Former Nintendo of America Vice President of Sales Bruce Lowry, who held the position from 1981 to 1986, revealed which NES game was the worst in the company's history. It's about Donkey Kong Jr. Math, a project that, according to Lowry, "Nintendo couldn't even give away for free."
Donkey Kong Jr. Math was released along with the first games for the NES and was shown at the Summer CES 1985. Based on the 1983 version for the Famicom, it offered players to solve mathematical problems by controlling Donkey Kong Jr. The project was conceived as the beginning of a series of educational games, but sales were extremely low, and production was discontinued in 1988.
Lowry recalls:
"It was the worst game we ever sold. We thought it would be suitable for children, but they didn't even take it for free."
Later, Nintendo spokesman Tom Sarris confirmed in an interview with the LA Times that the company abandoned educational games due to the failure of Donkey Kong Jr. Math. According to him, "people just didn't want such software."
Later re-releases also did not help — in 2007, Nintendo Life gave the game a score of 1/10, and in the Wii U version in 2014, it received 4/10.
