From CoD to GTA: 7 hated games that were still extremely successful

Usually, unpopular video games end up as painful sales flops. In rare cases, however, publishers still make a fortune with them – we show you 7 games here that have sold extremely well despite great criticism.

In fact, bad ratings and angry fan protests lead to a disaster at the box office for most games. Expensively produced but immature games tend to evolve that way painful, sometimes even legendary flops. Some games, however, are apparently immune to this dynamic – and sell millions of game copies despite all sorts of scandals. We show you 7 games that, despite harsh criticism, made a surprising amount of money.

Call of Duty: Ghosts isn’t the most controversial game in the shooter series – that credit probably goes to the crude sci-fi detour Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. For many, it is still one of the weakest games in the series. In short: With a metascore rating of 68, a user score of 2.2 and mediocre gameplay, CoD: Ghosts (PC) was a game that few fans even remember – although it managed to sell over 28 million copies in total. (Source: Metascore / Statista)

The GTA Remaster trilogy hit the market at the end of 2021 with a plethora of embarrassing issues – and fans and critics were quick to agree that Rockstar ruined a success that was previously believed to be certain had. But while the game collection was rightfully torn up in the air, that wasn’t reflected in the sales figures. Instead, the loveless trilogy has sold over 10 million copies – a whopping success for Rockstar and Take-Two. (Source: game tips)

Resident Evil 6 will forever be the game in which Chris Redfield hit a rock and the series completely broke away from its survival horror origins. With a meta score of 60 (PS4), the game was rightly punished and the series returned to its strengths with the hard cut of Resident Evil 7. Despite the ample criticism, the game has sold over 10 million copies to date, making it one of Capcom’s most successful games of all time. (Source: Capcom / Metacritic)

The sci-fi shooter was one of the biggest disappointments in video games of 2013, with a meta score of 45 and a User score of a pitiful 3.6 knocked down. The game was not up to par in every way, with tons of bugs, weak graphics, non-existent enemy AI, and mediocre gameplay. Despite this, the game managed to sell 1.3 million copies in the US and Europe alone in the first three months, making it onto the list of the best-selling SEGA games of the year. (Source: Metacritic)

With Anthem, BioWare should land a worldwide live service hit for EA. Instead, the looter shooter turned into a fiasco for developers and publishers, which in the end only left wasted potential and shattered dreams – but still Over $100 million in revenue through digital sales (already one month after the 2019 release). (Source: SuperData)

Like most post-millennial games in the Sonic universe, Shadow the Hedgehog didn’t really win anyone over – the game’s now rather embarrassing emo look fell into place with the bumpy gun gameplay, the insufficient camera work and annoying controls together to a Metascore of 45. Nevertheless, Shadow the Hedgehog was able to sell a whopping 1.59 million copies in the first 6 months. (Source: SEGA Sammy)

With Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red has experienced a fiasco that now seems historical. The game’s release was a complete disaster on almost all platforms and improvements took a long time to be implemented. While next-gen upgrades and other patches are now available, the game itself just isn’t that good. Despite this belly landing CD Projekt Red the RPG over 18 million times sold. (Source: Statista)