Botched PC Game Launches
We’ve all had our fair share of pain and trouble installing a PC game, but what happens after that? Some games turn out to be atrocious, while others heavenly, though that is not the point of the article. 1UP takes a look at the five top-most botched PC game launches in history, listing the usual suspects. The most recent one has to be Hellgate London, the highly anticipated action-RPG that fell flat on its face upon release. Here’s a sample:
When Hellgate opened on Halloween, 2007, s*** hit the fan. Never mind the ongoing demonic invasion and dimensional gash in no-longer-jolly-old England; players paid up to fight it off. But persistent crash bugs were a bad start. And while lost progress in an action-RPG is always painful, double and triple billings chafe in any context. Many subscribers to Hellgate: London’s optional membership program, who exchanged $9.99 a month or a flat lifetime fee of $149 for priority server access, easier in-game transportation, and other perks, reported massive problems and mistaken charges.
Other criminals in the list include the botched launch of Half-Life 2 (Steam servers failed, stranding thousands of gamers with just a copy of the game and not being able to play it) and Ultima IX, among others.