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Sony shuts down Bluepoint Studios
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Davey Cakes
Member
Companies being unwilling to retain and foster talent through thick and thin is the reason why the industry is in the gutter on the AA and AAA end.
Also, I don't want to hear anything about "charity" when Sony was willing to babysit Firewalk Studios to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for a game that anyone with a brain could've told them was a bad idea.
Jinzo Prime
Member
Roni
Member
Aight, dawg. You're clearly zealous of PlayStation and no reason will change that. You've heard the truth, now you need to do some internal mulling to accept it.
It's a shame you don't have your Discord friends to coordinate harassment against members who write things you don't like to read.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
PlayStation axed Bluepoint so it could allocate resources towards other talent.
PlayStation treated both companies exactly the same. Both were funded a long time when PlayStation was interested in what they were making. PlayStation axed both when they lost interest. It's not a charity. Produce or look for a new job.
RCX
Member
Or that they're actually making a game at all this time.
Bluepoint should've never been making anything original at all. They are (or were) a god-tier remaster studio. That's all they should ever have been tasked with.
asdasdasdbb
Member
yurinka
Member
Fake news, Media Molecule released their most recent game 6 years ago and kept supporting it with post launch support until 3 years ago, including a VR version. And all their games from all generations have been profitable.
And Fairgame$ is being made by a team of people whose leads and seniors are rare cases of people who made top selling AAA games in different studios they created, including several record breaking new IPs and GaaS. Their studio was funded under 5 years ago, which means their game has been under development during around 4 or 4.5 years.
Games nowadays take around 5-9 years to be made, a bit more or less depending on the case. So it's stupid and nonsensical to complain about their output.
They spent so many years doing remasters and remakes, I understand that they wanted to evolve and work in new games instead. As support team, because they didn't have people in the roles needed to do their own games.
I'd have grown the studio to have a team for remakes and remasters and another one to support new games. So they could put mostly juniors in remasters and remakes and the burned out people in new games.
But I assume the low sales of their remakes and high salaries in Texas combined meant that wasn't a good financial idea. So moved everyone to support in new games, and maybe they were too expensive compared to similar support teams.
In the Sony side, could have forced them to make remakes against their will, but that means many people would leave, and maybe would still be too expensive.
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RCX
Member
And somehow Hulst still has his job.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
What stings is that the DeS remake had to be one of the most polished AAA games released in a long time. The game was pristine. Not needing overhauls or bug after bug patches for anything serious. No UE5 trash hitches, no poor IQ, no crashing, nothing. Every patch improved on an already amazing product or fixed super minor niche things that 99% of the people never would experience.
Oh my sweet little baby... How naive you are. This shit runs deeeeeep.
Top class technical polish in a sea of mediocrity and "fix as you go" after the public beta tests your retail game, like most AAA games now.
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diffusionx
Gold Member
dreams isn't a game, it's a stupid masturbatory project nobody cared about
Fair games is the dumbest shit imaginable and not a single person is excited about it, it's just evidence the people who are paying for it are totally out of touch.
The idea that a game takes 9 years to make is ridiculous, maybe it the studio melted down in the middle of it. Even 5 years is only barely justifiable in the context of the situation from 20-22.
Stop simping
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Topher
Identifies as young
Apparently the thought process is that Sony just allows their studios to dig their own grave doing stuff they have had no prior experience doing. If you want to set yourself up for failure then please, go right ahead.
Should have never been acquired in the first place then.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Clearly this has brought the internet together. BP was beloved and clearly everyone hates herman and Sony now. It's time to put your money where your mouth is and show Sony that you wont tolerate it. We've made them reverse retarded decisions before. The PS3/vita store closings, the HFW $70 price tag, and the doubling of XBL Gold decisions were all reversed after the gamers raised enough stink. Maybe its too late to save BP, but a real boycott would make Sony and other publishers think twice before treating these developers like cattle. It's BP today, it will be SSM, Bungie, or Insomniac or ND tomorrow. I can promise you, when you have a CEO who has no shame, anything goes.
1) Cancel PS+ subs. You can live without cod and BF for a month. This will hurt sony the most.
2) Cancel all pre-orders, especially sony ones. Marathon, Saros, Wolverine. Sony WILL see it.
3) Herman Hulst has a twitter account. Destroy that cowardly mother fucker. No death threats or harrassment, but let me know that you are not happy.
4) Downvote every single Playstation video on youtube. Especially the latest state of play. They WILL see it.
5) Downvote every single Playstation exclusive on the PS store.
This is the only language they understand. We have power. It's not just the shareholders. They HAVE to cater to us as well.
1) Cancel PS+ subs. You can live without cod and BF for a month. This will hurt sony the most.
2) Cancel all pre-orders, especially sony ones. Marathon, Saros, Wolverine. Sony WILL see it.
3) Herman Hulst has a twitter account. Destroy that cowardly mother fucker. No death threats or harrassment, but let me know that you are not happy.
4) Downvote every single Playstation video on youtube. Especially the latest state of play. They WILL see it.
5) Downvote every single Playstation exclusive on the PS store.
This is the only language they understand. We have power. It's not just the shareholders. They HAVE to cater to us as well.
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yurinka
Member
Go fuck yourself, angry Pikachu.
Dreams is a game that won a ton of awards. And the idea of a game taking 9 years to make isn't an idea, it's a fact that many games took that or even more. And other than the yearly sports games that barely change anything, most AAA games released in this generation and many even before.
As an example, Dreams took 8 years, MM said in 2012 that were working in two games (one beint Tearaway, the other Dreams), in 2013 announced Dreams and released it in 2020.
SIE runs a business and don't have infinite money, and sometimes despite having record revenue or profits there are things like RAM and SSD skyrocketing their prices, new tariffs, big inflation and so on fucking their profitability, so they need to cut costs to compensate and sadly make layoffs or shut down some of their less profitable studios. This is not being incompetent or evil monsters, it's the reality of running a company in the real world.
So a better option would be to buy the games a dev studio makes instead of not buying them and then complain when they get shut down because they aren't profitable. Because btw Bluepoint remakes got great reviews but weren't great sellers.
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Shifty1897
Member
Make a thread. I'm in.
diffusionx
Gold Member
It's literally not a game. It's a bullshit "creation tool" that only ran on PS4 and you needed a controller to use it. I don't care what awards it won from fart sniffers and nobody cared about it.
If Sony wants to waste money on this bullshit for eight years (probably cost them $200 million at least) that's their perogative, but there is no economic justification for shutting down a studio like Bluepoin that you can't also apply to MM and even Bend.
Just because a game takes 9 years to make doesn't mean it should and indicates major issues with the studio and production. Like say Metroid Prime 4.
mayham2199
Member
lol seriously. Just buy Demon Souls that all of you are raving about. It only sold 1.7m and then you guys are in shock they are closed. Meanwhile all the hate Spiderman 2 and Horizon get on this site sell 10x that.
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Topher
Identifies as young
Sony knew what the sales numbers of DS were before they acquired the studio. Plenty of people here, myself included, did buy DS. And they hoped for more. That's the reason for the shock. Bluepoint did great work.
hyperbertha
Member
we don't know either way, but common sense would say Hulst, just like many other braindead suits would force a single player dev to go into gaas in a frenzy to get that live service money printer. You learned nothing from what happened to Rocksteady?
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Sony put it on Plus just after ER and kept it there. It could've had second wind post Elden Ring's mainstream breakthrough with people looking to try out more games in the genre. But they go and put it on the Plus relaunch a few months after Elden Ring instead of letting it have a holiday rush. Other soul-like games benefitted from that post ER zeitgeist.
Another Sony blunder. I guess that sub revenue was more important.
And it was only a 60 man studio at the time to put out such a solid and well polished product. Quite the accomplishment, really.
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hyperbertha
Member
today's videogame market is the market where Elden ring and Expedition 33 had tremendous success. The problem is, that level of success isn't enough for these clowns (it used to be enough in the past), now they want ALL THE MONEY. You are a retard.
mayham2199
Member
I actually thought they were acquired before the release. Well Apparently this was done because they had nothing else to work on and I doubt more weak selling remakes is something Sony was interested in. Especially right now with so much coming out. Even Xbox with all the multiplat games they are releasing are having a hard time making money. The reality is making and releasing games is just not easy right now. So much stuff is coming out and there aren't enough people to support all these games.
I'm sure that would have helped but you could also argue that putting it on PS+ also help drive subs, hard to know. I personally only tried it because of PS+ and just didn't enjoy it. It looked great but after Dark Souls 1-3 I'm just kind of over that formula\setting.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Now we get all the turbo fruit looney toons to
hououinkyouma00
Member
They were shut down almost assuredly because they spent the last 5 years working on a failed/cancelled live service game and nothing else/had nothing else in the pipeline, and not because they are a port/remaster studio. Sony wouldn't have acquired them when they did if they didn't want a port studio. Now times change and maybe they decided against that direction but I don't think they were shut down because they were a port studio.
They were shut down because they produced nothing and likely lost a lot of money in comparison to some of the other studios. It's highly unlikely that if the GoW live service they were working on was shut down just last year that they have/had anything else.
Now the bigger question is WHY they were working on that GoW live service title. Was it their decision/pitch or were they told to make it. I know Sony has been pushing live service but it just seems unlikely that Bluepoint of all studios were chosen to make the title unwillingly. I think the truth whether people want to believe it or not is much more grey then Sony vs Bluepoint.
yurinka
Member
Top publishers with prestige devs like Sony doesn't force their teams to work in projects they don't want to work on, because doing so means these top devs would leave elsewhere who would give them a blank check to do what they want.
As many Sony devs publicly said, the studios are the ones who pitch the games they want to make to Sony HQ and Sony greenlight them or not depending on if they see tha there's a market for them, if it matches with their upcoming catalog (not having too similar games coming) etc. Sony doesn't force them to do what they don't want to do.
And Bluepoint heads said publicly multiple times that after Demon's Souls they didn't want to make more remasters or remakes and that evolved to work in new games, as was the case of God of War Ragnarok.
And Bluepoint couldn't be leading any GaaS because as the support team they were, they never had anybody in roles related to lead games or in any GaaS specific roles.
Bluepoint didn't have anybody related to leading a game and didn't have anybody in GaaS specific tasks, and had no MP or GaaS expertise. Which is normal, because they were a support team. So Sony would never approve a pitch from them asking to lead a GaaS, and even less mandate them to do so.
If they really ever worked in a GaaS game would have been as support team, as always doing art and coding for somebody else would be leading the project.
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Topher
Identifies as young
Then they should have never acquired the studio in the first place. Sorry, but I just so no way in which Sony leadership doesn't look incompetent with this.
Hyper_hyper
Member
False. They were co-developers for Ragnarok.
MiguelItUp
Member
Couldn't agree more. That's the thing I don't understand with that perspective, Sony knew and saw what Bluepoint excelled at, so they acquired them for those very reasons. It'd make no sense to acquire them to force them to do things they don't exceed at.
They really, really did, and it's apparent. It's why a lot of people are not happy.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
You are not going to ever change my mind that this isn't another blunder of a beloved studio. Just the mere fact of letting the talent pool walk and fend for themselves and not absorbing them into other studios is a major WTF moment.
Smart business doesn't let that talent walk. Nepotism does.
Raise your shield somewhere else.
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hyperbertha
Member
So you're telling me all the gaas games sony devs are doing are all the devs themselves doing it, and it's just a coincidence it happened to align with the live service push?
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Exactly! It's clear Sony is looking and searching for profit margins now and not just great expirences. I 100% think the OG devs doing remakes are a waste of resources too. But Sony is clearing viewing it as an oppurtunity to have those devs consistently working on something that's bringing in easy revenue in between their big AAA releases.
You can't have a team like Sony Santa Monica working on one game for 6 years with no income coming in.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Considering the timing of them announcing 12 live service games in development (less than 8 months after BP purchase), I think it's false to assume Sony bought them for remakes.
That makes no sense considering they weren't working on any remakes!
This company was bought and likely pitched the idea of NOT doing remakes. Hell it's always been the "rumor" that they were working on their own game, so why are people assuming they were "forced" into it?
It's why they were purchased, I'm pretty damn certain of that.
They failed at whatever project they were working on in Sony's eyes and allegedly have spent many months not working on anything.
It's a real shame and people can still blame Sony but the "forced" narrative doesn't really add up.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Rocksteady chose to go into risky GAAS because they didn't like the trend of the last few Batman games.
Herman Hulst isn't a creative. The creative leads at studios choose what the studio will work on.
Why didn't Darth Hulst force Team Asobi, Firesprite, Housemarque, or Santa Monica to make Live Service games?
It's because the studio leads pitched non GAAS titles to PlayStation and PlayStation agreed.
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MiguelItUp
Member
We won't really know for sure. But the idea of purchasing a studio that clearly excels at a niche only to force them into something they have no experience in is absolutely dumbfounding.
Which means, yeah, you're probably right.
Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that Sony has been really stupid for awhile now.
asdasdasdbb
Member
Think someone on Reddit had it right... Sony (and everyone else eventually) will do remasters/remakes in China and heavily use AI.
Austin is cheaper than LA but still pricey.
Austin is cheaper than LA but still pricey.
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simpatico
Gold Member
Do you think Kratos & Friends GaaS was their idea or an assignment from Sony?
ReasonBeing
Member
GHG
Member
Asking them to go out there and make their own game from scratch would be the same as asking Nixxes to do something similar.
It's nonsensical and stinks of mismanagement.
In an age of remasters, think about how many high quality remasters they could have popped out in the time since Demons Souls. Instead we ended up with Sony trying to get them making a bunch of GAAS shit, none of which ever saw the light of day.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
They obviously pitched a GAAS multi-player game to Sony and Sony hooked them up with the God of War IP to help out.
Herman Hulst doesn't go around with a magic wand assigning games to developers.
hououinkyouma00
Member
I highly doubt there wasn't some sort of sentiment in the studio to try to make something new versus ports/remasters though. Bluepoint could have very well pitched a promising live service title to Sony and pitched it because they knew it might be their way out of only making ports due to Sony's push for GAAS or even because they just genuinely wanted to make it.
Unless you work for Bluepoint, Sony, or personally know devs you are guessing just as much as everybody else.
Sure, but without knowing how much involvement they had in Ragnarok co development could mean a lot of things.
ReasonBeing
Member
You can't prove that
tmlDan
Member
I agree, but that was under previous leadership, with the new guard i expect the leash to be as tight as Bluepoints is.
Nishino has been pretty clear about what he plans to do and its actually what a lot of people here have been begging for, more unity with japanese studios
hououinkyouma00
Member
Not him, but you can't prove the opposite either.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Devil's advocate:
- BP specializes in remakes, remasters and collection packs. Dont gamer shrug those as cash grabs? Maybe Sony is going to less of them, so dont need BP
- BP's remake of DS on PS5 wasnt a giant seller even if it was a solid remake
- BP has never made their own game (except some game on wiki called Blast Factor 20 years ago on PS3). It's not what they do
- GAAS is ruining gaming (including Sony who was making them do a GOW GAAS game). So less dumb GAAS games the better
So if the above are true, what's the point of having BP?
- BP specializes in remakes, remasters and collection packs. Dont gamer shrug those as cash grabs? Maybe Sony is going to less of them, so dont need BP
- BP's remake of DS on PS5 wasnt a giant seller even if it was a solid remake
- BP has never made their own game (except some game on wiki called Blast Factor 20 years ago on PS3). It's not what they do
- GAAS is ruining gaming (including Sony who was making them do a GOW GAAS game). So less dumb GAAS games the better
So if the above are true, what's the point of having BP?
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