Question regarding developers and their sub-par videogames.

[Arisfarreach]

Now-a-days we see a lot of mediocre/bad videogames released.

My question is, do these developers/publishers know that their game is going to be complete crap? Or do the studios actually believe their "50 Cent" videogame is going to be a smash hit?

Obviously Bethesda knows "Skyrim" is gonna be awesome, and Sega knows "Thor" is gonna suck, but what about games that fall somewhere between the two?

[KingHorse]

A mix of optimism, ignorance and a little but (but not much) 'they know better than you' That's not meant to be derogatory. Some games we think are going to suck don't, but most do. They don't usually know until they release them. There was a game named Fatal Frame that I totally expected to be horrible. Some people may think it is. But when I played it, it did a great job of startling me numerous times, and kept me playing for almost two years. The game was expected to be a flop by the publishers, so they kept the copies low. Didn't print many. But a year after the game was released, used copies sold for as much as new copies had originally, because the reviews were great (after release) and there weren't enough copies to satisfy the demand.