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[Redfall] 70% of Arkane Austin have left the company - Jason Schreier
- Thread starter Kurotri
- Start date
- Status
Unknown?
Member
It was Zenimax management that caused this and apparently they were fine with that management.Yes, Microsoft spent $7.5bn to buy Arkane
Hey! I got Prey for $2 on sale, I did my part!
Topher
Identifies as young
And this is the why I don't trust Schrierer's "investigations". They are intertwined with his own personal politics.
nemiroff
Gold Member
oh wow, he can't let it go can he.. Saturated..
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Redfall started development in 2018. Arkane's Prey had been a flop, ZeniMax demanded microtransactions, and management wanted to make a game with broad appeal. It was pitched as a "multiplayer Arkane game" — but it was never clear what that would mean, or how it would work.
Something something Arkane getting the freedom to make the game they wanted to make, blah blah blah.
So sad that one of the best developers in the industry, is gone. I didn’t understand the rave reviews for Deathloop either. Game wasn’t that good.
Something something Arkane getting the freedom to make the game they wanted to make, blah blah blah.
So sad that one of the best developers in the industry, is gone. I didn’t understand the rave reviews for Deathloop either. Game wasn’t that good.
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Couple of thoughts from this
- Spencer and Mat Booty absolutely have to revise this ‘hands off’ approach. They’re ultimately responsible for xbox games and need to better manage their portfolio.
- Bethesda Games leadership needs to take significant responsibility for this debacle.
- Schreier is WAY too forgiving towards the Arkane shop floor devs. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t like the direction of the studio. If you’re in paid employment, you should do your damn job. Bugs, glitches, terrible visuals and crashing are technical issues and should have been resolved.
Hopefully they learn from this. Just put the game to pasture and work on stuff that plays to their strengths. Write off Redfall and issue refunds to anyone who wants.
- Spencer and Mat Booty absolutely have to revise this ‘hands off’ approach. They’re ultimately responsible for xbox games and need to better manage their portfolio.
- Bethesda Games leadership needs to take significant responsibility for this debacle.
- Schreier is WAY too forgiving towards the Arkane shop floor devs. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t like the direction of the studio. If you’re in paid employment, you should do your damn job. Bugs, glitches, terrible visuals and crashing are technical issues and should have been resolved.
Hopefully they learn from this. Just put the game to pasture and work on stuff that plays to their strengths. Write off Redfall and issue refunds to anyone who wants.
Interfectum
Member
Can't wait to see what the amazing leadership at Xbox does to Acti-Blizz.
nemiroff
Gold Member
Yeah.. They can't even learn from their mistake since their fundament for making solid single player experiences left. It's pretty fucking sad.
Astray
Member
People are forgetting that the Xbox team thought this game was the best way to close a showcase, even though they had all this info available to them during development.I'm hearing takes Xbox should have got involved.
Solve incompetence with more incompetence I guess.
![L*][*N*K](/data/avatars/m/842/842515.jpg?1696510303){kind=avatar}
{insert code here}
Member
So, Prey/Dishonored are both dead thanks to Zenimax (and MS for not stepping in). Watch them completely fuck over Doom turning it into GaaS 
Kurotri
Member
Let's not forget their strange internal review team where according to Spencer, Redfall scored 20 points higher than in reality.
Luigi Mario
Member
They will be turned into a support studio for Arkane Lyon.
Astray
Member
Insane to me how this game wasn't taken behind the shed and shot in the head with zero reveal to the public.
A smaller singleplayer game is exactly what Xbox needed too And this team had the capacity to do it too.
Revolutionary
Member
We knew Raph (former CEO of Arkane) left because of Bethesda's bullshit, but 70% of the studio as well? Damn.
feynoob
Banned
They won't. MS will hire new people and change some staffs.
Arkane is a good studio for gamepass.
Interfectum
Member
I would love to see the receipts on that. I don't want to say Phil was lying but either he is or he should fire his internal review team.
Topher
Identifies as young
Spencer said it was "double digits" higher, not 20 points higher.
Astray
Member
%70 of the Austin team, the Lyon team is still intact afaik.
Kurotri
Member
Redfall’s Review Scores Are “Significantly” Lower Than What Microsoft Expected
Xbox boss Phil Spencer says mock reviews conducted during development suggested the game would score at least in the 70s.
You're right, my bad.
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feynoob
Banned
It could be a case of trusting arkane's past games.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
Considering the reviews were inflated whith shady xbox affiliated sites and stevivor I'd say at least 10 points more than what meta/opencritic had is still way too high.
Banjo64
cumsessed
Veteran workers who weren’t interested in developing a multiplayer game left in droves.
Big oof.
Obviously this was a Zenimax direction, but this is a lesson that Xbox should learn also.
You can acquire whoever you want, however you can’t guarantee that staff (and therefore quality) will stay the same. Work is a fine balance and people need to have autonomy, a sense of worth, a sense of attainable progression and reward in order to produce. Take any element of that away and the entire culture can change and that is very hard to reverse.
Arkane Austin as we knew it is dead.
Big oof.
Obviously this was a Zenimax direction, but this is a lesson that Xbox should learn also.
You can acquire whoever you want, however you can’t guarantee that staff (and therefore quality) will stay the same. Work is a fine balance and people need to have autonomy, a sense of worth, a sense of attainable progression and reward in order to produce. Take any element of that away and the entire culture can change and that is very hard to reverse.
Arkane Austin as we knew it is dead.
feynoob
Banned
This is the best lesson Xbox can get at this point.
A shock like this can help them with their hands off approach policy.
gothmog
Gold Member
What exactly would taking the devs to task do? This started as a management issue forcing the type of game being made. It also ended as a management issue as Microsoft is largely incompetent at best when it comes to managing acquired studios.
I've been in sinking ship mode before. You carry on the best you can but it's almost impossible as your best talent moves on, the bench is now overburdened to lead and develop, and most people are too checked out to be passionate about anything.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It was likely more of a 'don't want to start mandating a studio as soon as we bought them in fear of developers leaving in protest' situation.
I don't think they'll want to have another Redfall situation for Arkane's next game.
BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Redfall about to pull a Forspoken and flop it’s way to killing its own studio
Kacho
Gold Member
The way Zenimax has handled their studios over the past few years is fascinating. They had that E3 that focused on single player games, most underperformed. Then they shift to a live service focus with Fallout 76, Youngblood and Redfall all of which were disastrous. Wonder what’s next…
FunkMiller
Gold Member
Well done to all the devs that left, instead of sticking around to put their talents into a god awful piece of live service shit.
I just hope this happens repeatedly with every studio being forced into making that kind of diarrhea, greed fuelled gaming - especially Sony first party.
I just hope this happens repeatedly with every studio being forced into making that kind of diarrhea, greed fuelled gaming - especially Sony first party.
azertydu91
Hard to Kill
Mobile gacha games and pachinko...
nemiroff
Gold Member
You might be right. But it's high intensity irony considering the devs was hoping that MS would kill off the project so that they didn't have to leave.
Freeman76
Member
He is the Piers Morgan of gaming
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
True. Let's hope they get staffed up again and focus on what made them endearing for the next project. An actual immersive sim FPS.
gothmog
Gold Member
Starfield. It's depressing when you think about it.
Varteras
Member
The difference being that Sony is putting things in place to catch problems with GAAS games and their review process of games in general seems strict these days. If Microsoft had a review process setup the way Sony does, especially with Bungie and GAAS games, Redfall would have probably been canceled years ago and the Austin location could have been saved from bleedout. There is also no evidence or reports yet that any of Sony's studios are being forced to do anything. In fact, throughout the years, Sony has been praised for allowing its teams the freedom to make what they want. But there are still consequences for failure.
Granted, that doesn't mean those games that pass review will definitely succeed. Deviation's game was seemingly canceled by the same review process that put Factions 2 on hold. In addition to Pixelopus' project being canceled and the team shut down. This isn't the first we're hearing of Microsoft's hands-off approach backfiring. Personally, when a company like Zenimax was having so many issues that they sold, I don't know why you'd let them just continue on as usual. Something clearly wasn't working before you bought them.
I could see them not wanting to rock a boat they just bought. Though honestly, the way 343 was handled, and the reports of The Initiative, doesn't inspire much confidence.
StueyDuck
Member
I do find it curious that their extremely talented developers at all zenimax studios seem to be absolutely incompetent with anything online or multiplayer...
Like... hire people who are good at those things zenimax, don't put people who are inexperienced and expect gold.
CherryFalls
Banned
Should have been 100%
FeralEcho
Member
genesisblock
Member
As good as prey was, level design wise. It just doesn't seem as tightly woven as Dishonored, I haven't played the sequel but if reviews are to be believed, it's the game immersive sims should be striving for.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Well, the only good news from this terribly sad story is that none of this was microsofts fault. Their only major flaw was not cancelling it.
Studios dead. But time for Microsoft to lay the law down on Bethesda zenimax
Studios dead. But time for Microsoft to lay the law down on Bethesda zenimax
Banjo64
cumsessed
If that were true I doubt they would have cancelled the PS5 version.
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