8 Amazing Video Games With TERRIBLE Marketing

Prey is quite arguably one of the greatest immersive sims ever made, yet Bethesda marketed it so horribly it almost feels like an act of self-sabotage.

For one, the title doomed it from the get-go, as this led many to assume Prey was either a sequel, remake, or reboot of 2006's cult sci-fi FPS of the same name, when it had no relation to it whatsoever.

Game director Raphaël Colantonio has gone on the record that he hated the title, which was forced upon the team by Bethesda, and set the wrong expectations for the game right out of the gate.

Then there's the fact that publishers have a tendency to be strangely shy about marketing immersive sims as what they are, tending to sell them instead as broader-minded first-person shooters, and that's precisely what Bethesda did here.

Additionally, they also repeated the Doom 2016 gaffe by withholding review copies until release day, ensuring positive press didn't start doing the rounds until the days and weeks after the game's release.

As a result it was no surprise at all that Prey's sales were dire, ensuring this prospective franchise never got off the ground.