8 Failed Video Game Mascot Characters

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos was originally pitched to Nintendo as a Yoshi spin-off game, but when they turned the prototype down, developer Argonaut Software retooled it as an original IP - which says it all really.

And so Croc was born - a similarly adorable crocodile who sets out to rescue his adoptive family from an evil magician.

Now to be fair to Croc, the original game was actually a success by any metric, scoring decent reviews and selling more than 3 million copies. 

But as is true of any gaming mascot, the true test of their staying power comes with the sequels, and this is where poor Croc fell down hard. 

Croc 2 wasn't bad, but it simply failed to build on its predecessor in any meaningful way, resulting in mixed reviews and a commercial underperformance, selling barely 500,000 units within its first nine months on release.

By this point in time, Croc had been eclipsed on PlayStation by the firmly established Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon franchises, which offered both superior gameplay and a far more appealing protagonist.

There is a faint glimmer of hope for the Croc die-hards out there, though, as a remaster of the original game is due to release within the first few months of 2025.