[Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.

[u/mp3help]

1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.

2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.

[u/Big-Director4193]

[u/Diagonaldog → u/Big-Director4193]

Blinx was cool kinda wish it caught on

[u/DizslecksickMoael → u/Diagonaldog]

The sequel was actually really kick-ass. It's a shame the series went absolutely nowhere, the premise of having an entire department of time-travelling fixers that are all cats fighting a pig menace had a lot of franchise potential if they actually marketed the damn games.

[u/drinks_rootbeer → u/DizslecksickMoael]

They were so much fun! The sequel really does outshine the original, but bith have great platformijg and such a fun & unique set of mechanics! Great games, hifhly recommend 

[u/DjiDjiDjiDji → u/Diagonaldog]

I always thought Blinx didn't catch on because was in a weird uncanny valley for a mascot character. Like they wanted him to be cool and cute at the same time a la Sonic but went about it in the worst way possible. He's like a semi-realistic cat who's cute at first glance but as soon as he opens his mouth he's got the cheshire cat grin murder teeth that make him look freaking evil

Like, this was the main cover for the game, and I'm sorry he doesn't look confident, he just looks like he's gonna beat you to death with his vacuum cleaner

[u/DogEducational447 → u/DjiDjiDjiDji]

Never played blinx but i always wanted to, my brothers xbox had a pamphlet that had this image + screenshots of Blinx. Blinx went hard as hell to 7-10 year old me