The Top 5 Ways Good Games Die

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: a lot of games fail, and not because they’re bad. Some of them are genuinely fun, creative, engaging, maybe even brilliant. But they still crash and burn. Why?

Because too many developers design games without understanding gamers.

I’m not talking about corporate monetization flops, shady loot boxes, or marketing that missed its audience. I’m talking about games that should’ve been good but weren’t. Not because of their mechanics, but because of who they were made for (or, more often, who they weren’t).

So here’s the top five ways even a great game can die. These are design choices, accessibility blind spots, and mechanical misfires that alienate real players, even when the game itself is solid.

Let’s count it down.

5. You Aimed Too Small

No one wakes up and thinks, “I’m gonna make a game that excludes people.” But that’s exactly what happens when you design with a hyper-narrow audience in mind. You build a first-person shooter? Great. But you’ve just accepted that people who hate FPS games aren’t going to touch it. Totally fine… until you forget that.

Instead of asking “how do we appeal to my people,” ask “how do I bring more people in?”

Think about Apex Legends. It’s an FPS, but I still play it… and I hate FPS games! Why? Because I can play a character like Caustic, throw traps, avoid firefights early on, and still feel useful. It bends just enough to meet me halfway. That’s not about being “easy.” That’s about being playable.

Games that allow players with different strengths to show up differently? That’s how you grow a player base. That’s how a game survives.

4. You Stuffed It With Junk

You’ve got a great core gameplay loop. People like it. It’s working. So what do you do next?

Apparently, you throw in a crafting tree, a photo album system, and a slot machine mini-game for no reason whatsoever.

Feature bloat is the silent killer of good games. Take Warframe. Amazing abilities. Cool combat. But in between all that? You’ve got a PhD in blueprint hunting and crafting materials. Now you’re not playing a ninja space game, you’re stuck comparing mineral drop rates on a wiki. Sure, Warframe is alive and well, but I’m not usually found on there.

Here’s the problem: people add mechanics that don’t serve the experience. Usually because they saw some other game do it, or because they felt like they “needed more content.” But content that breaks immersion isn’t more, it’s less. It makes the game feel like it doesn’t know what it wants to be.

If your game is fun, trust it. You don’t need to bury it in chores.

3. You Forced Players to Own a Niche Device

Let’s talk about platform rigidity. Specifically, designing games that require specific hardware like VR.

I loved Automata Break. It’s a co-op tower defense/FPS hybrid where one player’s building towers and the other is blasting enemies in VR. Awesome idea. Great execution. Total disaster.

Why? Because if I wanted to play it solo? Gotta wear the VR headset. And if I wanted to play it with someone else? Better hope they’re in the same room, because there’s no online play (more on that in a sec). Worst of all? You can’t play it at all unless you have a VR headset.

VR is cool. So are Joy-Cons. But when you lock your game to one method of interaction, you’ve made a choice to exclude everyone who doesn’t own the toys. That’s fine if you’re Nintendo. It’s suicide if you’re not.

Start with: “How do I make this game awesome?”
End with: “How do I make it accessible?”

2. You Thought Couch Co-op Was Enough

It’s time we had a hard talk, devs: the couch is dead. Long live the couch.

There are only three reasons to make a local-only co-op game in 2025:

One: You’re making a game for little kids to play with their parents.
Two: You’re trying to be better than date night.
Three: You’re making a party game for four or more people.

If you’re not doing one of those things, why is your game couch-only?

We live in a world where hanging out remotely is easier, cheaper, and frankly better. I can spend more time gaming with friends if we all stay home. No gas. No pants. No problem.

Designing a game that requires physical proximity isn’t charming, it’s out of touch. Add online play. It’s not a feature. It’s a basic requirement.

1. You Didn’t Include Crossplay

This one’s not optional. This is the hill your game will die on.

When deciding what to play, gamers ask two questions:

One: What am I in the mood for?
Two: Who am I playing with?

That second question will instantly kill any game that doesn’t have full crossplay. If I’m on PC and my buddy’s on Xbox, and your game doesn’t support both? Guess what, we’re not playing it.

It’s not “we’ll think about it.” It’s not “we’ll give it a shot anyway.” It’s off the table. There are too many other games out there that let us play together without compromise.

I don’t choose a game over my friends. I never have. I never will. And neither will anyone else.

Crossplay isn’t a bonus. It’s baseline. If you’re building a multiplayer game in 2025, and you want it to survive, it has to let people play with the people they want to play with regardless of the plastic box under their TV.

So What’s the Lesson?

It’s not about whether your game is fun. It’s about whether your game understands your players.

Where are they? What do they have access to? Who are they trying to play with? What kinds of experiences do they want to share?

You don’t need to make a game that pleases everybody. But you do need to stop alienating the people who already want to play.

Because the truth is, you could have the most innovative, satisfying, perfectly-balanced game ever made… and if it can’t be played by the people who would love it?

It dies anyway.