Daikatana
Daikatana is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in May of 2000. It is known as one of the major flops of the computer game industry.
From very early on in the game's development, it had been aggressively advertised as the brainchild of John Romero, a man famous for his work at id Software in the development of Quake and DOOM. An infamous early advertisement for Daikatana was a red poster with large black lettering proclaiming "John Romero's about to make you his bitch". Nothing else featured on this poster but a small tag-line reading "Suck It Down" and an Ion Storm logo.
Daikatana was delayed numerous times from its conception in early 1997 to its eventual release in 2000. By this time id Software had released Quake III, making certain that Daikatana could not hold up technologically with its dated Quake II engine. Additionally, its gameplay had many aspects that were widely disliked by players, such as an artificially limited number of saves per level. The game was critically panned, and appeared on numerous "top 10 worst games" listings. Daikatana ultimately harmed Romero's reputation.
Daikatana is written with the Japanese kanji 大刀; these characters appeared on the cover of the game's box. The characters literally mean "large sword" in Japanese, a name which comes from an item in a long-running Dungeons and Dragons campaign played by the original members of id Software, which Romero cofounded. Note, however, that the game is American, and that the word "daikatana" does not actually exist in Japanese.