Can a game nowadays flop?

Indie games can flop.

Assassin's creed 5? whats that. Never heard of it. I have heard about unity and rogue but not of ac5

Any game can flop. Even if you sell thousands or have critical acclaim, if you don't cover your development costs plus have money to cover your running costs until the next game is released you're practically bankrupt. For indie devs that would mean a day job plus developing in your free time. For a studio that would mean the death sentence or getting financial help from a publisher for a big cut of the profits.

It's AC5 beating AC4 launch. Launch performance is based on the last game plus hype. Review embargo meant that reviews came 12 hours after release at the earliest. Preorders and launch day orders weren't affected by them. I imagine that the bugs and performance did make some people not buy the game, but without a breakdown of sales it's hard to tell.

Not really surprising, considering the embargo lifted AFTER the release. By that time the growing fanbase of the franchise had already bought their copies. Not sure how abysmal the console version is either, since that source basically tracks only console sales. PC sales are mostly digital, I don't think it would be a 52% PS4 / 46% Xbone / 2% PC split.... That and I still hope that console gamers tend to be more casual and care less about informing themselves.

In AC case, I think you're seeing the response to the last game. AC3 wasn't great, and as a result, AC4 sales weren't great at launch.

AC4 ended up being great, so AC5 had great sales at launch.

I bet the next AC game won't do so well at launch.

Preorders, there you get it.

Any game can flop. Which is why you just milk pre-orders as hard as you can before the game is released, because if it flops, it still gets good numbers.

so heres something interesting, what is the last game you can think off that was pandered by everyone and also was then we never saw something from it again.??

AAA only

Gamers have pretty short memories, I mean just look at CoD sales.

Oh games can definetly flop. Ubisoft actually hyped the game a lot (like Watch Dogs), got a lot of money from the game (like Watch Dogs) BUT their reputation is in downfall now. I myself follow the gaming industry and I knew that the game was fishy as soon as I heard that they wouldn't give out review codes, they have basically put out a half-finished project on shelves. An average joe will just see how shitty Unity is, he'll see the ubisoft logo and next time he'll definetly think twice before buying an ubisoft game. By the way, Ubisoft stocks went down a lot, so I hope this kick in the head will sober them up a bit. I love ubisoft, I am a PC gamer, do not have any console, and I really hope they'll change as they really have a lot of great series.

WarZ?

Should be asking:
Can a game nowadays Ubisoft?*

any game can flop, though it's harder for say a series like AC to due to higher chance of mindless fans and the hype machine. I mean for every one gamer complaining about AC5's issues, there's about 5+ who'd play it and ask for more to pay for.

Darksiders 2 bankrupted the company.