10 Celebrities Who Ruined Their Own Video Games
Celebrities who ruined video games! Peter Dinklage, Matthew Perry & more!
Celebrity endorsement has been, and still is, a powerful marketing tool. With the increasing popularity of video games in the 1990s, more and more high-value celebrities became attached to projects to boost sales even higher. On the other hand, celebrities also could use these releases as a platform to raise their own profile.
However, it isn't rare to see a situation where a celebrity, either by purpose, accident or no fault of their own, ends up sabotaging their own media. The product flops and everyone involved is left picking up the pieces from the ensuing drama.
In the gaming world, failed celebrity ventures wind up becoming an oddity because of the famous name attached to them, leaving only die-hard fans or gaming historians looking back at this these titles with fondness.
The following are a few examples of times where a celebrity's input has ruined a game's reputation in one way or another. Although an increasing interest in celebrity culture means that more examples will exist as time goes on, these are some of the biggest misfires that left a stain on the gaming industry.
10. Peter Dinklage - Destiny
Because of his stardom with Game Of Thrones, acclaimed actor Peter Dinklage was hand picked by Bungie to star in their upcoming space-opera shooter Destiny. He was set to play the role of Ghost - a tutorial NPC and floating robot that accompanies the player on their travels - however when time came to record his lines, it soon became obvious that Dinklage had very little experience in voice acting for video games.
Dinklage may have tried to record his lines as natural as possible, but the finalised recordings were bland, boring and laughable. There was barely any enthusiasm put into his delivery and the fact it was tied to such a vital character hurt the world building that Bungie envisaged for their space epic.
Nonetheless, Destiny tried to stand on its own merits with its multi-player content, but complaints about the single-player campaign wouldn't stop. Thus, Bungie ended up replacing Dinklage with voice actor Nolan North and released the new dialogue in a post-release patch. A veteran of video game vocal work, North knew how how to add the impact that Bungie needed.