15 Promotional Video Games That Didn't Need to Exist

When a video game is known for changing the world, that sounds like what every video game developer is trying to achieve. Unfortunately for 1982’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” the effect that it had on the world was not a positive one. Cited as one of the most important video games for the sheer magnitude of its suckage, it is the earliest known example of a terrible movie-video game tie-in. But it would far from be the last. 

Not all branded video games are bad, though. Take “Chex Quest,” which on paper had everything working against it; it was a clone of another game (“Doom”) based on and sold with boxes of a pretty bland cereal. However, somehow, “Chex Quest” lives in that lofty area of collective nostalgia - something that, say, another Doom-clone, “Taco Bell: Tasty Temple Challenge,” does not.

And then there are games that are not trying to sell you sugary confections, or trying to ride the wave of popularity off a hit film, but are desperately trying to lie to young male gamers about the reality of actual war - like “America’s Army,” thanks to the US government, which enjoyed years of sequels. Read below for the good, the bad, and the “Hooters Road Trip.”