What are the worst business decisions you've ever seen?
Blockbuster passing on Netflix has to be up there.
Blockbuster passing on Netflix has to be up there.
Worst business decisions ever.
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
- Start date
Photobucket singlehandedly destroyed a significant chunk of the internet. We will never know the sheer extent of it.
Not coming up with a three-movie plan before starting the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Everything 38 Studios did from inception to bankruptcy? I mean, I love Kingdoms of Amalur. I absolutely LOVE Kingdoms of Amalur. But imagine if Schilling had been the least bit competent about handling the money! Who knows, maybe the game was only as good as it was because he did act so stupidly. Or maybe they could've made just as good a product and maybe made a sequel.
First person to say "Arch Deluxe" will get to sample the all-new "McFist Deluxe," y'get what I'm sayin'?
It wasn't a bad business decision, just terrible, terrible marketing. But that sandwich was damn good.
along with cryptocurrency. Literally end game capitalism: we take your money and you get NOTHING. Absolutely nothing, except a few bits of data which we ultimately still control, and you have no say over what so ever.
Every time a cryptobro opens his forsaken gob, I get a powerful urge to invest in hand tools and canned foods.
I had to look this up.
Also, Nintendo passing on a deal with Sony to make a CD-based gaming upgrade to the Super Nintendo...in the most public and humiliating way possible.
The story behind Nintendo’s betrayal of Sony — and how it created its fiercest rival
Guest The following is an excerpt from Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan. It should have been a coup. On May 28, 1991, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Sony proudly revealed that it was working with Nintendo to create a version of the Super NES with an in-built CD...
venturebeat.com
Sears closing down their catalog sales division in 1993 is probably one of the worst cases of bad timing ever, since if they had kept that infrastructure around just a few more years they could have very easily transitioned it to a massive online sales platform before anyone had even heard of that little site that was selling hard to find books.
Which is really just an excellent example of how the future really cannot be predicted, and that sometimes maintaining expensive infrastructure to "hedge your bets" is a good idea.
Sadly, this was the 90's after all, and if you aren't cutting costs, you aren't a multinational corporation!
I still miss sears toy section. Sure, it mostly sucked, but least it was an option. Now all I got is walmart and TRU, and TRU has been a shell of it's former self since the american branch died.
Sadly, this was the 90's after all, and if you aren't cutting costs, you aren't a multinational corporation!
I still miss sears toy section. Sure, it mostly sucked, but least it was an option. Now all I got is walmart and TRU, and TRU has been a shell of it's former self since the american branch died.
If you go back in time a bit (so not anything any of us could have witnessed), Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell the patent to the telephone to Western Union for $100,000.
Western Union instead turned down buying the patent, then later tried to launch a rival telephony system and ultimately settled a patent lawsuit with Bell and left the telephone business entirely in 1879.
Meanwhile the Bell Telephone Company (which became AT&T) had a complete monopoly on telephone service in the United States from 1877 until the breakup of the Bell System in 1984.
Western Union instead turned down buying the patent, then later tried to launch a rival telephony system and ultimately settled a patent lawsuit with Bell and left the telephone business entirely in 1879.
Meanwhile the Bell Telephone Company (which became AT&T) had a complete monopoly on telephone service in the United States from 1877 until the breakup of the Bell System in 1984.
I had to look this up.
Also, Nintendo passing on a deal with Sony to make a CD-based gaming upgrade to the Super Nintendo...in the most public and humiliating way possible.
The story behind Nintendo’s betrayal of Sony — and how it created its fiercest rival
Guest The following is an excerpt from Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan. It should have been a coup. On May 28, 1991, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Sony proudly revealed that it was working with Nintendo to create a version of the Super NES with an in-built CD...
That contract HEAVILY favored Sony.
Last edited:
The only problem the Arch Deluxe had was Marketing. They sold it as being a More Adult taste than the Big Mac... I mean so the Big Mac is for kids?
Even so, Nintendo could have backed out of the contract more...TACTFULLY...than waiting until Sony announced the SFC/SNES expansion and THEN announce the Phillips partnership.
Hell, you could write a whole BOOK about how Japanese hubris resulted in bad business decisions, especially in gaming:
-Nintendo's actions with the N64, particularly its use of cartridges and the so-called "dream team".
-Sony's actions with the PS3 (off the HUGE success of the PS2)
-Sega in the 90s. All of it.
Same thing can be said for basically their entire menu.
Right, that's what I'm saying.
Does price count as part of marketing? I happily paid it, but I've seen stuff saying it was priced too high as well.
But yeah, some of those ads... like the ones seemingly designed to make kids not want McDonald's? WTF?
Heck, you could probably write a whole book about just Sega's missteps, given that their regional branches have been in basically a civil war since at least the Genesis/Mega Drive era. =/