10 More Video Games That Sold Millions (Despite Being Terrible)
Minimum effort, maximum gains.
It's fair to say that Tears of the Kingdom's prolonged stay in the top 10 has restored a many a video game enthusiasts' faith in the industry. A joyous, feature-rich game that represents the current apotheois of open-world game design, TotK's success proves that, sometimes, the cream really does rise to the top.
Unfortunately, history also has plenty of examples of less delightful games that managed to rise up the charts and cause millions of gamers to gag on their clammy scumminess.
From Call of Duty rip-offs to disastrous ports, each game on this list managed to achieve a measure of sales success that far outstripped their level of critical acclaim. Shakespeare once asked "What's in a name?" and, had he emerged frozen from the ice into the modern day like a beruffled Captain America, he would have seen that the answer is "Quite a bit, actually".
As you'll see, many of the games on this list profited enormously from their connection with famous franchises - the first entry perhaps most egregiously of all...
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10. Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent just about manages to scrape into this list with one million copies sold across all formats. Which is appropriate, because "just scraping by" seems to have been the overriding ethos behind its creation.
From 1999 to 2005, EA released one James Bond game a year. Given that rate of production it was inevitable quality control would drop at some point, and with Rogue Agent it plummeted like Sean Bean at the end of the movie this game takes its title from.
Everything about Goldeneye: Rogue Agent feels ????. From the decision to name itself after the most beloved (albeit poorly aging) 007 game of all time to the bland, identikit levels populated by brain dead henchmen, Rogue Agent bears all the hallmarks of a game churned out to make a quick profit.
EA's tenure with the Bond franchise did occasionally lead to magic (Everything or Nothing is still an absolute joy to blast through), but there's no doubt that the company's decision to milk the 007 brand produced as much trash as treasure, with Rogue Agent sitting squarely at the top of the landfill.