all Sierra's fault closing down Dynamix. They had an awesome set of tools which allowed massive scale battles across large maps, was incredible some of the moments in those games. I don't think people of today really understand just how bloody awesome it was. It should have rivalled Battlefield over the last 20 years but alas it's all in the past now. So sad.

32x32 teams, huge objetive based maps bigger than battlefield; different classes; vehicles like tanks, bombers, jeeps, fighters; etc...

In 1998, when 3d arena deathmatch was barely in its second gen (quake 2, Unreal, etc) with 8 or16 players

 

[LectureMaster]

I guess we'll see if we add this one to the list soon.

 

[Hypereides]

Final fantasy. Honestly, can't recognize what the mainline entries have become. Its just the top management moneymen chasing fleeting trends now to squeeze their audience like cattle for money. There isn't much care put into them anymore. Neat graphics can't mask that.

 

[StueyDuck]

What do you think are some of the most poorly managed franchises of all time?

Can be recent or not. Examples would be Socom, Banjo Kazooie, Halo as of late…etc.

Define mismanaged?

Are we talking entirely sales or are we talking about the general handling of the IP, making games that shouldn't be made and marketing games badly and so on?

Cause there are many mismanaged IPs that I wouldn't necessarily define as failures.

Most of ubisofts tom Clancy games, pretty much all of blizzards games, most of sonys ps2/3 catalog, most of Xbox catalog in general, most of Konamis catalog, the Sonic franchise (barring the movies post ugly sonic), the starfox franchise...

Honestly there's many.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I guess we'll see if we add this one to the list soon.

Yep Dragon Age definitely deserves to be there.

They started off HUGE with an incredibly good RPG that still holds up really well (minus the graphics). Instead of letting the team cook the sequel they ordered to rush it and you can't make a new big RPG in less than 2 years.

Then they tried to turn the game into a singleplayer MMO with tons of filler and repetitive stuff. Now they're chasing after the modern audiences and woke points and my guess is it will be the final nail in the coffin for Bioware.

 

[Futaleufu]

Red Faction. They went from an open world game where everything could be destroyed to a linear game where 90% of it happens inside a cave and barely anything is destructible.

Also Saints Row

 

[samoilaaa]

deus ex and thief

 

[Kittehkraken]

 

[yogaflame]

Wasted franchise for me are Half life, Bio shock, Xenogears, Metroid, Halo, Gears of War, Resistance, Syphon filter, Ace Combat, Twisted Metal, Chrono Trigger, Star craft, Red Alert, Parasite eve and Killzone. There should have been sequels are at least remake.

 

[SweetTooth]

Halo
Splinter Cell
Need for Speed
Scam citizen

 

[Yoboman]

Every excellent franchise that PlayStation has seemingly abandoned.

Is ending a franchise when the developer wants to move on to something different mismanagement?

Having those franchises run for 20 years and wear out their welcome like Assassins Creed seems more like mismanagement

 

[daninthemix]

Halo the thread

Yes. Went from being a legendary, top tier series - I would argue from Halo 1 all the way up to Halo Reach - and then declining sharply with each subsequent game getting worse. It is no longer even a B-tier series in terms of quality and cultural mindshare.

Sonic?

I would agree but it's hard to prove, as even the flood of 3D shovelware has its defenders and they keep making them, so...

 

[MALpractice311]

Silent Hill

This is probably the best answer I've seen in this thread. The entire series has been up and down, up and down. The quality is just all over the place. There doesn't seem to be any sort of grand, unifying vision.

Interesting to act like Bloodborne is a franchise with one entry

There's a video game, a DLC for that video game, 4 or 5 comic book miniseries, a card game, and a board game. I think it counts as a franchise.

 

[DaciaJC]

Bloodborne

Yeah, Sony turning up their nose at the guaranteed millions they would make from a PC port is one of the most baffling decisions of the last couple generations.

 

[jm89]

Halo.

Dragon Age and Mass Effect took something beautiful and derailed into bland mediocrity. I guess we have to add Bethesda RPG's and Starfield too.

Yeah dragon age and mass effect are at the top of my list.

Painfull to see what happened.

I really hope bioware can make a comeback with the recent dragon age, I won't hold my breath for that.

 

[SJRB]

Watchdogs, 100%.

Unbelievable potential just completely destroyed by poor decisions (first watchdogs) and a terrible sequel (Legion) that was so bad it straight up killed the entire IP.

Incredible fumble.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

Do we have bad Halo games?

I enjoyed all of them.

I agree. Some are a lot better than others, but I can't say I've disliked any of them.

 

[JohnSpartanLee]

Castlevania

 

[The Stig]

Sonic?

Good call.

SOO many misses/mediocre games then Sonic Mania comes along and what do they do? Go back to the shit-well again.

My nomination is MGS. I include MGSV in this. Then we got survive and a fucking pachinko machine.

(Im quietly hoping Delta is good)

 

[Midn1ght]

I don't know much about the Alone in the Dark franchise but I started 2008 Inferno on PS3 recently and holy balls is it garbage. I was laughing and saying "holy shit" during the whole first chapter, it's so bad.

Will keep playing because I try to finish every game I start, but damn....

 

[Nemesisuuu]

Fallout

 

[yogaflame]

Yeah, Sony turning up their nose at the guaranteed millions they would make from a PC port is one of the most baffling decisions of the last couple generations.

Bloodborne remake or sequel will happen this ps5 gen, but there is a 50% they are preparing the remake as ps6 launch game 4 years from now just like what they did with demon soul for ps5 launch 2020. But who knows. But in sure it is in development.

 

[GrayChild]

I'll be the odd one and say... Fatal Frame / Project Zero.

Locking the series on Nintendo hardware for more than a decade, producing a completely unnecessary remake of 2 for the Wii right at the end of its lifecycle, missing their chance to release 4 outside Japan over a petty beef with Nintendo and Grasshopper, and finally not making a proper sequel when pretty much 90% of the established oldschool survival horror franchises have made at least one attempt to return on modern platforms.

 

[winjer]

Battlefield.

 

[Rush2112]

all ubisoft games?

 

[Lord Panda]

Not even a contest:

To mismanage something you have to have something of value first. Halo was big, like, really big. I remember seeing footage of the fans lining up to get the game in America with posters of “save the Earth” or “finish the fight”. It kickstarted console multiplayer as was later established in the PS3 era. It was more than a product. It was a phenomenon and while less impactful in Europe, it was a global brand. Halo 3 was the peak of all that. The hype, the technology, the vid docs leading to the launch, the marketing campaign and of course, the game.

Then Bungie said: this coop thing has potential. It has boosted all our campaigns with Halo and people love to play with their friends. Ey, MS we’re a little tired of Halo, what if we do Halo as a service? And the fuckers said: Hard. Pass. And now everyone wants to do exactly that and they are failing. Meanwhile they gave Halo to people that basically didn’t understand it nor had the talent to properly do one. And the rest is history. How a global phenomenon shook the whole industry and then disappeared under the weight of corporate incompetence.

Goddamn son. Reading this made me feel sad. My girlfriend and I lined up for both Halo 2 and 3 midnight launch events. Man, I miss those days.

I'd say Command and Conquer. EA are just fucktards.

 

[balls of snow]

-The Darkness
Ended on a cliffhanger in the second game. Never to be revisited because of fucking Warframe.

-Splinter Cell
Blacklist sold like shit and Ubisoft had Watch Dogs as an open world stealth game. Who plays straight stealth games anyways. I do Ubi, I do.

-Halo
Has a maddening idiotic habit of rebooting the storyline in each game. Seems that will continue with the next Halo smh.

 

[nnytk]

Dynasty Warriors, considering how bad that last "reboot" went and how Koei Tecmo nailed Nintendo collabs and anime collabs instead.

Also, Bandai Namco anime/Manga collabs are pretty damn underwhelming across the board.

 

[Lambogenie]

Forgot to add Level 5 is king. Near everything randomly hits a brick wall.

 

[CliffBronger]

Ultima
Fallout
Duke Nukem

 

[Kurotri]

Ubisoft's entire catalog

 

[Complistic]

Gotta be Halo, after Reach.

 

[dave_d]

Admittedly neither of these reached the heights to drop as much but both Phantasy Star and Shinobi were big missed opportunities. Just seeing the heights Final Fantasy reached on the PSX showed me that ending it with PS4 was a mistake. (Admittedly I would expect a Saturn PSV to do as well as FF7 but still, missed opportunity.) Plus getting PSO up and running and then putting out PSO2 10 years later then waiting another 5-10 years before finally releasing it in the US. (By that point I didn't care about it.) As for Shinobi the PS2 version was good but not the type of game that would have had main stream appeal. (Seeing Ghost of Tsushima take off suggests to me a similar action adventure game based around Shinobi set in the current day would have been pretty successful.)

 

[Perrott]

The Order and Days Gone.

Also the Batman: Arkham series for the past decade.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Dude was dying to post this list somewhere.

Right, that’s definitely a copy/paste of an existing Microsoft Word document

 

[wvnative]

Battlefield.

OMG how did I not bring this up? Everyone has their own perspective, but I don't see how anyone could say this isn't objectively THE PRIMARY example. Battlefield is the only one, to me, that is completely unrecognizable from what it was. And it's just utter garbage. FF games are still high quality games, they just aren't making what fans want. Halo at least still plays like Halo.

Battlefield is just utterly destroyed in every regard. It's bad in every way. Truly the biggest fall from grace.

 

[keefged4]

Microsoft taking over Rare and doing next to fuck all with them.

 

[RAIDEN1]

James Bond, Bloodstone was the last great Bond game, and that came out over a decade ago, since that time there have been many Bond games, but none of them are nowhere near as good, and look where we are now, a new Bond game near 5 years in the making, and it is anyone's guess how good it will be as well as how "buggy" or what finished state it will be in.

 

[Bradamante3D]

Assassin's Creed. Had a great start, but lost focus, where at some point a stabby stabby assassin game all of a sudded is a boat and crew simulator. Should have focused on a Thief like single player and multiplayer a la that Thievery mod for Unreal Tournament classic.

Halo. Dude where do I even start ... has been discussed to death already.

 

[Von Hugh]

Does Star Citizen count?

 

[Camreezie]

I don't get Dead Space being on the list. I mean, you're welcome to your opinion, but I feel like it had 2 great games, 1 decent game, and 1 pretty solid remake.

Of course, quality is irrelevant. It's been shelved for a decade, returns for a great remake and then is shelved again

 

[TintoConCasera]

Blood went from one of the FPS games with the first game to one of the worst with it's sequel.

 

[Gojiira]

Fallout, the biggest one. Went from a fantastic,deep RPG to shallow Bethesda Amerijank shite

 

[SpokkX]

Halo wins this one - easily. It is a total mess and needs a total restart.

Xbox has a lot of stuff in this list with Banjo being ignored, Gears stagnating and Fable ran off the road

Sony seems clueless about Bloodborne too. The seem to think we want more Horizon instead

 

[CLW]

TLOU 2s story was an abject DUMPSTER FIRE and the GAAS was worse than Concord

 

[diffusionx]

Admittedly neither of these reached the heights to drop as much but both Phantasy Star and Shinobi were big missed opportunities. Just seeing the heights Final Fantasy reached on the PSX showed me that ending it with PS4 was a mistake. (Admittedly I would expect a Saturn PSV to do as well as FF7 but still, missed opportunity.) Plus getting PSO up and running and then putting out PSO2 10 years later then waiting another 5-10 years before finally releasing it in the US. (By that point I didn't care about it.) As for Shinobi the PS2 version was good but not the type of game that would have had main stream appeal. (Seeing Ghost of Tsushima take off suggests to me a similar action adventure game based around Shinobi set in the current day would have been pretty successful.)

Shinobi had a really good 3DS game

 

[ultrazilla]

You have the obvious picks in Star Citizen and Halo.

However, I can't help but feel the Duke Nukem I.P. is being held hostage/mismanaged by Gearbox at this point. Sure,
they own it but after buying Duke from 3drealms for a rumored $20 million, you'd think Gearbox would
have done something, hell anything with it. All they did was piece together Duke Nukem Forever and
re-released Duke 3D.

Gearbox has literally thrown the Duke Nukem I.P. into a vault, tossed away the combination and forgot about it.

FREE DUKE NUKEM GEARBOX-RANDY!

 

[Comandr]

Pokemon, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable, Final Fantasy come to mind immediately.

I used to love these games. Now I just have to look away because it's too painful to face them.

 

[diffusionx]

You have the obvious picks in Star Citizen and Halo.

However, I can't help but feel the Duke Nukem I.P. is being held hostage/mismanaged by Gearbox at this point. Sure,
they own it but after buying Duke from 3drealms for a rumored $20 million, you'd think Gearbox would
have done something, hell anything with it. All they did was piece together Duke Nukem Forever and
re-released Duke 3D.

Gearbox has literally thrown the Duke Nukem I.P. into a vault, tossed away the combination and forgot about it.

FREE DUKE NUKEM GEARBOX-RANDY!

I absolutely do not under any circumstances want to see Randy Pitchford and his team of women and soyboys make a new Duke Nukem. We all know what would happen.

 

[ultrazilla]

I absolutely do not under any circumstances want to see Randy Pitchford and his team of women and soyboys make a new Duke Nukem. We all know what would happen.

Oh I agree with you! They need to free Duke and sell the I.P. to somebody like Devolver Digital, etc.