10 Expensive Video Games Nobody Wanted

Video gaming, on the whole, is big business. Much like movies, there's a billion dollar industry that can put big budget into the production of one. Or, when put to the fans, their love can crowdfund a long awaited sequel or reboot.

And much like movies, there can and have been some absolute flops. Whilst a comic book movie franchise can turn over billions on the silver screen, its video game counterpart can almost sink a long-running publisher on release. Live action movies doesn't mean gamers want live service games.

Or even worse, games that promise either the moon or prison dominance (that'll make sense in a bit) that deliver neither. Games that are hyped up but fall flat on release, much to the ire of the waiting public.

Yet that's not the worst of it, as one game threatened to crash the entire market before we even got out of the decade of big hair and Bananarama. That's no exaggeration, it was a dangerous moment back in the early 80's.

Whatever the reason, here are ten examples of games that were either bankrolled or crowdfunded to astronomical levels, only to sell poorly. Misled intentions, broken games, there's a whole gamut here being explored.

Enjoy, and try not to kick yourself if you fell for one of these when they came out.

Lara Croft's reboot trilogy in recent years is not only well received, but also not her first reboot. Or even her second. Yet whilst this iteration is doing well, it wasn't always looking that peachy for the raider of tombs.

The first reimagining came in 2003 with The Angel of Darkness. Scrapping Lara's more traditional, highly acrobatic gameplay into something more grounded, it was intended to reinvent the character as a more serious explorer. Y'know, because shooting dinosaurs isn't "serious" enough.

A lot of the spectacle was replaced with sneaking about restrictive corridors, and as such, fans didn't really take to Croft's leap to the then-newest generation of consoles.

Neither did critics, citing is as lacking compared to what the PS2 and Xbox could offer in terms of better, similar games. Whilst it did sell better than other examples on this list, it wasn't enough to generate interest in the planned reboot titles.

Thankfully, Crystal Dynamics did restore the faith in 2006's Legend (before bungling another franchise on this list), but for a time, Lara's fate was almost as buried as she's been a few times.