Worst Launch Ever?

[Vhailor]

Since we all have time to be disconnected or locked out of content, just wanted to ask people the worst game launches that they can remember. The Stormblood launch is fresh on people's minds but there's gotta be worse ones than this that people can think of. Right?

Half-Life 2's Steam activation (which was the original launch of the Steam service) was awfully rough. It was made worse by the fact that it was a single-player title, so it felt very unnecessary.

That said, Stormblood is inching up the ranks for me, mostly because I find it impossible not to take into account SE's prior experience and presumed lesson-learning. Valve got a little bit of a pass for me with HL2 because they were trying something new for them. For SE, this is old hat.

Also, I'm basing my judgment solely on technical errors, not on general product crappiness. Diablo 3, for instance, was a god-awful steaming pile of crap at launch, but technically it didn't do so badly as to stick out in my memory.

[cporter]

Half-Life 2's Steam activation (which was the original launch of the Steam service) was awfully rough. It was made worse by the fact that it was a single-player title, so it felt very unnecessary.

That said, Stormblood is inching up the ranks for me, mostly because I find it impossible not to take into account SE's prior experience and presumed lesson-learning. Valve got a little bit of a pass for me with HL2 because they were trying something new for them. For SE, this is old hat.

Also, I'm basing my judgment solely on technical errors, not on general product crappiness. Diablo 3, for instance, was a god-awful steaming pile of crap at launch, but technically it didn't do so badly as to stick out in my memory.

I'm almost positive steam existed before half life 2... As i remember playing counter strike at net cafes on steam before hl2.