10 Ambitious Video Game Gimmicks That BOMBED
5. "Mixed Media" Video Games
With every new IP agonisingly desperate to become a Universe in its own right, it's little surprise that an increasing number of games are putting the cart before the horse and attempting to establish themselves as mixed media projects right out of the gate.
Surely the most infamous example of this is Remedy's sci-fi actioner Quantum Break, which rather than release a few comic books or maybe a couple of YouTube shorts, included a glossy, hours-long companion TV show right out of the box.
It was certainly a bold idea, especially as the live-action actors, such as Shawn Ashmore, Aidan Gillen, Lance Reddick, and Dominic Monaghan, were also the stars of the game itself, and players would be able to make decisions which altered the course of the both the live-action and game segments.
But despite the live-action component being surprisingly substantial and boasting strong production values, it ultimately failed to deliver anything more than generic sci-fi drama hokum, and so simply left players itching to get their hands back on the controller.
It didn't help that players who wanted to watch the videos from their system rather than stream them faced a hefty 75.61GB download, which back in 2016 was quite inconceivable.
In the end Quantum Break received mixed reviews and failed to sell enough to launch the media empire Microsoft was clearly banking on.
An ambitious effort, but it's usually best to just focus on putting out a great game rather than sinking funds into excruciatingly expensive live-action video production.