Apocalypse Then: Daikatana

10 Years of Daikatana

On this day in gaming, Daikatana was released. It was developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos. The game was released on PC, N64, and Game Boy.

The brainchild of John Romero, who previously co-founded id Software and worked on classics like Doom and Quake, Daikatana was a FPS that used the Quake II engine, and is also known as one of the biggest flops of the video game industry. It was technologically outdated way before its release, which was delayed several times over a period of three years. And not to mention numerous team members working on the game quitting while still in development.

John Romero recently, nearing the ten year anniversary of the game, commented on the controversial ad for the game, which had the slogan: “John Romero’s about to make you his bitch.”

"I knew it was risky, and I didn't want to do it. It didn't make sense. I mean, there's the whole culture of smack talk that goes with games and especially an FPS, and that was something I was known for. You know, I never wanted to make you my bitch, not you, not them, not any of the other players and, most importantly, not any of my fans.

"I should have stopped that ad. I didn't, and I'm sorry for that. Our head of marketing tells me that they spent a lot of time working on it, and ... all these other things. I should have said fucking no. I've looked back on that three minute meeting a hundred times."

"Up until that ad, I felt I had a great relationship with the gamer and the game development community and that ad changed everything.The game insulted nearly everyone who read it. It was a terrible marketing decision. I apologize for letting it loose in the first place."

"It's a miracle it was released at all. There were issues on the inside and the outside. Half the team left. ... that's not the best way to make a game."

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Source: News: Romero "regrets" Daikatana ad campaign [Eurogamer via Gamesauce]

Apocalypse Then: Daikatana