Sanepar
Member
They will be closed this year I can bet.
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‘We still plan on creating cool sh*t’: Bend Studio dev thanks players after Sony cancels latest game
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Reason why Sony bosses felt like it was a disappointment is lkely because the other heavy hitters are 10-20M and DG is probably the worst rated SP game they got. MC has it at 71. But I swear it was the high 60s at one point.
Their other big franchises sell 2x as much and get 85+ scores.
GHG
Member
I'd love to see a return to syphon filter (and I once had stronger hopes of that happening due to the easter eggs in days gone), but I highly doubt that would be happening.
FalsettoVibe
Member
Just make Days Gone 2 damnit.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
Fake
Gold Member
Quite possible. Losing years and more for nothing?
Not to mention, most of Bend stuff waste their time fightning with fans over Twitter. Changing logos, putting pictures of fucking nothing, quotes after quotes of trashtalk.
GymWolf
Member
Money are never enough in these big ass projects and i would gladly pay devs at nd or santa monica over insomniac devs.
TheGodfather07
Member
Closing evolution was the most moronic decision ever. They had so much potential.
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Raven117
Member
This seems like almost everyone.
viveks86
Member
Speaking of insomniac, if money could completely change their writing department, I would give it all to them. They have everything else working well.
Kvally
Member
I guess I was thinking of this instance:
Oh boy, this whole Days Gone thing just won't stop churning, will it? Speaking in David Jaffe's latest interview video, Days Gone director John Garvin has strong feelings on the sequel situation — as you'd expect. Garvin left developer Sony Bend around two years ago, so he's free to speak his mind on Jaffe's show.
And it hasn't taken long for Garvin's impassioned comments to do the rounds online. "I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off," Garvin admits, as transcribed by VGC. "If you love a game, buy it at f***ing full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever.’"
Garvin's argument is that by buying a game at full price, you're showing direct support for the developer — you're doing your part to maximise profit. And in the case of Days Gone, Garvin's suggesting that if more people grabbed the game at launch, Sony may have been more open to a potential sequel.
Jaffe asks how buyers would know if they love a game before they've even played it. Garvin replies: "I’m just saying, you don’t, but don’t complain if a game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch."
Garvin continues: "I think the uptick in engagement with the game is not as important as, did you buy the game at full price? Because if you did, then that’s supporting the developers directly."
GHG
Member
It was one of those games that had better word of mouth than it did reviews, so the sales were not as front loaded (launch month) as they were with games that have strong review scores and are heavily marketed.
But he's not wrong in saying that people buying the game at full price helps support them much better than it being bought on sale or being played via a subscription service. That's true of any product.
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SJRB
Gold Member
You think it's a coincidence that Sony had 6 live service games in development at the same time? That all these studios simultaneously and independently came to Sony with a "brilliant" idea?
You think Bluepoint, of all studios, came to Sony and said "you are not gonna believe this, we have an AMAZING idea. Live Service God of War"
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viveks86
Member
It's hard to gauge anything based on what Garvin says though. He has been acting like a textbook disgruntled employee, pointing fingers in every direction.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
We have leaked numbers from the Insomniac hack. It sold 7.23 million in 3 years. The game was also made free on PS+ for every single PS5 owner at launch just 1.5 years after Days Gone came out. not sure if it hurt sales. But it did for HFW so who knows.
Still $265 million from 7.23 million sales on PS4 means an average of $36 which is the same average of Spiderman, their number one selling game that made $827 billion from 22.6 million sales. GOW actually has an average of $28. No one says it was a bargain bin game. Sony games always drop in price and thats why they have legs. The studio simply didnt want to do the game because of the woke outrage and jeff ross hinted that herman didnt like Days Gone.
They refused to look at the sales which showed an excellent new IP and a fairly popular response on youtube. But 'gamers' who enjoyed games like Days Gone were not in demand back then. They were being ignored because they were toxic. Now they are realizing they need us.
GymWolf
Member
Debatable, they have been a 7\10 factory (in a real score scale and not the bullshit we have today) for a hot minute even with easy projects to make where they had already world\characters set in stone and they still had to steal the stealth and combat from the arkham games...
The new ratchet was mediocre aswell other than the graphic.
And their games are super small compared to ther other sony bigs, even their open worlds are smaller\have less content than something like ragnarock, let alone days gone or forbidden west and they even re-used the same city in sp2.
It is not a mistery to me why these people can manage to make games every 2-3 years instead of 5-6 like the others.
Sorry, i'm really not the biggest insomniac fanboy.
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viveks86
Member
Each studio has their own creative leads and business heads, who are watching market trends and socializing ideas within their organization, looking for what would get Sony's greenlight. When they see Sony greenlighting other GaaS projects, they would certainly be like "what could we bring to this new paradigm that's taking over the industry and generating forever money". This stuff rarely comes top-down at Sony.
And live service God of War sounds like a stupid idea no matter who proposes it. It sounds just as ridiculous if the idea originated from Sony. So... who knows?
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James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
I think there was a big divide between what local management wanted to work on and what employees did
And management was forced out
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Look you know I like Days Gone, and I am not too keen on Insomniac's factory of safe sequels, but come on, 6 years and no game to show for it vs 3 games plus Wolverine which is out in year 7.Give money to insomniac so they can make another 3 safe, super woke 7\10 games?
Fuck that dude.
If you have to close bend, give the money to corey for his new project or to nd for tlou3
It's not even a contest. At some point, you have to cut your losses. The studio is unproductive as hell. Again, if they had come out with a game this year then fine. 1 great game vs 3 mid game, i will take it.
But i draw the line at 0 games vs 3 mid games.
P.S I am not blaming the devs even if it sounds like I am. I am sure this is a management issue. i am sure devs still came to work everyday and made something, but it was thrown away by management who couldnt make up their minds. We have seen this at other studios. I say fire the studio heads, fire the VPs, the mid level managers and get the artists, engineers, and level designers working remote for ND, Insomniac, SSM and other studios on the west coast. They are still capable, just not capable enough to make their own game from scratch. Remember, Jeff Ross said that 90% of the studio that made Days Gone is long gone.
GymWolf
Member
I'm not discussing closing bend, i'm discussing giving any money to the ultra woke 7\10 factory.
They burned all the bridges with sp2 and i have faith in corey, let's not forget that many people hated ragnarock but he was not involved, dude is making something new.
viveks86
Member
I was typing a response, but this summarizes how I feel about insomniac at the moment:
I don't want every meal to be a Michelin star gourmet delight. Insomniac is my McDonald's. If they can fix their safe, inoffensive, vanilla writing, I can probably handle 2 mid games from them every year.
Insanemaelstrom
Gold Member
Honestly, from the leaks we have had regarding bend, it seems their local management is rubbish. From what I remember reading in leaks, days gone 2 pitch never even made it to Sony. Heck, if this guys had made mp days gone, that game would have been mildly successful. Also, regarding the reviewers on this game, it is one of the few games where I just don't see where the reviewers are coming from. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the game and didn't feel bored once in the 70+hrs I spent completing and getting the plat for it. The shooting, driving and stealth mechanics were good alogn with the atmosphere. There have been far worse games that have scored far more( hellblade 2 comes to mind, even if many might disagree). It definitely felt like there was a weird hate for this game in the media circle.
It's a bit unfortunate that we won't hear from bend in god knows how many years now.
It's a bit unfortunate that we won't hear from bend in god knows how many years now.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Dont even get me started on Cory. He has taken almost 7 years making his new IP. Unacceptable.
He rebooted GOW in 4 years. Literally released it in 4 years. This new IP has taken 6.5 years with nothing to show for it. He is just as inept as Days Gone devs. Even Neil who literally abandoned his studio to go make tv shows in canada and partied with hollywood stars while his studio slaved away on a remake and GaaS game got a trailer out in 4 years.
P.S he handpicked Eric Williams and tweeted about how amazing he is. Turns out the amazing director was an idiot who didnt have Kratos use Miljnor to subvert expectations, and shoehorned 8 hours of awful Atreus levels in a game that shouldve been about Kratos beating up on Norse gods. I wouldve bitch slapped anyone who said no to miljnor in Ragnorak, let alone made him the director.
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GymWolf
Member
The hammer would have played like the axe but with thunders instead of ice and you know it, the spear was an incredible weapon, i was happy for the choice if it was about choosing between one or the other.
The axe was kratos's hammer.
And you know we have different opinions of long times of developments, you know i'm ok with waiting for greatness.
Now, if corey next game is gonna be less than a 90mc then we can talk.
As opposed to you, i take one great game over 2 mid ones.
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EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.1
We thank bend studios for days gone it reminds people you can do open world, within reason.
viveks86
Member
We have no idea how big this project is and how much pre-production work had to go into it or what resources were available at the time. Can't compare that to an established IP such as God of War. Let's give the poor fellow a chance to show his work before dismissing it.
Hypereides
Member
Its infuriating. These people are supposedly the "gaming experts" that represent the gaming community. Its maddening.
Its good their influence is finally starting to diminish. Just think of all the other games they've attributed this nonsense onto.
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SkylineRKR
Member
Hot take but I think Days Gone is the best open world game Sony has. I was part of the problem though, I skipped it on PS4 so I never experienced the bugs and bad performance etc. I first played it on PS5 via PS+, and proceeded to get the Platinum because I loved every second of it.
The game is a bit too long, has a bit too much missions stalling your progress, but the bike was awesome and every upgrade felt worthwhile. At some point its powerful enough to cross gaps on the map which hold secrets. The hordes were and are still awesome. The free challenge packs are really fun and add replayability. Good OST as well.
Ofcourse you can ask if Sony needed this IP, since its another post apocalyptic Zombie game. It didn't review in the high 80's (which I would give it based on my PS5 experience), and it didn't sell 10+ million out of the gate. Still, its a far bigger success than Sony's GaaS no shows so far.
Did the game get unfair hate? 100% yes. For example the Ride my bike line. This was pretty much posted everywhere and the game was trashed because of it. However, when I got to that scene, I understood the context of it. They had a conversation before, where she explicitly states she doesn't want this typical biker marriage with drunks and stupid lines like ride my bike. And then she says it herself. Its actually tongue in cheek. But as we know, the media can take this one piece, and post it without context and unleash all the wokies on it and hate the game for it. I don't know why this particular game was singled out though.
The game is a bit too long, has a bit too much missions stalling your progress, but the bike was awesome and every upgrade felt worthwhile. At some point its powerful enough to cross gaps on the map which hold secrets. The hordes were and are still awesome. The free challenge packs are really fun and add replayability. Good OST as well.
Ofcourse you can ask if Sony needed this IP, since its another post apocalyptic Zombie game. It didn't review in the high 80's (which I would give it based on my PS5 experience), and it didn't sell 10+ million out of the gate. Still, its a far bigger success than Sony's GaaS no shows so far.
Did the game get unfair hate? 100% yes. For example the Ride my bike line. This was pretty much posted everywhere and the game was trashed because of it. However, when I got to that scene, I understood the context of it. They had a conversation before, where she explicitly states she doesn't want this typical biker marriage with drunks and stupid lines like ride my bike. And then she says it herself. Its actually tongue in cheek. But as we know, the media can take this one piece, and post it without context and unleash all the wokies on it and hate the game for it. I don't know why this particular game was singled out though.
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Fortress of Regrets
Member
Days Gone 2 or... meh.
Roman Empire
Member
Holy, Sony fumbling hard with the mismanegement this whole generation. Bend with nothing to show now after almost 6 years of Days Gone. A whole generation without a game from a studio on your payroll.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Once again, people are talking like its still 2005. You know how games take longer than ever to make, well, shockingly enough that also extends the time it takes to decide whether to cancel or continue also.
And lets not forget how badly the Covid years impacted everyone.
Sorry, but acting like the past 5 years is comparable with any other time in gaming history is pure idiocy.
And lets not forget how badly the Covid years impacted everyone.
Sorry, but acting like the past 5 years is comparable with any other time in gaming history is pure idiocy.
VulcanRaven
Member
Bring back Syphon Filter:
VulcanRaven
Member
Bring it back
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kaizenkko
Member
1) Focus on a existing franchise with chance to grow (Days Gone);
2) Set a budget of 50~100 millions (Ghost of Tsushima and Alan Wake 2 were made with budgets similar to it);
3) Plan to put the game out in three years (Astro Bot have been developed in three years).
Obviously is not that simple, but right now Bend need to work smart. They can save a lot of time developing a Days Gone sequel, because there's a lot of assets already done. And they need to be conservative, it's super important to make a game who can be launched in 3~4 years, cause I can't see this studio surviving 7+ years without release one game.
2) Set a budget of 50~100 millions (Ghost of Tsushima and Alan Wake 2 were made with budgets similar to it);
3) Plan to put the game out in three years (Astro Bot have been developed in three years).
Obviously is not that simple, but right now Bend need to work smart. They can save a lot of time developing a Days Gone sequel, because there's a lot of assets already done. And they need to be conservative, it's super important to make a game who can be launched in 3~4 years, cause I can't see this studio surviving 7+ years without release one game.
VulcanRaven
Member
Maybe Sony doesn't want two zombie franchises at the same time. I was actually suprised when they announced Days Gone. Even the environments looked like The Last of Us Part 2.
FalsettoVibe
Member
I feel like DG was different enough to continue. The horde thing was really unique. Imagine what they could do on PS5. Heck........I would have even taken a DG multiplayer game.
semiconscious
Member
yep. i used to be. no more...
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Mr Hyde
Member
I can't fucking believe Sony wasted an entire generation on this live service slop, which ultimately amounted to jack shit. I've never seen this level of incompetence, ignorance of their fan base and complete lack of self awareness. Not even Xbox has bungled a generation this bad in terms of output. I'm so incredibly disappointed with Sony, to the point I'm actually thinking about ditching them. I've been a lifelong fan of the brand but seeing how Sony behaves this generation makes me sick. So many wasted years from top talented studios like Bluepoint. Producing embarrassing garbage like Concord that becomes a joke to the entire world. Price gouging their fan base by turning Playstation into some sort of pseudo premium Apple brand. Zero communication with fans, just fart sniffing and holier than thou attitude. Fuck these assholes running the show, they're destroying Playstation completely.
JayK47
Member
Spot on. I couldn't have said it better myself.
