9 Promising Video Games That Were Totally Ruined By Publisher Meddling

8. Lair

shadow of war
Factor 5

A fairly promising original title that had players taking control of fire-breathing dragons and raining down terror from the skies, Lair was pitched as being a system seller for Sony's PS3.

However, despite establishing a solid concept and delivering some strong prototypes, the big-wigs at Sony didn't think that Lair had enough of a marketing pull to attract players who were moving away from fantasy experiences and veering more toward real-world tales.

Wanting to tie it into their new system more directly, the publisher made the one decision that would doom the game completely: it would only be able to be played with motion controls.

Changing the development focus to show off the PS3 controller's built-in Sixaxis motion controls, the title was overhauled to accommodate the new system.

Of course, with no option to play the game with regular analogue sticks and with the Sixaxis technology itself not being up to snuff, Lair was way too frustrating to be any fun. The developers later patched in analogue support, but by then the damage was done.

Contributor

Writer. Mumbler. Only person on the internet who liked Spider-Man 3