Five Games that were Major Hit or Flops in 2024

We've reached the final days of 2024, the year is coming to an end, but it won't be forgotten by gamers. Numerous game releases during this period have stirred up the community, titles that will always be remembered.

We've had wonderful productions that, deservedly, received a high number of simultaneous players in addition to excellent acceptance rates. But, unfortunately, that wasn't always the case, as other works were marked by several problems, whether generic gameplay or a poor connection with the target audience.

We at UmGamer have separated the top ten titles that generated these debates. Check out, now, five successes and five failures in games in 2024!

Palworld

We already had a hit in the first month of the year, Palworld arrived for PC and Xbox Series X|S, and has even been part of the GamePass catalog since the first day of its launch.

In the first few weeks, the title “Pokémon with weapons” had already sold more than 12 million copies on Steam alone, reaching more than 2 million simultaneous players on the platform, not counting GamePass subscribers.

The hype in the first few weeks was huge, especially in Brazil because of the pun involving the name “Pal” given to the animals in that universe. I remember seeing my Instagram being taken over by puns and jokes about the game during that period. This was the target of several memes in the country, bringing even more exposure to Palworld, which appeared in several debates and content in the gamer community.

Despite the long controversy with Nintendo, involving lawsuits and alleged patent infringements, a large part of the community supports the Palworld company, and the title still has a good number of active users.

Black Myth Wukong

In August, Black Myth Wukong was released for PC and PS5. Developed by Game Science, a little-known Eastern company compared to the others, the game caught everyone's attention from the start. It was yet another name that surpassed the 2 million simultaneous players mark on Steam and totaled around 20 million copies in one month.

The perfect story and cinematics are what gave the game consistency and rhythm, the gameplay, fun and similar to Souls, was also a positive point for many!

Unfortunately, there are still no forecasts for the arrival of the title on Microsoft consoles, as the developer would need to launch it on the Series S and Series X, but there is a big challenge in optimizing production for the most basic version.

Even though it didn't win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2024, Black Myth: Wukong was a strong candidate which is recognized for this by the community, so much so that it won in the “Player Voice” category of the awards, defined by popular vote.

In fact, if you want to know the winners of all categories of The Game Awards 2024, especially which was the Game of the Year of this edition, just access our news clicking here!

Marvel Rivals

The most recent title on this list is Marvel Rivals, which was released on December 6th for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Even with a short window of time until the end of the year, this new hero shooter has already gained huge attention from the entire community.

Big debates on social media point out that Marvel Rivals is finally a worthy competitor to Overwatch 2, and if there is a game that can knock Blizzard's title off the top, it would be this one.

The gameplay is extremely fun, the game is bug-free and has innovated with unique abilities for some heroes. The cast of Marvel characters was also a huge factor in its success. On Steam alone, Marvel Rivals has reached more than 400 thousand simultaneous users daily.

Many believed that this genre was already declining and that we would not have another hero shooter attracting fans again, but NetEase proved that it’s still possible, and it was a pleasant surprise! You can understand more about Marvel Rivals by accessing our analysis, just here!

Balatro

The most surprising title on our list, and it shows the happier side of the internet. Balatro was created by Localthunk, a company with a single developer. He had no expectations for the game and intended to only promote it to friends and family. However, in just 8 hours after its release, the title made US$1 million and in the following weeks it surpassed its goal of selling 500,000 copies, and has been a complete success ever since.

This story has a happy ending, with Balatro being nominated for the Game of the Year award at TGA 2024, in addition to other categories, and won three of them: Best Independent Game, Best Debut Independent Game and Best Mobile Game.

This game, available for cell phones, PCs and consoles, both old and new generation, innovates by treating a simple poker game as a “roguelike”, introducing concepts of upgrades and abilities to the decks.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero

In terms of quality, we can put Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero and Tekken 8 at the same level, but in numbers, Bandai Namco's game has consolidated itself at the top of fighting games.

With a peak of 120,000 simultaneous players on Steam, almost triple that of its competitor, Dragon Ball sold more than 3 million copies for PCs and current-generation consoles in just 24 hours. Bringing the pinnacle of anime fighting, with high destructive capacity, the game won the hearts of fans.

In addition, one of the highlights of the community was the 181 playable fighters right at launch, all with great combos and very well portrayed, filling your experience with content.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Perhaps the biggest flop when it comes to hero games, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was developed by Rocksteady, the same studio responsible for the magnificent franchise Batman Arkham. Unfortunately, the company has not been able to maintain even close to the quality of its previous titles.

Focused on being a live-a-service, the game has been the target of criticism since its announcement. The delays and the leaking of the entire story before its release were other points that greatly harmed the revenue of this production, given that the plot strayed from the original Detective Comics universe, bringing facts that don't even make sense.

It could not have been any different, the historical peak of simultaneous players on Steam did not exceed 13 thousand users. This peak was not even maintained, with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lasting for months with numbers in just three digits on the platform.

There were still countless attempts to bring the title back to glory, from adding new villains like the Joker in the season updates, to literally giving the game away for free to Amazon Prime subscribers. On other occasions, we also saw the title being found in online stores with a 95% discount. But nothing was able to boost the numbers.

Warner Bros. has cited, on several occasions, the financial loss caused by this work since its launch. It’s even more frustrating if we compare the revenues directly with last year, when the company profited from the excellent launch of Hogwarts Legacy.

Unfortunately, the future held no other possibility. This month, Rocksteady announced the end of support for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which will take place in January 2025. The last update will be Episode 8 of Season 4.

A production this year, coming from the renowned developer of the best superhero saga in the history of video games, left a hole of hundreds of millions of dollars even with the vast and respected cast of DC villains in hand. And now we see this drastic end of support in less than 12 months.

Skull and Bones

Another disappointment at the beginning of 2024 was Skull and Bones. Expectations were as high as possible, the game had been in development for about 10 years, and was called “Quadruple-A” by Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, who considered the game a step above any other game ever released on the market.

This project was very similar to the previous one, a live-a-service proposal with less focus on the story and more on the endgame and character development. But there was a problem here too, the mission structure was heavily criticized by players, among several other topics.

That said, logically Skull and Bones did not achieve good numbers on any platform, with its peak on Steam being 2,500 at launch. Today, the title does not even have more than three hundred users.

Multiversus

The free-to-play game in the style of Super Smash Bros and Brawlhalla, with the entire Warner Bros cast, had everything to be approved by the public, but Multiversus proved to be one of the biggest disappointments in this market when it lost its fan base twice.

With a beta released in 2022, Multiversus started with good statistics, attracting more than 130 thousand players at the same time, only on Steam. However, the lack of modes displeased both the competitive audience, who were looking for a ranked system, and the casual audience, who wanted to diversify the gameplay with other types of matches.

Little by little, the community left it aside, forcing the company to close the servers after a few months, collecting feedback and promising a final release with the necessary improvements. Multiversus was literally dead for almost two years, until it returned in May 2024.

Everyone gave the game a second chance, especially because it was always fun to battle using the iconic personalities from Cartoon Network series, DC heroes and villains, among others, and so the title once again attracted attention with more than 100 thousand active players.

Multiversus brought new game modes, but some “minigames” were considered more basic and generic compared to the competition, once again alienating part of the community.

Other bad decisions were decisive for the second failure, including monetization practices considered abusive by fans, such as the addition of new playable characters only in the premium track of the Battle Pass, as was the case with Samurai Jack in Season 2. Paying for a skin is normal, but to unlock a character? It was the last straw for most people who gave up on Multiversus.

These and other attitudes meant that the game rarely maintained an average of a thousand users on Steam, keeping an average of 600 to 700.

XDefiant

This live-a-service FPS that promised to rival Call of Duty was a bold proposal by Ubisoft. Launched in May, XDefiant had a good start, with 8 million registered accounts in the first few days, but it failed to maintain consistency, with numbers dropping every week.

This project is further proof that it’s not easy to maintain the public's interest in a live-a-service for a long time. It requires accurate updates and a huge injection of money from the company to make the creative production of the development teams more efficient, delivering content that is worth the price of a microtransaction.

Without this, players will naturally leave, culminating in failure. This month, Ubisoft announced the closure of the servers, scheduled for June 2025. There will be refunds for fans who purchased the Ultimate Founders Pack or made microtransactions in the last 30 days, generating an outcry in the community by those who purchased cosmetics 31 days or more ago and will not be entitled to a refund.

Concord

Concord was a Sony production, exclusive to PCs and PlayStation 5. This new hero shooter was one of the biggest productions in this market. The developers claim that the cost alone reached 200 million dollars, with some rumors pointing to a value of US$400 million when marketing and sales teams were added.

The company's good track record of exclusives, combined with the high investment, generated a certain belief that Concord could dominate the live-a-service hero shooter market, until we experienced some problems. The first is the price of the game. Titles in this genre, such as Overwatch 2, Paladins, and now Marvel Rivals, are free, while Concord was sold for 40 dollars.

Months before its release, Sony released an open beta for us to test the game, and even though it was free, it did not reach more than 2,400 players on PC. The biggest criticisms highlighted the lack of personality of the characters, which is extremely necessary in a hero shooter, in addition to a common gameplay that does not innovate and much less justify a high price for the game.

With that, the public already imagined how catastrophic the launch of Concord would be, and it was no different. Its peak number of players on Steam was only 697, not even reaching the thousands, which puts it well below any other title mentioned here today.

Obviously, it became unfeasible to keep the servers running, and Sony decided to close the game, which remained online for only 14 days, becoming the target of several memes on the internet, and made it possible to fully refund the amount paid by fans on all platforms, including physical media.

An alleged expense of 400 million dollars for a literally zero return, it’s worth mentioning that months later the company also announced the closure of Firewalk Studios, the developer responsible for this release. This is the size of the damage caused by Concord.

Unfortunately, we have seen major companies already renowned in the gaming world for successful franchises, such as Ubisoft and Warner Bros, enter a period of turbulence, appearing more than once on the list of flops in 2024. At the same time, new studios, mainly from the East, stand out and receive public appreciation for their undeniable quality.

Most of the live-a-service titles on the market have failed, perhaps this is a lesson to be learned for the upcoming years. Will the end of 2024 mark a new era in the gaming market? Feel free to comment with an opinion or another game that was missing from one of the lists.