The games industry has come a long way from its humble beginnings and stands tall as one of the most valuable mediums of entertainment with a market cap that’s much larger than TV or movies. Games require large amounts of capital, time, and manpower to produce – which is why publishers and investors are too resistant to take risks that might or might not pay off. But of course, that’s not always the case and we have had plenty of examples of risky AAA ventures which we will be discussing in this feature.
Fallout 76
While Fallout had already switched gears from being a top down RPG to a full blown first person adventure with the third entry, the franchise’s biggest risk to date has undoubtedly been Fallout 76. Released in 2018, Fallout 76 sought to take what was a predominantly single player franchise and morph it into a live service game. But that process was far from smooth, and the launch version of Fallout 76 was criticized by fans on account of its empty world and technical inefficiencies galore. But thankfully, Bethesda didn’t give up on the game and Fallout 76 has become much better with each new content update. As it stands now, Fallout 76 is easily one of the best ways to experience the franchise – which ultimately makes this risky venture a smash success.
