20 Video Game FLOPS And SUCCESSES of 2024

10 Flops And 10 Successes of 2024

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re taking a look at the 10 worst-performing and the 10 best-performing games of 2024. Do note we are speaking purely from a financial standpoint, so even if you’re enjoying them, that doesn’t mean they’re selling like hotcakes.

SUCCESS: “Palworld” (2024)

With GameFreak floundering in making decent “Pokemon” games, there have been a wealth of indie games jumping to make the “Pokemon” games they’ve dreamed of and evolve the RPG subgenre. Although, none saw as big of a boom as “Palworld” did at the very start of 2024. Having only launched on Xbox and PC initially, “Palworld” managed to amass twenty-five million players within its first month, fifteen million of those players having paid for the game on PC. This monumental success would allow developer Pocketpair to develop an entire expansion and even begin work on a port for the PlayStation 5. However, its success has also attracted undesired attention from both The Pokemon Company and Nintendo due to how closely it resembles the more famous IP.

FLOP: “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” (2024)

From its very first reveal, many were dismayed to learn that once-acclaimed developer Rocksteady Studios was making a live service game. After a one-year delay, “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” made it across the finish line only to be greeted by very, very few players. Between the awful UI and the totally uninspired mission structure, this was simply a game that no one wanted, especially from a studio as revered as Rocksteady. Shortly after its launch, Warner Bros. stated that the company had suffered a loss of two hundred million dollars, “Suicide Squad” being one of the major contributing factors to that loss. While the game has seen updates with new characters and story elements being added, Rocksteady is now just a skeleton crew trying to finish promised updates while working on a new version of “Hogwarts Legacy”.

SUCCESS: “Animal Well” (2024)

Despite its resounding success, “Animal Well” has had a rather weird existence since it launched in May 2024. While sales have not been revealed at the time of this video, many folks online were stating how they were buying the game for the mere fact that Videogamedunkey was publishing it. And while many gaming outlets have history in scrutinizing Dunkey for…”using his money to publish ‘only good games’”, “Animal Well” was still awarded high scores from those same outlets during the review process. According to SteamCharts, “Animal Well” saw eight thousand players at launch. PSNProfiles shows that more than seventeen thousand PS5 players own “Animal Well”. And while we don’t have numbers for Switch, it’s safe to assume both Dunkey and one-man developer Billy Basso have made bank.

FLOP: “Foamstars” (2024)

February was a double bunker buster for both AAA publishers and their live service failures. While WB was scrambling to get “Suicide Squad” to sell, Square Enix was making their own questionable decisions for “Foamstars”. Even though the game was receiving positive word-of-mouth from those who gave it the time of day, there was simply no room in the conversation for it. “Foamstars” launched the same week as “Helldivers 2”, another online shooter that was exclusive to PlayStation. While PSNProfiles shows that more than thirty thousand players own “Foamstars” between PS5 and PS4, those numbers can mostly be attributed to the game being “free ninety-nine” to PlayStation Plus members. Since then, player count has dropped substantially to the point that the few who genuinely enjoy the game can’t even find matches. “Foamstars” is making the switch to free-to-play at the time of this video, but we’re not so sure that move will give the game a second wind given how bloated the 2024 holiday season is already with new games.

SUCCESS: “Zenless Zone Zero” (2024)

Ever since its explosive success with “Genshin Impact” in 2020, it seems as MiHoYo’s train of success will never stop. Less than a year after the launch of their second game, “Honkai Star Rail”, MiHoYo has found yet another money printer in “Zenless Zone Zero”. Players immediately fell in love with the wonderfully animated characters and thrilling blend of retro dungeon-crawling and modern action RPG combat. Since launching in July 2024, “Zenless Zone Zero” has already generated roughly half a billion dollars in revenue. Like ‘em or hate ‘em, MiHoYo’s games are clearly wanted by the general public.

FLOP: “MultiVersus” (2024)

Given the beta was somewhat of a success, it was pretty odd for Player First Games and Warner Bros to just mysteriously pull “MultiVersus” off the market. After a whole year of being MIA, the online platform-fighter made its return in May 2024, and…it…wait, what changed here? Well, online connectivity was more unstable than it was during the beta, the monetization got even worse as characters now cost roughly ten bucks a pop, even the game speed was drastically slower with many characters seeing fewer moves in their kits. In short, “MultiVersus” spent a whole year back in development just to return in a more hackneyed state? Yeah, many players were confused and dumbfounded at the decisions made here, so much so that “MultiVersus” is now hemorrhaging players more profusely than it did before.

SUCCESS: “Balatro” (2024)

Did anyone else expect a roguelike modeled entirely around Texas Hold’em? Neither did we, and even when “Balatro” launched, we never anticipated it to sell as many copies as it has. The game of infinite Jokers captured so many folks that the game achieved multiple milestones that most companies would be jealous of. First, it was half a million copies sold within the first ten days. Then, it cracked one million after one month. Six months after launch, “Balatro” reached two million copies sold. And with the game finally making its way to mobile, well, developer LocalThunk has a money printer on their hands.

FLOP: “Star Wars Hunters” (2024)

This year has not been a kind year to the “Star Wars” IP, not financially anyways. “Star Wars Hunters” was already seen as an underwhelming title when Zynga teased it back in February 2021. A “Star Wars” hero shooter? Look, we already have the Heroes vs. Villains mode in “Battlefront II”. And we don’t even play as any of our favorite characters in “Hunters”? AND we can only play it on Switch?? Yeah, free or not, this game is still awful, and the comically empty servers show how little interest there is. Sure, you can get into matches, but it's mostly bots.

SUCCESS: “Sea of Thieves” (2018)

Even though it released way back in 2018, “Sea of Thieves” is undoubtedly one of the biggest financial successes of 2024, and it stems from a move we never anticipated Xbox would make. In February 2024, Xbox announced it was bringing four of its own games to other consoles, “Sea of Thieves” specifically making its way to PlayStation 5. Since that announcement, Rare’s online pirate game was consistently among the most pre-ordered games on PlayStation Store. Having launched on PS5 as of April 30, “Sea of Thieves” managed to sell more than one million copies from that platform alone and was one of the best-selling titles on PlayStation Store for quite some time. Needless to say, the port was a massive success for Xbox, and it has only encouraged them to bring more of their games over to Sony’s side of the fence.

FLOP: “XDefiant” (2024)

Wouldn’t you know it, we have yet another monumental failure in the live service market. Unlike most of the previous entries, “XDefiant” did have some positive word-of-mouth when discussing gunplay and concept. Alas, the level design and technical performance left many unimpressed and prompted players to quickly abandon the game. The numbers continued to drop, and a round of layoffs conducted at Ubisoft San Francisco conjured rumors that the game would be shut down. The studio has claimed otherwise, but in the brutally competitive scene of online gaming, it’s hard to say if “XDefiant” will make a decent comeback in the future.

SUCCESS: “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” (2024)

SEGA has seen a wealth of success ever since “Yakuza 0” brought their acclaimed action-adventure series into the mainstream. Never before had anyone anticipated “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” to be the blockbuster hit for the franchise. After seeing incredibly high scores across the board from outlets, the fervor was unstoppable as “Infinite Wealth” wound up selling more than one million copies within its launch week. Developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio was striking gold from a niche fanbase for years. Now, they’ve struck diamonds and will be bringing players back to Hawaii with new locations in tow for a pirate spin-off in 2025.

FLOP: “Dustborn” (2024)

As the so-called “modern audience” becomes more and more fatigued from games becoming overtly political, games like “Dustborn” have become targets of unnecessary vitriol from terminally online people. But what makes “Dustborn” such a strange case is that it's almost like it wants to be hated, like it deliberately sets itself up for failure. The writing and music are so bad that you cannot tell if the game was made as a parody of these “slice of life” games or if it truly is relishing in its own soapbox messaging and awful garage band music. No matter what the purpose was, “Dustborn” only saw eighty-three players on Steam despite PC Gamer claiming the game sold “apparently modest”. Not even the few gaming outlets that reviewed it could care for this game.

SUCCESS: “Tekken 8” (2024)

There was so much hype surrounding “Tekken 8”, and rightfully so. This was the first major fighting game to be fully utilizing every ounce of power it could pull from Unreal Engine 5 and modern consoles. Not only that, this was to be the end of the feud between Kazuya Mishima and Jin Kazama for good while also being the beginning of a new, much more aggressive era for “Tekken’s” gameplay. Within its first month, “Tekken 8” amassed a total of two million units sold. One can easily point towards the boom fighting games have seen over the years as the reason behind this massive success.

FLOP: “Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II” (2024)

The first “Hellblade” truly was something special. It wasn’t perfect, but developer Ninja Theory had so many great ideas in place with its combat, story, and minimalist UI. So, seven years later, how did “Hellblade II” turn out the way it did? While the game does look impressive in visual detail, everything else about the game had us foaming at the mouth. Why was the combat dumbed down and made so easy with the slow-motion effect? Why did the entire game have to be in widescreen? Why in the hell are there so many walking corridors!? In addition to frustrating so many fans who had been waiting for a game that evolved upon the original’s ideas, “Hellblade II” sparked much discussion over game developers prioritizing experience over gameplay. And it’s rather odd how Xbox hasn’t said a word about sales nor player count, isn’t it?

SUCCESS: “Stellar Blade” (2024)

The conversation surrounding “Steller Blade” and its sexy protagonist was very, very weird as pundits and basement dwellers took part in the ever-toxic culture war. Alas, no matter which side said what, the so-called “modern audience” did not care about Eve being attractive nor did they care about outfits being supposedly “censored”. “Stellar Blade” was not on the market for long in the month of April, launching on April 26, 2024. Despite this, the game managed to be the best-selling game in North America across the entire market. By the end of June, “Stellar Blade” had crossed one million copies sold. You can almost guarantee we will see a sequel in the near future.

FLOP: “Star Wars Outlaws” (2024)

Unlike the other flops on our list, “Star Wars Outlaws” is genuinely a solid game. Unfortunately, the “Star Wars” IP as a whole has been floundering for so long that most folks have clearly grown tired of it. This game might be considered the second-biggest flop for Ubisoft this year as the game has failed to push units out the door. On top of causing Ubisoft’s share prices to tank, the abysmal commercial reception for “Outlaws” has caused such a disturbance that one stakeholder wrote a letter condemning Ubisoft for its performance and demanding for the removal of Ubisoft’s founders, the Guillemot family.

SUCCESS: “Dragon’s Dogma II” (2024)

The sheer excitement around “Dragon’s Dogma II” was sort of bewildering to witness. The original “Dragon’s Dogma” wasn’t exactly a gangbuster success back in 2012. So, it was interesting to see so many folks get amped about the sequel. What was surprising was seeing just how quickly people were grabbing the game. By the time it was two weeks old, “Dragon’s Dogma II” managed to sell two and a half million copies. Two months after launch, that number had grown to more than three million. Capcom amassed so much revenue that the company actually paid out more money to its shareholders following a financial earnings report in April 2024.

FLOP: “Skull and Bones” (2024)

And here we are with Ubisoft’s third and final appearance on this list. You can probably guess what the biggest flop of 2024 is, but before we get to that, “Skull and Bones” has a lot to answer for. Ubisoft spent a whole decade working on this game, having the whole project restarted once while using funds from the Singapore government and constantly delaying the game. So, what did we finally get from this supposed “AAAA” game? An online open world reminiscent of “Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” but with dumbed-down combat, crafting mechanics, and a story about as obnoxious as “GTA Online”. We waited eleven years for this? To give you an idea of how badly this bombed, “Sea of Thieves” sold quadruple the number of copies when it first launched in 2018. Yikes.

SUCCESS: “Black Myth: Wukong” (2024)

The success of “Black Myth Wukong” is a bit of an anomaly. For a game that a lot of people seemed hyped about, the critical reception seemed fairly lukewarm. And yet, no small amount of gamers are throwing money at it just to experience Wukong’s second coming, Of course, one of its largest contributing factors to its monetary domination is that one billion people live in China, and until 2015, video games were banned there. Is it really that big of a surprise that the first Chinese AAA game is selling like hotcakes worldwide, including in a country where gaming is still a very new medium to more than one billion people?

FLOP: “Concord” (2024)

Well, let’s hope “Black Myth: Wukong” fills up Sony’s pockets because “Concord” left behind a massive hole in them. After suffering through a middling beta, “Concord” was already shaping up to be a dud, but no one expected such a catastrophe when it launched in August 2024. The game had failed both critically and commercially, bad enough that Sony removed the game from sale with no warning. “Concord” didn’t even make it past two weeks, and it wasn’t long until people started talking. According to various sources, “Concord” had cost roughly four hundred million dollars, half of that money coming from Sony and none of it counting as part of their acquisition of Firewalk Studios. So much for the future of PlayStation

Did you play any of these games yet for yourself? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!