10 Video Games That Were MASSIVE Jokes

4. Segagaga

pyst gaming
SEGA

So confident were SEGA that their space-age, ahead-of-its-time Dreamcast console would be a colossal failure that they made a game marking their own demise two years before the company gracefully bowed out of the console market.

Or at least, designer Tez Okano did, without his employers' knowledge. Segagaga is a truly astonishing JRPG in which you're tasked with raising the eponymous software house's fortunes in the face of overwhelming competition from electronics giants DOGMA. Sound familiar? Along the way, obscure and forgotten faces of Sega's rich history make cameos, amongst them Saturn-flogging judoka Segata Sanshiro and displaced mascot Alex Kidd - now fallen on hard times.

When Okano presented his secret project, Sega thought it was a joke, providing him with just $200 to promote the game - half of which he spent on a wrestling mask. The sad displacement of the esteemed company it described was anything but funny. Parody it may be, but Segagaga is as good a lasting testament to Sega's unique, dearly missed charm as any of their 'serious' titles (like Seaman, for example).

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Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.