Square-Enix trying to sell off IO Interactive (Hitman)

Oh man, this is sad. Hitman 2016 was one of my favorite games last year. Was waiting for that S2; now, it seems more like a dream that will never come to happen.
 
MaKTaiL said:
It didn't.
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In terms of sales I absolutely believe it did. No doubt.

jrh2 said:
Really fucking bummed to see so many people saying they were waiting until the "full" game came out. There was honestly no reason to do that with this game, the episodic nature of it was completely fine, and in fact I personally think it worked to the game's benefit.
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The reason for me is simple: I buy a game and I play it and then I put it out of my head while I go play other stuff. I don't come back a month or two after to play the game again while I'm already playing something else. I only play one game at a time, so when episode 2 came out I would have been playing something else at that moment and would have had no interest in dropping that current game to come back for hitman. I just have to assume that I'm not the only one who is like like that. I bought the full package when it was done and had a blast with it.
 
gafneo said:
It's a game that sells on shock value. It's basically Man Hunt.
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confused-nigga.jpg

It's a game about being a super professional assassin, getting in there and getting the job done without anyone noticing what's happened. The best playthroughs in this game are probably boring to watch to bystanders, because everything is done like clockwork and things are happening exactly how they were planned.
 
Hitman could have been great, but I personally couldn't stand the voice acting. It seemed like they had like three or four actors doing every part, regardless of where you were in the world. It was like listening to a radio play, not playing a modern video game.

It's not ok to just have American voices even if you're in Italy. Just like it's not OK to set a game during the French Revolution and have all British voices. I don't know what the game industry is thinking with this.

Also, Hitman was always super dark and bleak and nihilistic. Think of a mission like The Meat King's party. Too frequently, the new Hitman was just goofy. A lot of really middling comedy.
 
MaKTaiL said:
I'll never buy a Square game ever again. They claim they are having huge losses? Well, I hope they die.
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I understand being sad or annoyed if you are a fan of the game series but try thinking before posting, you shouldn't wish this on anyone and just come off as very immature.

As for the topic, hope IO get picked up by somebody and land on their feet. Wouldn't want anyone to lose their jobs over this, was rather surprised seeing this today but then Hitman has never been on my radar so wasn't aware of how the series was doing sales wise.
 
xrnzaaas said:
confused-nigga.jpg

It's a game about being a super professional assassin, getting in there and getting the job done without anyone noticing what's happened. The best playthroughs in this game are probably boring to watch to bystanders, because everything is done like clockwork and things are happening exactly how they were planned.
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The problem seems to be that there are two different markets, team "quietly garrote the general" and team "lol a woodchipper".

Category b is much larger, but the game was made for category a.
 
Damn it Square why don't you kill off your crappy in-house dev team that hasn't made a good game in more than a decade instead?

New Hitman is fantastic and IO were true to their word when they apologized for Absolution being trash and that they would make up for it and make a new game that was more like Blood Money.

Hybris said:
Maybe actually play the game? The people you are assassinating aren't innocent.
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Also the game punishes you for killing innocent people if you want to play it right.
 
Mandoric said:
The problem seems to be that there are two different markets, team "quietly garrote the general" and team "lol a woodchipper".

Category b is much larger, but the game was made for category a.
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now compare that to manhunt where the target market is catagory b, and the only means to play it is catagory b. how that guy thinks they're remotely the same is beyond me. clearly never played either.
 
Have some thoughts. Just thoughts.

Since S-E aren't just shuttering the studio and the developers seem fairly optimistic, that leads me to believe plans are already in motion and this is likely going to have a positive outcome for the studio and its fans. Everyone was happy with Hitman sales in November. We only know steam numbers. It sold much better on the PS4 and that it sold for the full $60 for longer than Absolution. I really believe S-E would more likely stop Hitman Season 2 development and make them work on a Marvel game than shut them down. This sounds like to me there are other factors and players in play.
 
Does this mean no Season 2? If IO is sold are they selling Hitman too?
This sucks because I just recently completed Season 1. I had bought it at release and decided to wait until all episodes were out, as I got tired of just doing the Paris achievements.
 
TetraGenesis said:
Square Enix is the shittiest fucking publisher, I swear to god.
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In many senses, they are.

Look at how they constantly botch their own Dragon Quest IP outside of Japan, where literally any localization is seen as a miracle. People get literally shook when they announce an English release of anything.

In fact, many of the concerns about HITMAN Season One -- the always online aspect, to be specific -- was a publisher decision. You know, the universal blemish regarded to the game? That's a Square-Enix decision. But Tetsuya Nomura literally bleeding money farting into the air is acceptable stuff. A guy who has produced nothing substantial since 2006 on consoles. That's fine stuff. A guy who couldn't even get Versus out the fuckin' door.

How S-E has handled this IP has been hilarious. This isn't even the worst of it: they originally wanted Hitman to be an annual IP where IO made a game one year, and S-E Montreal, a studio created just to make Hitman games, was to make a game the following year. But Hitman Absolution didn't sell to expectations, which again, was a sequel to an IP with six years of nothing in the market (AND they wanted Absolution to be the best-selling game in the entire franchise) so S-E Montral was scrapped from being an AAA developer to a mobile one and IO had every non-Hitman IP cancelled. IIRC, Kane and Lynch was a direct casualty to this change.

Hitman may, in fact, be S-E's most poorly used series. So many expectations and so much higher end fuckery. Too many ideas they had ruined by too short-term of a vision.

HITMAN is like Absolution in that the fuckery of Square-Enix's expectations made internally have not gone to their lofty visions, so they're burning the asphalt again. Who should expect Absolution to be the best selling game in a series dormant for half a decade? Who should expect HITMAN, a "long term" game -- hence the concept of annual releases and Seasons, something Square-Enix kind of wanted to do with the IP after Absolution -- didn't come out of the gate smashing records?

Anyone expecting this to be some super gangbuster shit to a stealth series IP no less is taking some serious drugs. HITMAN always seemed like a long-term plan, so to see them whine about it just a year in is hilarious and shortsighted. It fucking took a year for people to see the potential.
 
I've never gotten the complaints about the voice acting. There's levels with hundreds of NPC's, and I get that an American accent in Italy/Morocco/Bangkok might take you out of the setting but come on. You really expect a developer to hire a couple voice actors just to say a few throwaway lines that get repeated occasionally during the game.

I get that sometimes you're doing these levels over and over and over again and it can get tiresome to hear the same dialogue but come on, you're playing a videogame as a hitman. If you have problems with it breaking your "immersion" of the game, well then, you're expecting too much from your video games. They're entertainment.
 
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Foffy said:
In many senses, they are.

*snip*
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I don't think they are the worst but they certainly have made poor decisions at times. Forcing in that microtransaction mode into Deus Ex Mankind Divided and splitting the game up (if reports are true) burying the series for the future was one of the decisions that rather upset me. I understand the need to make money, they are a buisness but those decisions feel rather self harming in hindsight especially with how well received Human Revolution was.
 
Foffy said:
In many senses, they are.

Look at how they constantly botch their own Dragon Quest IP outside of Japan, where literally any localization is seen as a miracle. People get literally shook when they announce an English release of anything.

In fact, many of the concerns about HITMAN Season One -- the always online aspect, to be specific -- was a publisher decision. You know, the universal blemish regarded to the game? That's a Square-Enix decision. But Tetsuya Nomura literally bleeding money farting into the air is acceptable stuff. A guy who has produced nothing substantial since 2006 on consoles. That's fine stuff. A guy who couldn't even get Versus out the fuckin' door.

How S-E has handled this IP has been hilarious. This isn't even the worst of it: they originally wanted Hitman to be an annual IP where IO made a game one year, and S-E Montreal, a studio created just to make Hitman games, was to make a game the following year. But Hitman Absolution didn't sell to expectations, which again, was a sequel to an IP with six years of nothing in the market (AND they wanted Absolution to be the best-selling game in the entire franchise) so S-E Montral was scrapped from being an AAA developer to a mobile one and IO had every non-Hitman IP cancelled. IIRC, Kane and Lynch was a direct casualty to this change.

Hitman may, in fact, be S-E's most poorly used series. So many expectations and so much higher end fuckery. Too many ideas they had ruined by too short-term of a vision.

HITMAN is like Absolution in that the fuckery of Square-Enix's expectations made internally have not gone to their lofty visions, so they're burning the asphalt again. Who should expect Absolution to be the best selling game in a series dormant for half a decade? Who should expect HITMAN, a "long term" game -- hence the concept of annual releases and Seasons, something Square-Enix kind of wanted to do with the IP after Absolution -- didn't come out of the gate smashing records?

Anyone expecting this to be some super gangbuster shit to a stealth series IP no less is taking some serious drugs. HITMAN always seemed like a long-term plan, so to see them whine about it just a year in is hilarious and shortsighted. It fucking took a year for people to see the potential.
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I have nothing to add. You nailed my feelings exactly.

I feel like Square-Enix, as a publisher, resents their Western market in a way. The disparity between their treatment and expectations of their internal teams versus their Western ones says it all.
 
FallenGrace said:
I don't think they are the worst but they certainly have made poor decisions at times. Forcing in that microtransaction mode into Deus Ex Mankind Divided and splitting the game up (if reports are true) burying the series for the future was one of the decisions that rather upset me. I understand the need to make money, they are a buisness but those decisions feel rather self harming in hindsight especially with how well received Human Revolution was.
Click to expand...

HR and Dishonored were the worst thing to happen to the genre. They set false sales expectations which the market for these games does not support. Companies/CEOs are expected to show financial growth each time a new game comes out and that just is not always realistic. Especially if you make niche games.
 
I expect a lot of the mid-tier publishers looking to make a splash like Starbreeze, Deep Silver, 505 and THQ Nordic will look long and hard at this. Hopefully everything works out okay because IO is an incredibly talented studio.
 
Foffy said:
In many senses, they are.

Look at how they constantly botch their own Dragon Quest IP outside of Japan, where literally any localization is seen as a miracle. People get literally shook when they announce an English release of anything.

In fact, many of the concerns about HITMAN Season One -- the always online aspect, to be specific -- was a publisher decision. You know, the universal blemish regarded to the game? That's a Square-Enix decision. But Tetsuya Nomura literally bleeding money farting into the air is acceptable stuff. A guy who has produced nothing substantial since 2006 on consoles. That's fine stuff. A guy who couldn't even get Versus out the fuckin' door.

How S-E has handled this IP has been hilarious. This isn't even the worst of it: they originally wanted Hitman to be an annual IP where IO made a game one year, and S-E Montreal, a studio created just to make Hitman games, was to make a game the following year. But Hitman Absolution didn't sell to expectations, which again, was a sequel to an IP with six years of nothing in the market (AND they wanted Absolution to be the best-selling game in the entire franchise) so S-E Montral was scrapped from being an AAA developer to a mobile one and IO had every non-Hitman IP cancelled. IIRC, Kane and Lynch was a direct casualty to this change.

Hitman may, in fact, be S-E's most poorly used series. So many expectations and so much higher end fuckery. Too many ideas they had ruined by too short-term of a vision.

HITMAN is like Absolution in that the fuckery of Square-Enix's expectations made internally have not gone to their lofty visions, so they're burning the asphalt again. Who should expect Absolution to be the best selling game in a series dormant for half a decade? Who should expect HITMAN, a "long term" game -- hence the concept of annual releases and Seasons, something Square-Enix kind of wanted to do with the IP after Absolution -- didn't come out of the gate smashing records?

Anyone expecting this to be some super gangbuster shit to a stealth series IP no less is taking some serious drugs. HITMAN always seemed like a long-term plan, so to see them whine about it just a year in is hilarious and shortsighted. It fucking took a year for people to see the potential.
Click to expand...

They fucked up Mankind Divide as well. With the preorder nonsense, and the supposed shoehorning of microtransactions into the game at the last minute. Oh, and deciding to split the game in half just to try and make more money.
 
TetraGenesis said:
I have nothing to add. You nailed my feelings exactly.

I feel like Square-Enix, as a publisher, resents their Western market in a way. The disparity between their treatment and expectations of their internal teams versus their Western ones says it all.
Click to expand...

They resent it because they thought it would be a cash cow. The problem is they tend to think they understand what the market wants. And when they finally get it right, they see low profits not even remembering that the reason for them. Anyone that played Absolution and didn't like would be extremely cautious about Hitman 2016. That and the fact that episodic probably didn't do as well as they thought it would. Hell they even decided to fuck with Deus Ex. Listening to that Jimquistion report was eye opening.
 
Kill3r7 said:
HR and Dishonored were the worst thing to happen to the genre. They set false sales expectations which the market for these games does not support. Companies/CEOs are expected to show financial growth each time a new game comes out and that just is not always realistic. Especially if you make niche games.
Click to expand...
Prey seems to be falling into that too though Bethesda is a seperate beast altogether with their odd review policy. It's like they want their games dead on arrival :(
 
TetraGenesis said:
I have nothing to add. You nailed my feelings exactly.

I feel like Square-Enix, as a publisher, resents their Western market in a way. The disparity between their treatment and expectations of their internal teams versus their Western ones says it all.
Click to expand...

Yep, agreed. I mean, let's think about what's happened with their western devs/franchises like Eidos and IOI since being picked up by SE: Deus Ex, critically acclaimed, then driven into mud by poor executive decisions around MD; Hitman, which despite completely recovering the series reputation has apparently a very murky future; Thief, which had that aborted reboot attempt with the crossgen game; Legacy of Kain, which...let's not even go there; and Tomb Raider which...actually has done pretty well across the board, but who knows what its future is, given their parent company.
 
Sad to hear this, as HITMAN was an excellent game after the disappointing Hitman: Absolution.
I didn't have a problem with the episodic nature of the game - if anything it seemed to help them refine the gameplay over time, but I typically only buy episodic games once they are complete, which probably hurts them.
I don't think it's a good sales model for games. Unless you have an unexpected hit, most games that are episodic seem to have been harmed by it in some way or another.

Another thing which caused me to wait is that stupid always-online design of the game.
I was really hoping that there would be a proper offline mode released once Season 1 was completed.

And on top of that, the "Elusive Targets" is a big fuck you to anyone joining in late.
Their plan was obviously to try and avoid people waiting for the full season with these "buy it now or you will miss out!" missions, but for me it just made the game less desirable as time went on - which is why I ended up waiting until I could buy the season for $15.

I think those decisions really turned off a lot of their fanbase.
I've been playing the Hitman games since the original back in 2000, and this was the first one I didn't buy on release.
 
zeelman said:
They fucked up Mankind Divide as well. With the preorder nonsense, and the supposed shoehorning of microtransactions into the game at the last minute. Oh, and deciding to split the game in half just to try and make more money.
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While all true, what was the other shitpit with the IP? What huge plans did they make, on two separate occasions, be turned into dust?

Hitman has their post-Absolution and now HITMAN plans. Deus Ex has Mankind Divided and the fact that might not get a sequel -- pretty bad for games running on trilogies, like HITMAN was... -- but the only other fuckup I can think of was The Fall, a game they never actually finished.

HITMAN might look a lot like that, now. A game with a cliffhanger and crystal clear hinting that more is coming, but nothing arrives. Plans of three games, confirmation of a second one, and it all going fucking nowhere, because Square-Enix doesn't know what a long-term plan is.

Remember, this was the same company that was talking about the "Versus epic" a franchise of games based around Final Fantasy Versus XIII. These guys couldn't even come up with a long term plan even if they got it from sentient AI. This is the same company when Yoichi Wada was in charge, he'd listen to fortune tellers when making business decisions.
 
gafneo said:
I'm not the one desensitized by watching innocent people choke to death.
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You're not watching people choke to death though are you? It's a bunch of pixels. There's nothing desensitising about it, I've played countless violent games and still refrain from watch any graphic content in real life, even if it's just a picture of a footballer's injury.

There's no shock value in Hitman, there's no excess gore or violence, most of the time you're assassinating your target from some distance and don't even get a good view of it. Not to mention that killing innocents is punished and massacres are outright impossible. It's actually a very a very thoughtful stealth game. God, what an ignorant and pretentious statement.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Oof.

Not surprising, looking at the sales numbers. With all hands on deck from their western studios being Marvel and Tomb Raider, they probably don't want to bother with anything selling less than a million copies.
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Yeah :(

Mass Effect and Hitman news one after another. I'm gonna enter into morbid depression.
 
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