Sega bet A$80M on a Sydney theme park — it lasted three and a half years

Sega World Sydney opened in March 1997 in Darling Harbour: an indoor theme park built around Sega's video-game characters, at an estimated cost of A$80 million. It was a joint venture between Sega, Sydney Harbour casino developer Jacfun and the Darling Harbour Authority, and its business plan needed 800,000 visitors a year just to break even.

The crowds never came at that scale. Ticket sales dwindled, and even free entry and free rides could not fix the takings. Sega had banked on the 2000 Sydney Olympics driving tourists to the park, but the Olympic boom bypassed it. In 1999 Sega sold its stake to Jacfun for A$36 million and left the venture.

Sega World Sydney closed on 12 November 2000, three and a half years after opening. Its rides were auctioned in March 2001; the building lingered as a furniture warehouse and a reality-TV set before demolition in late 2008. The site is now Commonwealth Bank office towers, and little remains to show the park existed.