It’s understandable that every developer wants their game to be popular. However, you have to be careful what you wish for; not all popularity comes from word of mouth, and in the gaming world, a title destined for the scrap heap can go viral for the worst reasons.

Fans gathered to discuss the unlikely champions of gaming history in a May 17 Reddit thread. Sometimes, accidental success is a good thing, as in the case of GoldenEye 007 and its famous split-screen multiplayer, which was added at the last minute without permission from Rare or Nintendo, according to a 2018 Vice interview with programmer Steve Ellis. It’s almost unbelievable that a game mode that forever changed the first-person shooter genre barely made it into the game, let alone without the publisher’s permission.

Sometimes, though, popularity can be a nightmare for everyone involved. Personal opinions on the current state of Overwatch 2 aside, there’s something uniquely tragic about the creators putting so much work into the character designs, only to have them consistently go viral as… shall we say “adult creative content.” “Overwatch went from being known as a cool multiplayer hero shooter with interesting world-building to being known for its ‘fan animations,’” one fan said.

Anyone with a smartphone in 2014 should remember Flappy Bird, arguably the biggest mobile game of the year. While the app’s unexpected success may be seen as a positive by many, creator Dong Nguyen saw it differently, shutting down the viral project shortly after it became popular. “Flappy Bird is perhaps the patron saint of accidental video game fame,” one player succinctly put it, and it’s hard to disagree.