10 Biggest Video Game Flops Of All Time

8. Advent Rising

Riding high off the success of Halo, Advent Rising was hyped as being the next big sci-fi franchise for the Xbox. Various talented artists were brought on board to give it serious nerd cred, including notable science fiction authors Orson Scott Card and Cameron Dayton. Its promotion was extensive, even going so far as to advertise in theaters, where it was billed as the first chapter in an epic trilogy.

Yet even with all this going for it, the 2006 release of Advent Rising was met with a collective ‘meh’. It received only lukewarm reviews and sold even worse. Instead of being recognized as the great new and original franchise it aspired to be, it came off as yet another cookie cutter, bug filled, by the numbers third-person shooter set in a generic sci-fi universe. Since the video game industry has no shortage of those, it’s easy to see why this one got lost in the shuffle.

Suddenly, all plans for sequels, novels, comic books, and merchandise tie-ins were cancelled, and just like that the burgeoning Advent Rising franchise came to an abrupt end. Publisher Majesco Entertainment had to change its business plans going forward in order to recoup all the money it invested in the game; a harsh lesson in the risks a business takes when investing in new intellectual properties.