No Pokemon? But Pokemon Sword and Shield are literally the best example of this, though. Nothing else this console generation even comes close to the outright
lies told during the marketing campaign. I mean, at least with rubbish like lootboxes and microtransactions, companies are actually upfront with it most of the time. Game Freak's lies about less grievous offenses actually made those offenses
worse, because they couldn't even own their extremely poor decisions. At least every time Square Enix or Konami or even "surprise mechanics" EA come out with rubbish they're actually fairly upfront about it being there, and they don't focus on it - they mention it, then move on. Doesn't make it any more acceptable, but...well, at least you know what you're getting, and why. Unless it's added retroactively (which for a time it often was, until the backlash reached boiling point) but then it isn't part of the marketing campaign, so it's not really relevant to this particular topic.
The difference is that these companies DON'T make it part of the marketing campaign, the way that Dexit and its supposed reasons - which were all lies - became practically the focal point of Sword and Shield after it was announced. Game Freak just wouldn't move away from it, so it got worse and worse. Of course, the games didn't fall off the radar - unfortunately - but to try and brush them aside when they're such a fantastic example of extremely bad marketing...yeah. Nope. This is what happens when you let others dictate your marketing, which is why they're such great examples of bad marketing. There is a lot of anger and resentment around scummy practices in games, but you don't see companies focusing their marketing on what people are reacting negatively to in an attempt to make it more palatable or acceptable. Which is good marketing. You want to focus on the positives, not the negatives. Definitely not the things you know people aren't happy about. I can't think of another game where the marketing was dictated by fan response this way...ever.
Although when I think of marketing fiascos, I actually think of past generation
consoles rather than any specific games. The Wii U was just a poor, confused mess that never really took off due to a complete lack of focus, Sony completely gave up on the PS Vita early on and so it was completely ignored by most people (to their detriment, the console was home to some of the best JRPGs and visual novels out there before most were ported to the Switch), the 3DS had a VERY rough start due to the 3D gimmick, and the Xbox One...
well. Last generation was certainly an interesting time! There was also the PS3's infamously bad launch, the Nokia N-Gage, the HORRIFIC PSP White model ads...consoles can really suffer from marketing in the run-up to release. It's very difficult to dress-up the price tag and the sparse launch lineup, though. But if you look at console sales across generations, the ones that do poorly are generally the ones with bad marketing initially. Except for the Wii, anyway.
But if I had to name a game that had disgracefully bad marketing that isn't Pokemon...well, there was Dante's Inferno. Where EA hired actors to stage fake protests, send rickroll boxes that had to be
destroyed to get them to stop playing the music, the weird sin-related adverts and promotions...I mean, I know they had to do SOMETHING to make their game stand out when it was a time filled with God of War "clones" but it was by far the weirdest marketing campaign I've ever seen, and it didn't even work particularly well either.
NieR also sticks out as a game that fell completely under the radar for having basically no marketing at all after the initial reveal. Which is a real shame. Its enhanced remaster didn't fare much better either. Despite it being significantly better than Automata, which did stupendously well...but not even Automata's success could bolster the Replicant remake enough for it to get a similar kind of success. Automata's marketing wasn't even that good either. But this was a time when FFXIII was stealing the spotlight, and plenty of amazing PS3 games that released around the same time - like Resonance of Fate, anyone else remember that? - were completely ignored too.
I'd also say a lot of current generation games are having marketing issues thanks to the $70 price tag, too...which I notice not that many are presently choosing to opt for. What a surprise!
The problem is that a lot of games with bad marketing were bad games to begin with, or were extremely polarising because of the radical departure from the series formula, so it's hard to say if they really could have marketed the game any better than they did. FFXIII really sticks out here. I mean, getting Leona Lewis of all people to do the main theme, which in no way fit the game itself...it's no wonder that FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns got barely any marketing at all. But was FFXIII a bad game, or was it just that it was such a radical departure from JRPG norms, omitting things like towns and sidequests for a more linear, story-focused structure? I'm not sure if the fan reception to FFXIII was better or worse than Pokemon Sword and Shield. Then there was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker...oh dear. That one didn't go down well at all either, but really was it ever going to? Everyone wanted Twilight Princess, and they didn't get that until after Wind Waker. But Toon Link has proven to be extremely popular over time. Initially though, the level of fury surrounding Wind Waker was insane.
Some things are beyond marketing's power to fix, and people are going to think what the media outlets want them to think. It's hard to say if it's due to marketing specifically, because a lot of games with good or even great marketing get completely thrown under a bus come release because they just...aren't very good. There was a lot of attention given to Marvel's Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, and both pretty much died out pretty quick. The latter wasn't even that bad of a game. The former they kept trying, repeatedly, to resurrect some interest in, but it never went anywhere. But I'd argue that was the game's fault rather than the marketing.
