Games That Received Strong Reviews, but Not Strong Sales?

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Some games are critically-acclaimed and respected, but, for whatever unfortunate reason, do not sell well. Perhaps they were released too late. Perhaps something about them turned people off. Perhaps people just weren't "ready" for them. Or perhaps people just ignored them. Whatever the reason is, what games come to mind for you? When I think of games like this, The Neverhood (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Shantae (2002), and Psychonauts (2005) immediately come to mind.

Planescape: Torment (Black Isle Studios; Interplay)
FreeSpace 2 (Parallax/Volition; Interplay)

Good Old Games legally sells these titles at affordable prices, so they're not completely out of reach for those who'd like to give either a spin.

Its because of games like call of duty, personally i hate this game. The game play and gun mechanics are absolutely horrible compared to so many other shooter games out there. Not to mention every cod release once a year is practically the same no innovation or changes whatsoever and that should tell you something judging by how game breaking the hit boxes still are.

And the truth is they don't have to work as hard for their game to sell as other companies. People who have no clue what is good game play will eat everything that is given to them.

mainstream is always going to dominate the movies/games that only speak to a select group of people who can appreciate new and deeper things.

Example transformers makes a good profit even though there are far better movies that don't even appear in cinema and have a tiny fraction of the views.

Something that had me vomiting was the new song from duck sauce ''big bad wolf'' i was hoping the radio presenter would honestly speak his mind and say the song sucks. But of course he couldn't he has to go along with everything and he said he loved it.

Clive Barker's Undying.

Okami, but it got a sequel at least. And I feel that I am forgetting one...

Supreme Commander and it's expansion, Forged Alliance. Great games, but hardly anyone plays them.

ICO and Valkyria Chronicles. The first was a PS2 platformer and puzzler with a fantastic art style and atmosphere, and minimalist game design. The second was a role playing turn based tactical game developed in Japan with a pencil art visual design, but played more like a western tactical game such as X:COM or Jagged Alliance. Both were critically acclaimed but received poor sales.

Battlecruiser 3000AD (the developer's release not the disastrous Take2 release).


Simply put, the game was (and still is) too far ahead of its time. Game received strong reviews at first for the ambitious scope of it...then got trashed by the media reviewers who couldn't figure out how to play it (and promptly blamed that on the game rather than their own inability to use their brain).

Sales of the game remained rather limited to a strong community in the dev's forums but over time I believe the developer was forced to yield to the shooter-kiddy market to make it even and the game got dumbed down to arcade level.

These are referred to as "sleeper hits", and Ninja Cop/Ninja Five-O for GBA is a really good example. I searched for ages, but could never find this game in any store.

Retro Game Challenge for DS was another awesome one, though I did eventually spot one at a GameStop. Unfornutately poor sales meant the sequel would never be localized.

super Mario RPG: legend of the seven stars for the SNES, only if talking about the cartridge