People Reveal The Biggest And Most Embarrassing Corporate Failures They've Ever Seen

For those non gamer-geeks, No Man's Sky was an incredibly hyped video game that promised wondrous and magical things... and then sucked. It failed to deliver on anything it promised. It wasn't well liked. Overall fail-whale. That got one Reddit user thinking, this can't be the only example of a massive corporate or marketing failure, so they asked:

What was the "No Man's Sky" of other industries?

Now that we're done marveling at the fantastic feats of failure, we decided to share some with you. Be encouraged! A lot of these failures came from companies you know and love, so it just goes to show one bad idea or mistake doesn't have to sink you. Some of these entries are edited for clarity or combine responses from more than one person - because sometimes you can't fit all the suckage into just one comment.

NeverWet, a hydrophobic spray that was never as practical as the promotional material made it out to be.

I used neverwet on my working boots because I always had wet feets. So I buy neverwet and apply a ton of the two layers. Let em dry and apply another.

After a few hours I go back to my boots, and they turned blue. But not dark blue, it was an ugly pale blue that made me look like an idiot.

I was extremely embarrassed to go to work with blue boots.

After a week, my boots stopped being waterproof and they kept a light blue tint to this day.

Would never buy it again.

Pet store tried to run a "valet" service for doggy day camp- drive up to the curb and someone will come pick your dog up and bring them inside.

No one wanted to sit in their car to fill out the paperwork, no one trusted the employees enough to safely get their dog out of the car without having them run off into the parking lot and get hit by a car, and we didn't have enough employees to run back and forth anyway.

My store hid all of the promotional material for it, and the only time anyone asked about it was to make sure it wasn't mandatory and they could still walk their dog in themselves. Pretty sure the whole idea was just scrapped.

The movie Eragon.

The DeLorean. Sure it was famous, but it was a huge failure. Pretty sure the only reason it is famous is because of Back to the Future, but the car was a commercial flop from the stainless steel body that lacked paint and I think the doors were also a problem. It also had a pretty wimpy engine. The engine, in concert with the heavy body, made it so that the car would've struggled to hit 88 mph.

The Ouya was an android-based home console similar to something like Apple TV intended to play video games. Obviously since you haven't heard of it you know it can't be good. It revolutionized video game consoles for me. I had never had a console that sat on the shelf and never once got plugged in. Truly a first for its kind

Sea monkeys, the quintessential bait and switch - and a basic lesson on the deceptive nature of advertising for kids of the mail-order generation.

"Why aren't they making waffles or riding bikes? Are these things even alive?"

The Ford Edsel was the No Man's Sky of cars. It had a huge marketing campaign and was supposed to totally revolutionize the American car industry. When it came out, it was a decent and totally competent car, but it flopped because it didn't live up to the hype, and because someone who had clearly either never seen the car or the female anatomy. Decided to spread the opinion that the car's vertical grill looked like a a specific portion of the female anatomy.

The Last Airbender (the movie)

Donald Trump is the No Man's Sky of Politics.

Back in 1993, Bre-X bought a mining site in Indonesia. Soon they reported they found an utterly gigantic amount of gold on their land. Like, a stunningly huge amount. They had the assay results to back it up and their stock started going through the roof. People were literally getting rich investing in this stock. It was soaring to the heavens.

But mining never commenced. Problem after problem. At one point, they were claiming Indonesia's government was blocking them from starting to mine. But they kept coming up with richer and richer assay results and their stock kept soaring as it turned into one of the biggest gold deposits found in modern history. My father invested heavily in this company.

Then it came to light all the assay samples had been faked. Bre-X hadn't found anything. Their stock lost 95% of its value in a very short period of time as everyone sold. Anyone invested in it was wiped out. My father managed to get out on the way down, before it hit bottom, but he still didn't do well in terms of profit.

So, Bre-X is the No Man's Sky of the gold mining industry.

2004 Olympic Dream Team. Team USA had Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Tim Duncan, Amare Stoudamire, Lebron James, and Allen Iverson, and managed to lose its opening game by 19 points to Puerto Rico. Then at the end of game ceremony, they hoisted and played the Star Spangled Banner, the national flag and anthem of Puerto Rico. They would go on to lose to Lithuania and Argentina, and it would be the first time that a team of American NBA players failed to win the gold in the Olympics.

The XFL. Was supposed to be a REVOLUTIONARY new take on pro (American) football, with a different rule set, "edge" and--- of course since it was launched by Vince McMahon of WWE fame--- "attitude". It barely lasted its whole first season.

For motorcyclists a crowd sourced company named Skully said they were going to change the game with a very impressive prototype helmet that had all sorts of electronic goodies built into the helmet.

It all looked so great that thousands of people gave them money, which they then spend on themselves and f---ed over the project. I don't remember exactly (and am too lazy to go look it up) but I remember they took some sort of "vacation" which involved them spending 10's of thousands of dollars that were for product launch and development.

The Segway. Before revealing it they called it "It." They said "It" was small enough to fit in a duffel bag and would revolutionize the way cities were built. In middle school I had to write a paper on what I thought "It" was and the ramifications of It.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It got so hyped, and was pretty sub par to put it nicely. Wasn't even written by J.K. Rowling and yet they market it as hers. Even Rowling's name's bigger on the cover than the guy's who really wrote it.

I didn't even realize this until it arrived in my mailbox. Literally ten lines in, I was like:

"WTF is this horsesh*t?"

Mars One. It was seen as this amazing chance for humans to go and colonize Mars next decade and for ordinary people with a passion for space to have a chance to live on Mars. Nope, after a couple of years, it was found to be a huge scam.

Civil Engineer here. Solar freakin' roadways. From an engineering perspective, I have yet for anyone to tell me any advantage it gives over putting solar panels covering roads, or over parking lots, or literally anywhere but beneath cars.

I had a tiff with someone who legit who refused to acknowledge that the stuff they tested on a fucking bike path de-laminated in like 6 months. A BIKE PATH.

Yeah let's replace our 4.12 million miles of roadways made with asphalt and pavement (material that is pretty cheap and recyclable, correct me if I'm wrong) with what is essentially a computer. That'd be easy to maintain.

Here's a better idea: put solar panels in areas where you DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GIANT TONS OF METAL MOVING ACROSS THEM 24/7!!!!

Rant. Over.

Microsoft Kin

This is going to get buried, but the Microsoft Kin was a "social" mobile phone platform launched in 2010 that was targeted towards 15 to 30 year olds. It cost over $1 billion and two years to produce, yet sold so poorly, it was pulled from shelves within 48 days.

You can't really bomb much harder than that.

H/T: Reddit