Strawman. The distinction here really seems to be about people who relish others losing their jobs and others who do not, esp. when the circumstances are due to little more than console warz.
Driveclub PS Plus Edition Delayed by Server Issues
- Thread starter Cyborg
- Start date
John Bender
Banned
Well just google them. There were official statements by Sony back then (MS1 3.5 , MS2 over 1 million, etc.)
lowhighkang_LHK
Member
They made a fantastic racing game that brings out the inner project Gotham in me. Why should they lose their job?
The server issues will be ironed out. Clubs and online racing work. It's mostly just the challenge system that needs to be fixed. And considering the game has planned updates and free dlc planed for the next year, these server issues plaguing the game at launch are small in the grand scheme of things.
ricen-beans
Member
1 million for a racer I would say is pretty good. Considering there are no cutscenes, voice actors to pay, set pieces, not much advertising, etc...
In fact usually, or at least especially for last gen, 1 million was more than enough for a company to make a profit
To be fair, John Bender has allegedly access to the Driveclub sales numbers. It hasn't even been a month so if you have access to those numbers you're probably in a position that he pays those bills and is worrying.
John Bender
Banned
For a game like JOURNEY maybe.
So after telling you the MS numbers, you are simply ignoring them and are trying to attack me with the "you didn't mention the DC numbers" excuse?
Well Driveclub just launched and of course we don't know any real numbers yet. But after the DC fiasco (delay, broken online, missing PS+ Edition) and the current bad PR, well..... we surely can't talk about a "success" for Sony here.
did you never break a promise to someone ? do you really think evolution are sitting back rubbing your their hands and laughing at us? I'm sure as shit they are grafting their knackers off trying to put things right, meanwhile a few petulant schoolchildren are stamping their feet crying I want I want I want I want.
You have no clue what you're talking about. Maybe take a break,
If there was one network guy or a team of network guys directly responsible for this, then yes they need to get canned. But I'm a firm believer in the "captain goes down with the ship" thing. Network issues are just one issue with this game and as the producer ultimately the buck stops at his desk. Nearly everything related to this game has been a clusterF since the announcement of the title (and I know there was another guy who was at the head before), and as the leader, he takes the fall, just as with any other company.
There's a reason he gets paid bigger bucks than everyone else on the team presumably. If he can't handle the heat, he needs to get out of the kitchen. There are always lower level jobs to take where you don't need to take on that kind of responsibility or face the consequences.
John Bender
Banned
Sorry! Didn't know you're an expert. Honor and shame are huge parts of studio management.
Which is why I just said "no one deserves to lose their job." I'm not gonna pretend that they deserve all the patience in the world though. They got a history of releasing unfinished games and buggy shit and Driveclub seems to continue that trend. Patching in modes, maps, new cars...that I see as an update. Patching weather and 3 weeks of spotty online, leaderboards, and the bulk of your social stuff...that's incompetetance. Again, no one deserves to lose their jobs over it but I'm not gonna feel sorry for them if people are upset.
MS1: "It went on to sell in excess of 4 million copies" (evos.net)
MS2: "Motorstorm 2 sales hit 1 million mark" (Eurogamer) - 1 month after its release, so unlikely LTD numbers!
MS3: Bombed hard, no doubt.
Couldn't find any number for MS-RC, but it had better success than MS3.
Also, you don't have any idea how DC has sold so far.
The fact it's been charting in EU retail for two weeks now although the digital download was 30% less expensive should mean something...
You backed up a single number. The 1 million for MS2.
The rest is just an invitation that based on my request that you provide me with those numbers that I should just google them myself.
That leaves 3 out of 4 games unmentioned after your claim they were all bombas. Two of the numbers you mentioned (one of them backed up) were above a million, which for some reason in your world with platform holder fees waived makes it a bomba.
I'm very interested in the budgets, because based on my knowledge of publisher revenue and ASP that doesn't make any sense at all.
You said the game sold shit, I wanted you to back that up.
Neuromancer
Member
So what you've basically said is you just want a sacrifice, it doesn't matter if it was his fault or not. Just making sure we're all on the same page here.
Wow, you can't be serious.
Viruz
Member
No?
No, they can't take that away from me.
I'm enjoying the game without the Club part since there's not. The Drive part is great.
Anyone know how many staff they have &what kind of budget we're talking about with evo games? I mean, they aren't Bungie & DC is no destiny.
There are tons of people working at Evo who had nothing to do with this. For you to be an asshole about them losing their jobs and their livelihood is more fucked up than a missed launch date.
John Bender
Banned
Well yes, seems like you can't google, so I'm doing it for you. MS1, MS2, MS3 (lol, last number I remember was 0.4 mio). AAA game (~100 devs) + marketing = ~1 mio? Yes, bomba! MS1 "sold" 3.5 million, because it got bundled to hell and back, thanks to the launch drought. And Driveclub? No numbers yet, as mentioned. But after just looking at the delay, the missing features (weather getting patched, lol... after a +1 year delay), broken online, missing PS+ edition.... yes, I would call it a "bomba" for the bad PR alone.
I said "bomba"
I don't even think that most who are *concerned* here enough to want people fired...even know that Rushy wasn't in charge from the beginning.... he took over as Director in February of this year, right when they announced the Delay to October.
we don't know what went on behind the scenes.
but what we do know is, imo...the Game looks Amazing...and Plays great....But has connection issues they are trying to fix....issues that weren't there before, when some of Gafs members played the Beta right before release.
Where did I say I wanted a sacrifice without any cause? He's the producer, all manners of management, as it relates to this title at the very least, fall on him. Any failures on the part of the people you manage are always also failures on the part of the managerial executive as well. Why is that? Because if those people fuck up, it's your job to get them the hell out of there and replace them with people who can do the job. If you kept incompetent people in those positions, then you as the manager is then the one who fucked up for not seeing that and not acting accordingly.
Lets look at another game. FFXIV's original director got booted because he couldn't get the most out of his team, couldn't get patches and content updates out in any sort of timely manner, performance for the game was bad, and lastly the game was just plain boring as hell. At the very least DC sounds like a pretty fun game, but the other issues are very similar. Look at what happened when they got another director, Naoki Yoshida, in there (mind you the rest of the team stayed the same), the game took a completely different direction and the game became a pretty huge success. As a result he gets all the glory, but if the game had stayed the same, I'm sure he would have gotten the boot too.
Come on, I know I didn't need to type all of that because I know you understand that's how it works in this industry or really any other industry. I mean think how far a manager level professional would get blaming problems on the people under him (not that Rushy is blaming people under him) all the time. Eventually the guillotine comes for the guy at the top. You can't just say it's the network guy/team's fault and the manager/producer is free from blame. That's simply not how it works at all.
Neuromancer
Member
NullPointer
Member
How can you hold MS Apocalypse against Evo? They made an absolutely incredible game that got delayed due to an actual apocalypse only to be sent to die many months later.
Unless I'm missing something that doesn't seem fair to hold against em.
No?
Damn. Their server room needs more work than I thought.
John Bender
Banned
After playing MS:A (yes, I bought it... cheap) and looking at its reviews and sales.. I wouldn't call it "absolutely incredible".
Well, let me go back to my original post: When talking about "business".... Evo is just a big waste of money, just like Studio Liverpool was (and damn, I really love WipEout!).
since when has Motorstorm series been about Story? just because they tried to add to their single player...doesn't mean the rest of the game shouldn't be praised for it's experience.
Saint Gregory
Member
I'd really like a bit more clarity about what exactly went wrong with the network functionality of the game before I start calling for heads on pikes.
While the game has only been what I consider functional for a single play session since I bought it I think it's clear that a lot of work went into the game's foundation. Two weeks after launch is too soon to give up on the product ever realizing the ambitions the developer had for it going in.
I do wish that someone either at Evo or Sony had given thought to delaying the game again instead of releasing something that clearly wasn't ready. It's really difficult for a brand new IP to recover from this kind of negative reception.
John Bender
Banned
since when has Motorstorm series been about Story? just because they tried to add to their single player...doesn't mean the rest of the game shouldn't be praised for it's experience.
That .gif was the reason why I bought MS:A back then.
Captain going down with the ship doesn't necessarily mean that the captain had no fault. I made it pretty clear that he obviously has fault. His entire job is to manage the team and the final product. The final product neither released on time or in a finished condition. That is tied in with managing the team because a well-managed team of professionals should release on time without major issues like this title has.
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO SAY THAT A WHOLE STUDIO IS A WASTE OF MONEY?
what do you know about what Evo does for Sony?
what is your contribution to society (Game Industry) John Bender? You seem like an expert.
And again, these numbers mean shit.
You say 3.5 millions for MS1, Evolution Studios say 4 millions on their site.
You take Eurogamer's 1 million number as a life time sales when they are for the first month.
You can't really believe they haven't sold any more units after that, huh?
EvoS is a rather small studio making racing games, and not super productions costing tens of millions.
Like said by others, selling one million units is probably more than sufficient to make profit.
Otherwise, you can bet Sony wouldn't have given them a chance to produce any more games after MS2!
John Bender
Banned
:O Jeff Bell, is that you?
since when has Motorstorm series been about Story? just because they tried to add to their single player...doesn't mean the rest of the game shouldn't be praised for it's experience.
I beat it. So it wasn't a bad game by any means. I Just don't see that game as a mark of quality in their resume. All I expected of this game was a great racing game with an emphasis on multiplayer. That's what their entire pitch was and obviously something went wrong during development.
Haha, woah there, guy.
John Bender
Banned
Well, I'm just using the numbers that Sony mentioned on their site. So... welp!
If I remember correctly, Evo already feared that they're gonna get closed after MS:A (interview with an Evo dev). So now, after DC.... hm, don't know, man.
Two classic GAF memes in one post. This guy is really an expert
Obviously, no one here has Driveclub sales numbers yet.
Driveclub won't chart on NPD for October. It doesn't appear in the Amazon October top #100, at all, and it's already October 23rd.
Also, in any case, I strongly expect that the sales for that game, whatever they are, are going to be mostly digital, which aren't tracked by NPD.
I would love to know how Driveclub did, sales-wise, but I expect we'll never know unless we get a PR announcement.
Does it have global leaderboards? I bet it sold at least a couple hundred thousand units, but if my friends list is any indication (it isn't really...) it's no Destiny. (Only one other friend had it, I sold my copy)
Dude leaderboards aren't even working 100% of the time.
Joel Was Right
Member
Situation is unacceptable. Game is a laughing stock because it's so broken.
Evolution Studio's are finished.
Evolution Studio's are finished.
Which sucks... But it can provide a rough estimate for how many players have purchased the game.
Nobody force you to play it.
With this being said, I'm about to start my 4th Driveclub session of the day, with successfull MP playthrough on each preceeding one. Ciao...!
Cyborg
Member
Its just awkward.....all the problems and no news on the ps+ edition. I have zero respect for this studio, wont support any other product from them.
Not sure what kind of news people are expecting about the PS+ version. Until you hear everyone in the OT claim they're problem-free with the retail game, you're not going to hear anything about the PS+ edition other than perhaps "It's canceled".
Omnipunctual Godot
Member
As far as problematic online/rollout is concerned, this is looking exponentially worse than Twisted Metal.
If the PS+ Edition gets cancelled, I really don't see Evolution surviving this game.
breakfuss
Member
Nobody force you to play it.
With this being said, I'm about to start my 4th Driveclub session of the day, with successfull MP playthrough on each preceeding one. Ciao...!
lol. This post has single handedly convinced me to buy Driveclub!