10 Biggest Video Game Financial Disasters This Generation

6. Battleborn

Battleborn was supposed to be Gearbox's next big blockbuster. Putting the Borderlands franchise on the backburner to turn to a brand new IP, the project was going head to head with Overwatch (which was launching more or less at the same time), with both titles delivering similar hero shooter goodness.

Unfortunately, the problem was right there, and despite the developers insisting that Battleborn was completely different from Blizzard's world-conquering phenomenon, it didn't really convince players, who were already enamoured with Overwatch. Still, the sales for the game were initially strong, apparently similar to the launch week success of the original Borderlands, but unfortunately it was all downhill from there.

Players quickly dropped off once Blizzard's shooter shipped a few weeks later, and publisher Take-Two commented that sales were below expectations at the end of the year. A year after it launched, the off-peak number of concurrent players on PC regularly dropped below 100, leading to rumours the title could go free-to-play.

Despite the devs repeatedly ruling this out, that's exactly what happened, but it didn't boost popularity, and active support ended a year later.