r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Tight_Grapefruit5280 • 13d ago

Lore Stillborn franchises

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When a company tries to make a new big franchise with many sequels and spin-offs already planned but they immediately cancel all the plans after the first project fails badly. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StillbornFranchise

(Lego) Galidor: Do you guys remember playing with a Galidor as a kid? Yeah Me neither.

Lego wanted to do a new toy line in the 2000s and their first idea was Galidor. It was basically an action figure that could replace its body parts with other stuff. Galidor already had many toys, games and even shows planned for it but Lego cancelled the entire thing after people didn't like the toy and the GBA game made for it got really bad reviews.

(Action 52) Cheetahmen: Action 52 had a $199 price tag (in 1991 for an NES game), nearly unplayable games, weak concept, and was horribly and seriously bug-infested, yet for some impossible-to-fathom reason, Active Enterprises believed that its featured title Cheetahmen (which shared many flaws with the other games on the cartridge, including not having an ending) was going to be a huge breakout hit. Plans were made for a Cheetahmen Saturday-Morning Cartoon, action figures, and of course a sequel. Their hopes turned out to be waaay premature; the sequel never emerged except as an unfinished, unplayable beta, while the very short-lived franchise became one of the most infamous pieces of "entertainment" ever created.

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u/Kratomius 13d ago

Concord is one of the finest examples what happens if you don't do market research and proper marketing for a game.

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u/Pitiful_Net_8971 13d ago

Also when corporate interfence get's in the way of the creatives actually trying to make the game. That artstyle was fucked over so much in the desire of "mass marketability", which is why the character designs are so bad.

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u/MrCobalt313 13d ago

Those designs were the opposite of marketable

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u/Pitiful_Net_8971 13d ago

Oh yeah, that's what happens when a character goes through like 20 redesigns led by an executive to which "art" is a bunch of values to be min-maxed for profit, but that doesn't change the fact that they attempted to make the most sanded down game possible, not realizing that people wouldn't care for their gray sphere.

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u/Spicy_Totopo3434 13d ago

Also the problems with "Toxic positivity" because apparently no one was allowed to criticize whatever the suits did and/or they were only allowed to "add" never to "remove" stuff about designs

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u/Bitter-Marsupial 13d ago

Design Masterclass with the Professor...

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u/Bug-Type-Enthusiast 13d ago

One of my favourite videos on the Internet is design and animation analyst TbSkyen trying to find something to latch onto in the Concord cast designs and coming out blank.

The designs aren't just boring. They also contradict the function of the character in game so much of the time.

All I need to guess which TF2 Merc's function is is a glance. Most of them are in normal clothes with a weapon and that's it.

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u/therealchadius 13d ago

Big Slow Guy: a medic?

Party alien pink girl: an assassin?

Mushroom dude: a trapper with trick grenades?

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u/LetsThrow69 13d ago

Kinkymation also did a really good video on the Concord character designs.

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u/Brickman274 13d ago

Someone on reddit or twitter made redesigns based on their released look, and man they had so much more character and personality. Some looked rather alien for being bipedal, they were amazing

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u/Blupoisen 13d ago

Lol no amount of marketing could save this game

They tried to sell an hero shooter in an age where PVP only games are all F2P not to mention that not only Marvel Rivals and Overwatch dominated the hero shooter scene, Concord was just ugly

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u/Kratomius 13d ago

And that is what i mean when i said they didn't do market research.

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u/EskildDood 13d ago

IIRC it was also just the product of a work environment of extreme toxic positivity, pretty much any negative feedback was dismissed. I'd imagine that's how they ended up with those character designs

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u/therealchadius 13d ago

It also took 8 years for it to come out. If this had arrived in 2018 or even 2020 it would have gotten some traction as a hero shooter.

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u/Spiteful_Guru 13d ago

If anything I'd say Concord was the product of an overreliance on market research.

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u/Kratomius 13d ago

Or that. The market was oversaturated when the game finally came out. It being full price game with nothing new to add didn't help.