8 Failed Video Game Mascot Characters

Could there ever possibly be another entry in the #1 spot? 

Everyone's favourite anthropomorphic video game bobcat by pure default, Bubsy is a most fascinating kind of dud gaming mascot, because despite failing to make a cultural foothold of any kind, he just won't go away.

Bubsy first made his debut in 1993's Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, which while received decently enough, was largely compared unfavourably to Sonic the Hedgehog.

Bubsy 2 fared better, after which the franchise tumbled irreversibly off the rails, culminating in 1996's disastrous PlayStation release Bubsy 3D, which is routinely ranked among the worst games of all time, in large part due to how annoying Bubsy himself is to listen to.

This finally seemed to confirm that Bubsy would never be a real rival to the genre's legends, but over 20 years later, Bubsy returned for a fifth game, the widely panned Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back, and then 2019's mediocre sixth title Bubsy: Paws on Fire!.

Between all this and early plans for a Taco Bell-sponsored Bubsy animated series - the pilot of which was hilariously titled "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" - you have to give Bubsy's creators some measure of credit for trying so hard to make fetch happen.

And yet, despite how unexpectedly enduring Bubsy has been, he's still a footnote in the annals of gaming history - a monument to how truly difficult is it to create a mascot who connects with the wider gaming populace.