History TroubledProduction / VideoGamesNToZ

** Worst of all, however, was [[CreatorKiller what happened]] to Bob Davis. He had a long past of alcohol and drug abuse, but had become clean by the time he worked for On-Line. Unfortunately, by the end of ''Time Zone''[='=]s production, the money he made with ''Ulysses and the Golden Fleece'' led him to fall off the wagon big time, and soon he quit On-Line with the ambition of making his own games to sell to publishers. Alas, he could never do this without development tools to work with, even when sober... and even if he hadn't tried working with the UsefulNotes/Atari2600, one of the most infamously difficult platforms to code for. He lost his shirt and his marriage when the royalty checks dried up, he was reduced to constantly calling On-Line to try to get hired again (or, increasingly, to try to get money), and he ultimately ended up in jail after burning bridges all over his hometown by writing one bad check after another. His downfall would taint On-Line's memories of ''Time Zone'''s production, and haunt the company for many years after.[[note]]Fortunately, Davis' story has a happy ending: after years of training, he became the owner of [[http://ttltechs.com/About TTL]], an IT company in Hanford, CA.[[/note]]

* Following the disasterous launch of their [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the 2003 first-person shooter ''VideoGame/{{XIII}}'', French developer [=PlayMagic=] and publisher Microids issued [[https://www.microids.com/us/official-statement-by-microids-playmagic-regarding-xiii-us/ a joint statement]] blaming the COVID-19 pandemic and at-home working for the game's technical issues. [[https://www.fanbyte.com/features/inside-playmagic-the-studio-behind-the-disastrous-xiii-remake/ Several anonymous PlayMagic employees thought otherwise]].

** At launch, the ''XIII'' remake was critically savaged and [[https://www.thegamer.com/xiii-2003-sold-better-than-remake/ sold worse than the original game]]. Over a quarter of the credited staff left [=PlayMagic=], with Curgliano allegedly harassing them in retaliation. Two years later, Microids replaced PlayMagic with Tower Five, who released a free update that significantly improved the remake.

** In normal circumstances, the game would have been cancelled outright long ago. However, Ubisoft has a special arrangement with the Singaporean Government in which the studio would have significant tax credits in the country, so long as original IP games are being made there. In effect, Skull and Bones is too big to fail

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken'' seemed like a good idea at the time, crossing over [[VideoGame/StreetFighter two of the biggest]] [[VideoGame/{{Tekken}} fighting game franchises together]]. But as ''WebVideo/MattMcMuscles'' explains with the help of a former Creator/{{Capcom}} employee [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lsM_5wF7M here]], a series of short-sighted marketing issues doomed it to failure:

** The game was set to star two characters, Clip--later Jinx, which they couldn’t use anyway due to copyright issues--and Mischief, inspired by ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie''. However, when ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' was announced at E3, the pre-production had to start over because of the extremely coincidental similarities between the two properties. Mischief would be phased out, and Jinx would be renamed to Vexx.

** Upon release, ''Vexx'' would receive mixed reviews for its undercooked ideas and would prove a flop with over 20,000 sales from all three consoles. A potential sequel was canned, and Acclaim Austin would later be shut down along with its parent company.

* ''VideoGame/SilentHills'' immediately emerged as one of the most anticipated horror games on the horizon after a demo called ''P.T.'' (for "'''P'''layable '''T'''easer") was released at Gamescom 2014 and [[NightmareFuel scared the pants off nearly everybody who played it]]. It was to be a ''Franchise/SilentHill'' game made by a DreamTeam of Creator/HideoKojima and Creator/GuillermoDelToro, with Creator/NormanReedus voicing the protagonist. Unfortunately, ''P.T.'' was all that ever came of the project, as production came to a halt several months later thanks to a bitter feud and falling out between Kojima and publisher Creator/{{Konami}}, with both Del Toro and Reedus confirming that the game was delayed indefinitely, if not outright canceled. Rumors briefly swirled that Microsoft was looking to buy the rights and restart production as an UsefulNotes/XboxOne exclusive, but those hopes turned out to be little more than wishful thinking. The experience (together with that of ''[=inSANE=]'', a previous video game project of Del Toro's that became {{vaporware}} when Creator/{{THQ}} went bankrupt) caused Del Toro to [[http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/14/guillermo-del-toro-vows-never-to-work-on-a-video-game-again swear off]] working on video games. Fortunately, some good did come of the experience, as Kojima and Reedus would later collaborate on ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'', with Del Toro confirmed to be making a cameo appearance.

* According to [[http://www.polygon.com/2016/4/14/11428072/the-great-grand-theft-auto-lawsuit-explained emails released]] following Leslie Benzies' departure from [[Creator/TakeTwoInteractive Rockstar Games]] and subsequent lawsuit against the studio and its founders, Sam and Dan Houser, two of the games that Rockstar made after the mid-'00s fell into this category in one way or another.
** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'' was apparently so rough and unplayable just months before release that Sam Houser desperately emailed Benzies for help in getting the game in working order. According to the lawsuit and emails, while the Housers were Rockstar's "idea guys" who handled most of the creative aspects, Benzies oversaw programming and development management, and things turned nasty when the Housers tried to go without Benzies in ''RDR''. While Benzies did save the day, the frantic development crunch and resulting tangled mess of code ensured that ''RDR'' will likely [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ11gHIJKj4 never get]] an UpdatedRerelease on PC or eighth-gen consoles, as Rockstar did not want to risk a PortingDisaster like ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'''s PC version. Worse, the crunch required from the staff to get the game finished was bad enough that several anonymous spouses of Rockstar San Diego employees wrote [[http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RockstarSpouse/20100107/86315/Wives_of_Rockstar_San_Diego_employees_have_collected_themselves.php a scathing letter]] that accused Rockstar's management, in no uncertain terms, of destroying the lives of their employees through stress. While ''RDR'' won rave reviews and became Rockstar's biggest success outside of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'', the experience soured the working relationship between Benzies and the Housers.
** The strains that developed with ''RDR'' burst open during development on the online component to ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''. ''Grand Theft Auto Online'', as it was known, was Benzies' pet project, though the Housers cared little for it and preferred to focus on the single-player story. The big sticking point for the Housers, however, was when Benzies' name was placed at the end of ''GTA V''[='=]s opening credits, a spot normally reserved for Sam Houser, indicating that he was the lead producer on the game. Apparently, Sam only found out when he sat down and played the game after release, a point that Benzies brought up in the lawsuit to question just how involved Sam was in the game's production, if he hadn't seen its opening credits until it was already released.
** After production on ''GTA V'' wrapped, Benzies received what he was told was a six-month paid sabbatical as a reward for his hard work. Instead, according to the lawsuit, this sabbatical turned out to be a prelude to a termination. When he found his work email and cell phone disabled, he went back to the studio only to find that the locks on his office had been changed, leaving him wondering if he was even still employed at Rockstar. Upon concluding that he had indeed been fired, Benzies sued Rockstar for $150 million, claiming that they had screwed him out of royalty payments. The Housers maintain that Benzies had left Rockstar voluntarily, thus dis-entitling him from royalties.

* Rounding out the trifecta of ''Simpsons'' games with tumultuous development cycles is ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsWrestling'', which has gone down in history as not just the worst game based on ''The Simpsons'' ever made, but one of the worst video games ever made period. One would be forgiven for wondering how such an absolute stinker of a game could ever get made, and, for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MHhVkIkXJY&ab_channel=MattMcMuscles a Matt McMuscles "What Happened?" video]], senior programmer with the game's developer Big Ape, Robert Leyland, told all:
** Despite the much more powerful UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 being the hot new thing at the time and the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast also having been out for a year, executives at both Fox Interactive and publisher Activision insisted on only releasing the game on the by then long-in-tooth [=PS1=], believing that they would have more market share among children if the game were released on the already established [=PS1=] instead of the [=PS2=]. (Never mind that the game [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids was based on a property for older audiences]] and received a T rating from the ESRB anyway, and kids ate up the [=PS2=] just as much as teens and adults.) The executives also asked for cuts at seemingly random: A fully functional animated character select screen where the characters could heckle each other and trade blows before the start of the match was forced to be cut in favor of a much blander select screen with no animations or banter between the characters. It was also apparently a delicate dance to even have the characters be shown exchanging blows (even in a wacky, cartoonishly exaggerated way) in the first place without causing the executives to demand changes to characters so they could not attack others. Never mind the level of violence the show itself got away with even by that point in the show's run anyway, with characters often getting beaten up, breaking limbs, hit by cars, or even shot, not to mention the very existence of ''The Itchy & Scratchy Show''.
** By Leyland's own admission, Big Ape, despite being a reputable name in the game industry, were out of their league trying to create a fighting game when they had previously largely developed 3D platformers and Zelda-esque top-down adventure games beforehand. Being forced to only work with the [=PS1=] instead of a stronger console like the [=PS2=] or Dreamcast ended up causing a lot of frustration for the development team as well: It was clear that the [=PS1=]'s hardware was not powerful enough to properly emulate the show's style and aesthetic without causing the game's performance to tank, especially since the outlines for the game's cel-shaded appearance were generated in real time (and real-time cel-shading on a [=PS1=] + the fast-paced gameplay and visually intensive stages = [[{{Catchphrase}} D'OH!!]]). Failing to help matters was development time being only a single year [[ChristmasRushed to be released in time for the 2000 holiday season]] and the game's inexperienced producer suddenly quitting in the middle of development, throwing the studio into chaos as the devs tried to restructure without them and causing the game's release date to be pushed back by four months. The devs also struggled to cooperate with the show's writers and voice-actors when going to them for dialogue. The writers and [=VAs=], knowing they were writing and recording for a wrestling game and nothing more, repeatedly turned in scripts and dialogue that, according to both Leyland and level designer Michael Ebert, apparently would have been too graphic and vulgar for the TV show itself, let alone a video game based on it that was supposedly aimed at children. It took repeated attempts to tone the dialogue down to something that would be presentable in a video game that children were expected to be playing.
** Despite selling relatively well, critically the game was a TKO for its ugly presentation, barebone content, and poor performance, especially compared to its competition on the [=PS2=], and went on to become a byline for [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames poorly-made licensed games]]. Activision subsequently dropped the ''Simpsons'' license like a hot potato and the one-two punch of both this game and the similarly poorly-received game based on ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' [[CreatorKiller ended up killing Big Ape]], whose staff migrated over to Toys For Bob (and, to their credit, went on to much better-received projects there like ''VideoGame/{{Skylanders}}'').

** During development, [=BigSky=] realized that none of the publishers they contacted were calling back, which meant that the only way they were getting funds was when ''[=SpongeBob=]'' shipped, which was only a few weeks away. This meant that even more members were laid off, which some only working on it on an off-and-on basis. With all this in mind, it's amazing that the game was finished, let alone released.

* ''VideoGame/{{Scalebound}}'', a game about a badass smart-aleck who could fight and control dragons, was stuck in DevelopmentHell for seven years, then finally looked like it was going to get out of it in 2015 as a collaboration between Creator/PlatinumGames (specifically Creator/HidekiKamiya) and Creator/MicrosoftStudios. Unfortunately, the game ended up being cancelled in early 2017 due to the two companies' different creative ideas and design philosophies clashing together, resulting in a negative impact on the morale of the development team. Platinum wanted a large world that had a consistently great frame-rate, while Microsoft wanted a more scaled down game that showed off the graphical capabilities of the console. All of these disagreements caused the game to remain in limbo until its cancellation, and for Kamiya and producer J.P. Kellams to take a month-long absence from their respected companies to recuperate their mental health.

** Enter the Gym System, a [[BribingYourWayToVictory a pay-to-win powerup mechanic]]. Retailers offered their own gem packs, nearly all of them better than the subpar pack in the base edition. Players rejected the gem system outright, while tournaments banned it, leaving the system, which was expected to go on for years, to be dropped after a few months.

** Surreal Software, makers of ''VideoGame/TheSuffering'', had then-recently been snapped up by Midway, who assigned them a pitch by CEO David Zucker for an open-world crime game set in UsefulNotes/LasVegas. After several rejected pitches, they eventually settled on something much like ''GTA'', albeit with the lighter tone of ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' owing to the game's Vegas setting, its focus on nightlife and gambling, and its heavily satirical script written by former ''Magazine/{{Cracked}}'' editor Jay Pinkerton that sent up the city's real-life '90s DorkAge. Surreal took several trips to Vegas for research, though attempts to get the city's actual casinos to appear in the game were shot down by their owners, who objected to having their properties used as the scenes of violence in a ''GTA''-style video game. This led the team to use [[WritingAroundTrademarks fictionalized versions]] of the Strip's casino resorts.

* * ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken'' seemed like a good idea at the time, crossing over [[VideoGame/StreetFighter two of the biggest]] [[VideoGame/{{Tekken}} fighting game franchises together]]. But as ''WebVideo/MattMcMuscles'' explains with the help of a former Creator/{{Capcom}} employee [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lsM_5wF7M here]], a series of short-sighted marketing issues doomed it to failure:

** At launch, the ''XIII'' remake was critically savaged and [[https://www.thegamer.com/xiii-2003-sold-better-than-remake/ sold worse than the original game]]. Over a quarter of the credited staff left [=PlayMagic=], with Curgliano allegedly harassing them in retaliation. Two years later, Microids replaced PlayMagic with Tower Five, who released a free update that significantly improved the game.

** At launch, the ''XIII'' remake was critically savaged and [[https://www.thegamer.com/xiii-2003-sold-better-than-remake/ sold worse than the original game]]. Over a quarter of the credited staff left [=PlayMagic=], with Curgliano allegedly harassing them in retaliation.

** According to different sources, the first incarnation of the game was in development after ''Call of Pripyat'', but Creator/GSCGameWorld was facing serious financial difficulties as well as having trouble finding a publisher for the game. Internal conflicts within GSC were becoming increasingly severe. GSC's CEO, Sergei Grigorovich, was becoming dissatisfied with the direction that the game was taking, ultimately leading to [[CreatorKiller the studio shutting down]] in December 2011. What little remained of the game's staff desperately continued their work ''without receiving any financial compensation or pay for several months''. They tried to find new investors and a publisher to finance the project, but Grigorovich still wanted to hold onto the ''S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'' license and forbid the development team to continue work on the game, which forced the remaining staff to finally kill off the project in April 2012. Most of the remaining development team would thereafter go on to found a new company called Vostok Games that began work on a multiplayer free-to-play SpiritualSuccessor called ''Survarium'', while Grigorovich and some other old GSC workers went on to re-establish GSC in December 2014 and announced in May 2018 that the game was back in development.
** Even then, it has been far from an easy road. Initially given a release date of 2021, it was pushed back to April 2022 and then [[https://www.polygon.com/22880013/stalker-2-delay-release-date-2022-xbox December 2022]]. In December 2021, GSC announced plans for in-game Non-Fungible Tokens, only to be met with such backlash that [[https://www.polygon.com/22841151/stalker-2-nft-content-canceled-reaction they retracted such plans with an apology]]. And then in February 2022, [[https://www.gamespot.com/articles/stalker-2-dev-based-in-ukraine-gives-an-update-amid-russia-attacks/1100-6501214/ development was suspended indefinitely]] due to the UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}n military invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}}.

** The game was developed through the American division of French developer Kalisto Entertainment, who also developed on the console video game adaptation of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius''. When THQ announced that they wanted a ''[=SpongeBob=]'' video game project, artists from Kalisto USA quickly created a working level prototype, using the technology given by Kalisto France, in only two weeks. The quick response time, as well as the generally impressive demo, landed Kalisto as the developer of the project.

** At the same time this was going on, they were promoting their UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port for ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' with the DummiedOut content incorporated for free. However, the port was released with a GameBreakingBug (that was patched a month later) and no given release date for the promised Restored Content DLC, weakening players' faith in the remake even further.

** The [[MissionPackSequel quasi-sequel/expansion]], ''Overwatch 2'', was reported to have had a rougher development time than expected following its announcement in 2019. Shortly after it was announced Creator/ActivisionBlizzard was being bought by Creator/{{Microsoft}} in early 2022, ''Overwatch'' producer Tracy Kennedy accused Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick [[ExecutiveMeddling of serious pipeline mismanagement]]; for the past few years, it had become increasingly common for the ''Overwatch'' team to be forced to halt progress on ''2'' in order to work on other large side projects at Kotick's request, [[DevelopmentHell only for them to suddenly be axed]], wasting months of their development time. Kennedy has also suggested that the team had experienced a major turnover rate, including the losses of director Jeff Kaplan and executive producer Chacko Sonny, as a direct result of conflicts with Kotick and other "corporate BS". ''2'' would eventually find stable enough ground for a release date in October 2022 and ongoing roadmaps, but only for its [=PvP=] -- by Blizzard's admission, they required more time to properly complete the major [=PvE=] expansions.

* ''World Cup Carnival'' for the Amstrad CPU, ZX Spectrum, and Commodore 64 has one of the weirder stories behind its troubled production. US Gold had won the rights to make a licensed game based on the 1986 World Cup. They farmed the game's production out to Ocean Software. As the game neared its release date, however, US Gold checked on how Ocean was doing... and found they hadn't even ''started'' on the game. In a panic, US Gold bought the rights to a completely different and terrible game, 1984's ''World Cup Football'' from Arctic Computing, reskinned it, and put it out as ''World Cup Carnival''. The game was stuffed with {{Feelies}} is a desperate attempt to make it anywhere near worth the ten pounds US Gold was charging. The gaming press naturally brought the hammer down on the game, but it still sold well due to the FIFA license, becoming the biggest selling release of 1986; U.S. Gold even managed to bury the bad press by releasing ''Leaderboard Golf'' the same year. As a bizarre coda, Prism Leisure Corporation sued Artic Computing for copyright infringement, as it turned out Artic didn't actually own the rights to ''World Cup Football'', having sold them to Prism in 1985 to keep the company afloat; the cost of both the lawsuit and having to pay Prism the profits they had made from ''World Cup Carnival'' [[CreatorKiller brought an end to Artic Computing]].

** The [[MissionPackSequel quasi-sequel/expansion]], ''Overwatch 2'', was reported to have had a rougher development time than expected following its announcement in 2019. Shortly after it was announced Creator/ActivisionBlizzard was being bought by Creator/{{Microsoft}} in early 2022, ''Overwatch'' producer Tracy Kennedy accused Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick [[ExecutiveMeddling of serious pipeline mismanagement]]; for the past few years, it had become increasingly common for the ''Overwatch'' team to be forced to halt progress on ''2'' in order to work on other large side projects at Kotick's request, [[DevelopmentHell only for them to suddenly be axed]], wasting months of their development time. Kennedy has also suggested that the team had experienced a major turnover rate, including the losses of director Jeff Kaplan and executive producer Chacko Sonny, as a direct result of conflicts with Kotick and other "corporate BS".

** The game finally saw release in 2011, where it received incredibly poor reviews from not only critics, but fans as well, who balked at the game for its weak graphics, numerous glitches, poor controls, and its obnoxious sense of humor. RWS would completely [[OldShame disown the game]] on their website, to the point where it was retconned in the ''Postal 2 Paradise Lost'' Expansion as a coma-induced fever dream by the Postal Dude. The game would also serve as [[CreatorKiller the killing blow to Akella]], who ultimately went defunct a year after the game's launch, no thanks to the game's abysmal sales, plus a massive lawsuit filed by the fired staff for unpaid royalties. RWS would eventually work on their own in-house ''Postal'' sequel, ''VideoGame/Postal4NoRegerts'', without any third party assistance. As for outsourcing, they wouldn't attempt that until 2021, when they contacted with Hyperstrange to make ''VideoGame/PostalBrainDamaged'' as a spin-off as opposed to a mainline title.

** After the release of ''Postal 2'', RWS lost their main publisher Whiptail Interactive, who bailed on them after the game was released. Seeking a new publisher for the next ''Postal'' game, RWS decided to make Russian publishing company Akella develop it instead through their in-house studio Trashmasters, since Akella had handled publishing for ''P2'''s Russian release, promising to still design and write the game themselves. Akella assigned their A Team to work on the game, planning on releasing the game on the Xbox 360 and [=PS3=] alongside the PC port with a 2008 launch date. So far so good...

** The game finally saw release in 2011, where it received incredibly poor reviews from not only critics, but fans as well, who balked at the game for its weak graphics, numerous glitches, poor controls, and its obnoxious sense of humor. RWS would completely [[OldShame disown the game]] on their website, to the point where it was retconned in the ''Postal 2 Paradise Lost'' Expansion as a coma-induced fever dream by the Postal Dude. The game would also serve as [[CreatorKiller the killing blow to Akella]], who ultimately went defunct a year after the game's launch, no thanks to the game's abysmal sales, plus a massive lawsuit filed by the fired staff for unpaid royalties. RWS would eventually work on their own in-house ''Postal'' sequel, ''Postal 4: No Regerts'', without any third party assistance.

* The production and eventual success of ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' was well-documented as being the result of [[DevelopmentHell the production and stillbirth of a previous game]] known as ''Titan''. In 2007, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment had begun production on ''Titan'', a second MMO following in the monolithic wake of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' that would also contain many class-based first-person shooter elements. After many years of production, ''Titan'' was officially cancelled in 2013 as a result of multiple factors, from the lack of focus and control of scope resulting in countless balance problems, to the MMO market becoming increasingly saturated as development chugged along, resulting in what was speculated to have been a $50 million loss. As Blizzard developers began restructuring to new projects from ''Titan'''s failure, ''Overwatch'' was a formed as a massive {{retool}} that recycled many ideas from ''Titan'' (SeriesMascot Tracer was reportedly based off a "Jumper" class), with Blizzard's clearer vision and tighter control on scope allowing the game to be announced in 2014 and officially launched in 2016.