Game brands that lost their value?

With all the impressive sequels coming out this year, I'm trying to think of notable gaming brands that lost their value. For some reason the main ones that come to mind are all EA related.

Primarily Medal of Honor, which in the early 2000s seemed to be a pretty big deal but since 2012's Medal of Honor: Warfighter has been abandoned. The other examples I thought of were Command and Conquer and SimCity. Both very popular and influential but have now been MIA for a while. Thinking about it, EA lost support for all three franchises between 2010-2013. Rough time.

Are there any other good examples of this happening? Was F-Zero ever popular enough to count?

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Bonus Question: Have any lesser known brands had a huge increase in value? The best example I can think of is the Fallout license. Bethesda obtained it from Interplay for less than $6million and now it's massive.

For the bonus question, I think Nier qualifies. The first game was generally regarded as very niche and kind of mediocre. Automata on the other hand has gotten glowing reviews almost everywhere and seems to be selling quite well.

Elder Scrolls to the 2nd question

The obvious answers to the first question are early arcade games (Pong, Frogger, Space Invaders, etc...)

Spec Ops for the bonus question.

DotA absolutely wins that second question, right? It went from this niche little weird mod with maybe tens of thousands unique players per month to this figurative money printing monolith with millions upon millions of unique players every month.

Killer Instinct, though obviously nowhere near as big, also came to mind for some reason. They took a kinda sorta incredibly shitty fighter that everyone forgot about and brought it back as arguably one of the best games in the genre.

As for the first question...I'm not sure. My first thought was Castlevania, but I feel like the brand is still worth a pretty penny. It's just that literally no one has any faith in Konami to do anything worthwhile with it at this point.

I'm guessing you mean gaming franchises: brands is so generic and vague that it could mean anything from publishers to peripherals.

Anyway...

Legacy of Kain / Soul Reaver: really popular during the PS1 era, went on to become a now cancelled F2P game called Nosgoth.

I'm going to cheat a little and say Lara Croft as an example of both.

Of course, you can't talk about dead franchises: every mascot platformer that existed in the SNES / PS1 era, like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Gex...

And a final stinger: Metroid.

Ninja Gaiden, I fucking love those games (especially the first two Team Ninja games) but after 3 and Yaiba I think people might be a bit skeptical of a sequel. (even if Nioh was good)

As for one thats increased in value, Persona. The series was always well regarded but it's gone from being a niche thing to one of the more well known JRPG franchises.

By lost their value I would assume you mean that if a new game in the franchise was announced it would be received with heavy scepticism?

Saints Row would be one I think, The Third made strides in making that a known name in the industry but 4 and Gat out of Hell just came across as if they had run out of ideas and were just making what money they could while digging its grave.

Max Payne would be another one, although I think Max Payne 3 is the best game in the series and adore it deeply it was met with a tepid response and disappointing sales. Though I do think people would get excited for another one despite MP3's reception.

Another EA one would be Need for Speed, no matter how hard they've been trying with that name it's just not lifting off like it used to.

Without knowing sales numbers I would throw out Far Cry as well, 2 was ambitious, 3 made strides in certain areas then 4 and Primal were just boring retreads that tainted the name.

The last one I can think of is Crysis another EA published joint, the first one was a benchmark and is still used as a benchmark today in ways. The second while being a significantly worse game brought it to the masses who seemed to like it then the third just fell off the planet and no one seemed to care.

BONUS: The Witcher franchise easily sits high on this list coming from an unknown Polish studios first game being a PC only jank release to two games down the line pushing industry standards and edging Assassins Creed sales numbers.

F.E.A.R. the first one is my favorite PC FPS of all time the sequels where dumbed down trash wish they didn't even exist.

Battlefield series from 1942 to 2142 the series was at it's best but now they play like COD with vehicles. BF1 has amazing graphics and sound but the gameplay is so shallow I miss when the series was more tactical and was focused on teamwork.

Personal preferences aside, Battlefield is bigger now than it ever was.

Tony Hawk is obviously one that was on top of the world for the better part of a decade before completely imploding. Any attempts to regain relevance have been really poorly received.

Yes, Ninja Gaiden. Without a doubt. That went from beloved to forgotten in the space of Ninja Gaiden 3's launch week.

@yesiamaduck: Yah not to mention how Fear was always kind of trash game that had bullet time crammed into it. The AI claims are especially boggling and a cursory glance over any YouTube video from the campaign highlights just how "advanced" it was.

I feel like Nier is such a weird thing. I'm glad it's doing well but it's basically Nier with serviceable gameplay. As much as I love the series fornits quirks, even Automata isn't an especially awesome game to play. They just made it not awful this time around but the combat is not anything special and I would say the boss fights aren't as inventive as the first Nier. Kinda worried the positive reviews might get a lot of newcomers really psyched only to find out that this is still a really niche and often times awkward Japanese game.

Not sure I agree on these ones. The last full, numbered games in both series were critical and commercial successes. And there seems to be a large amount of interest in Agents of Mayhem, just on the hint that its set in the Saints Row universe.

Agreed on your other examples though.

My example of a lost value brand is Dead or Alive. Those games were big, the fighting games and the spin-offs, back in the early- and mid-2000s. And new games are still getting made, but I'm not sure anyone's cared in at least 5 years.

My answer to the bonus question is Crackdown. The first game ended up being a decent success, and one that people liked for far more than just the Halo 3 beta access code it included, but it was not an earth-shaker. And the second game was a disappointing follow-up that barely cracked a million sales worldwide. That probably should've been the end of things, and it was for a while. But now there's this massive anticipation for the third game, and the belief that it will be the launch-day technical showcase for the Scorpio.

First thing that came to mind was also basically anything EA. Everything they do is a boring known quantity at this point.

If Boktai was any kind of popular, I'd nominate that. Went from 3 great games to a trash follow-up.

I feel like a very obvious one is Sonic the Hedgehog. It went from four great titles (Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles) and being a core part of Sega's marketing in the 90's to a terrible, embarrassing mess of a franchise. I doubt there's any recovering it now.

@zombiepenguin9: But they never stopped selling those games. Sonic sucks, but it still does ok.

Ubisoft's Might & Magic comes to mind. The last one was pretty decent, but the franchise had already lost its luster to the point that almost nobody even noticed it was released, and it used to be one of the seminal franchises in both the CRPG and turn-based strategy genres throughout the 80's and 90's.

As for the Bonus Question, I think From Software (with the "souls" brand if you wanna call it that, though I'd lump in Bloodborne, King's Field, Eternal Ring and Shadow Tower among them) have seen a similar success as CD Project. They've essentially dabbled in that genre for more than 20 years, and up until Demon's Souls and Dark Souls those games were all just written off as a tone deaf niche Japanese thing that didn't lean into the exposition heavy, flashy and twitchy thing that all JRPG's should be.

@yesiamaduck: One might even say Bethesda as a whole. They've gone from being a largely niche developer, to borderline being a household name, at least in gaming households. Can't think of anyone more deserving.

It's tempting to say Mass Effect, but I haven't got the full picture of what the fans think. The people I know personally who love Mass Effect still live this new one. It's also tempting to say Sonic, but considering they just keep pumping out Sonic games, I'm pretty sure lots of people buy them.

True but I still think it's lost it's value in gameplay.

Pro Evolution Soccer. They lost serious ground transitioning to the last generation and, whilst it's playing some of the best football it ever has on current gen, it is selling a fifth of what it used to. Nobody's really making the switch from FIFA because, to be honest with you, that's a culture shock some sports fans can't be arsed with.

I do wonder when they'll pull the plug on it or completely scale it back to just the free-to-play MyClub mode.

@redhotchilimist: I don't think Mass Effect has become devalued as a result of the reactions to Andromeda. But they've lost a bit of goodwill and definitely need one winner of a sequel, with good critical backing, to maintain the same sales. Its nose is cracked, but the franchise still stands.

I immediately thought of Assassins Creed. And Guitar Hero.

And this topic reminded me of the '08 Prince of Persia. Man I fucking loved that game. Was such a cool experiment with the franchise. I don't know if I'd really want a sequel, but shame that it did so poorly.

They might've done an about turn with the whole movie deal.

I know I stopped paying attention to Final Fantasy after 13, and I wasn't the only one. I might try FFXV though.

Halo for sure.

Can't think of anything that hasn't already been mentioned.

@rahf: I'm not so sure. I love the original trilogy but the tepid reactions to Andromeda and the poor writing and characters that I've seen have me set to avoid the new trilogy entirely. They blew the sell so hard that I have no interest in their new world.

@zombiepenguin9: I think sonic might be the exception. I know that whenever there's a new sonic that people get excited. and after a few half-decent ones, several people were telling me how Sega finally redeemed the franchise.

I'd say Persona/SMT for the second question. Prior to P4 the series wasn't really well known but after it's release it seems like Persona and the SMT brand has taken off.

Metroid is one that comes to mind. When was the last really well received game in that series? Prime 3? People seemed to pretty much hate Other M and the only release I can recall recently was Federation Force, which was a half step above shovelware. Nintendo doesn't seem too interested in doing anything with that property. Same goes for Star Fox maybe. Based on what people said of the WiiU version it sound like that formula isn't really relevant anymore.

Oh also, Heroes of Might and Magic. Fuck Ubisoft for what it did to that franchise. Fuck them forever.

As far as the bonus question goes, Tomb Raider kind of answers both sides of the question. It was iconic originally, reached a state where it was treated as almost a joke, and now the modern reinvention seems to have put it back on the map again.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Tony Hawk X10000

@humanity: Yeah, I'm finding the Nier gameplay pretty lacking to be honest. The combos are very simplistic for this type of combat. DMC this is not.

Roller Coaster Tycoon springs to mind for me.

the second Nintendo announces a proper new installment though, 2d or otherwise, people are going to be all over that shit.

Street Fighter, though it's still marketable as an esport.

For the inverse any Blizzard IP, no matter how much people dislike the current rendition of whichever game; every Blizzard IP is top 10 and will remain so. Especially Rock and Roll Racing.

I would hit SELL on:

- Need for Speed

- Halo

- Tony Hawk

- Sonic

@cronstintein: it's really meant to serve as an alright vehicle for the story

The first one that came to mind was Halo. Just generally seems that its not really a big deal anymore.

Halo & Gears are a shadow of their former selves new releases used to feel like events now they come and go without a whimper, EA have soft rebooted Need for Speed so many times I'm starting to wonder if it was ever good. SE successfully rebooted Tomb Raider then killed it with the next game its quite the achievement, if Final Fantasy continues open world'ish action RPG then its dead to me.

I feel like after Rainbow Six: Siege, the latest Splinter Cell (Blacklist I believe) and Ghost Recon: Wildlands, the Tom Clancy name has definitely lost some of it's value. It's close to meaningless at this point. I know to a lot of people "Tom Clancy" means dumb-bro-tactical espionage shite but it wasn't *nearly* this bad a few years ago, just looking at the early Splinter Cell games compared to Blacklist you'll find the narrative, tone and story pacing to be *wildly* different from each other. And you can say the same things with the new Rainbow and Recon games. The early Clancy games were fairly by the numbers military-espionage thrillers with solid characters and "Bourne-esq" people standing in war-rooms looking at screens going "jesus christ, that's Sam Fisher!" But it was NOT the "yeah bro, lets roll" garbage that a lot of the Clancy games are now.

Early Clancy games were Blacklist (the show) mixed with some CSI, mixed with some Clancy/Ludlum novels.

Nu-Clancy is GI: Joe mixed with Fast and Furious/Transformers modern action-shlock.

Final Fantasy. There hasn't been a good single player one since X. XV is practically torture.

Space Channel 5

I'm so sorry.

Not so much as 'lost' it's value but just more kind of forgotten.

There's that VR game coming out though, so who knows.

Risen, Dungeon Siege, Guitar Hero, Assassin's Creed, NBA Live, Bomberman, Blinx

I'd say the old EA Sports Big games like NBA Street, NFL Street and SSX. There was that 2012 SSX game that came out and it sold relatively well. But EA Sports has done nothing else with SSX ever since then. NBA and NFL Street were both hot around the PS2/XBOX/GC era, but neither have had an entry in either franchise since 2007 and 2008 respectively (2008 had NFL Tour which is considered a sequel in the Street series). Seems like nobody goes for arcade-style sports games anymore (Yes the same can be said for the NBA Jam and NFL Blitz games).

• Final Fantasy
• Halo
• SimCity
• Metroid
• Sonic
• For me personally, Call of Duty, but there's still plenty of value in that brand

For brands that have gained a ton of value recently, I'm gonna echo other people and say Persona (super niche until 4 and all its spinoffs) and Souls (after Dark Souls)