Friday the 13th: The Game

Friday the 13th launched May 26, 2017, with StreamerHouse pulling 369 viewers as IllFonic's asymmetric horror became the poster child for disastrous launches. Gun Media expected 30,000 concurrent players based on beta interest and pre-orders—75,000 showed up, and "things melted." The multiplayer-only game prevented players from accessing it at all due to "database game failure" errors, with matchmaking taking 10+ minutes when it worked. Reddit threads racked up 800 comments in two hours as XP tracking broke, preventing unlocks for new counselors and Jason skins. Server problems evolved through Memorial Day weekend with new issues appearing daily. Peter Brown's GameSpot review noted "a week after launch, it's short on content and performs poorly all around, especially on consoles." The developers were simply unprepared for demand. Because Friday the 13th was derivative of Dead by Daylight plus catastrophic technical performance, it failed to leave a lasting mark despite the iconic license. StreamerHouse playing in 2017 experienced a weekend massacre—not by Jason, but by server infrastructure collapsing under player enthusiasm. Sometimes anticipation kills your game faster than any slasher.