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[Riky]

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

I don't think the studio is dead, 70 people left during five years, they've probably been replaced. It's not like 70 people have just left.

 

[adamsapple]

If that were true I doubt they would have cancelled the PS5 version.

I don't know if it would have made a difference. The developers didn't want to make this kind of game in the first place, reducing the platforms they have to develop for would probably be taken as a "well at least it's something" kind of news.

The article doesn't mention anywhere that there was push back against canceling any version.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I'm not an alcohol guy but in honor of Arkane time for another replay

 

[Azurro]

Filling vacancies became a challenge. Within the industry, ZeniMax had a reputation for paying lower than average salaries, and convincing some progressive or moderate video game developers to move to Texas could be difficult due to the state’s conservative social policies.

My god, I just have to laugh at this. Now we know why the game was so incompetent, diversity hires only.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Thank you gamers for this wonderful gift. You guys ruined gaming. I dont blame MS for Arkane going downhill, I blame modern gamers for ignoring quality products. We will never have a Prey 2, nor will we ever have an immersive sim ever again. Hope you enjoy your garbage coop gaas games from now on. Dumbasses.

I really enjoyed Prey. Too many scared gamers out there.

 

[azertydu91]

I don't think the studio is dead, 70 people left during five years, they've probably been replaced. It's not like 70 people have just left.

Sure but hear me out on this ...I have a boat....
I change the hull the mat, the exterior and the interior, everything, is it still the same boat?
It has the same name name the same shape etc... but it is not really the same boat isn't it?And all that leaves us with unknown it might be better just as it might be worse.

 

[splattered]

This is where Microsoft makes it known their next game is fully high budget funded and they would be allowed to make whatever game they want, single player no problem... But please come back guys n gals! Haha

 

[PixelatedBeast]

No they left DURING the game being made.

Not only that, but the Arkane studio co-founder left after Prey released, because they were forced to name the game "Prey". He got out of there before being asked to make a GAAS like Redfall.

 

[Thirty7ven]

My god, I just have to laugh at this. Now we know why the game was so incompetent, diversity hires only.

That's what you took from that? Read again.

 

[azertydu91]

I really enjoyed Prey. Too many scared gamers out there.

Prey was amazing and it was a steep uphill battle with me because I really wanted the canceled Prey 2 at the time.

 

[adamsapple]

I'm not an alcohol guy but in honor of Arkane time for another replay

Prey is legitimate one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[FunkMiller]

I'd love to know how many people have left Rocksteady during the time they've been forced to make that Suicide Squad GaaS shit.

And I'd also love to keep track of how many leave Sony first party studios, now they're being made to make that shit too.

 

[Dick Jones]

Arkane employees, ignore your emails on the 18th September

 

[Banjo64]

I don't think the studio is dead, 70 people left during five years, they've probably been replaced. It's not like 70 people have just left.

So any 70 people can just make a game as good as Prey?

Clearly, that’s why the replacements shat out Redfall.

 

[Clear]

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.

Sony seem to be attempting to expand into GaaS via acquisitions for purpose, as opposed to converting existing studios and projects into doing this sort of product. TLOU Factions 2 being an outlier in that going from a multi-player component of a single-player title to a stand-alone title seemed like a natural progression given the circumstances. Even so, they seem willing to give it a hard look before committing -hence the recent hold put on it.

 

[reksveks]

That's what you took from that? Read again.

Culture war always ongoing

 

[The artful mincer]

I don't think the studio is dead, 70 people left during five years, they've probably been replaced. It's not like 70 people have just left.

It might as well be. Dev teams are the people that work there. If 70% of the team that made Prey are gone it's a completely different team at this point

The same way the infinity ward of 2007 to 2009 is dead. Yeah the name is the same but so what

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

pretty much expected

 

[Azurro]

That's what you took from that? Read again.

That they only wanted to hire people of a certain type of thinking into the company, yes. The same type of people that don't produce results.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

A complete disaster for both Arkane and MS. This is their Mass Effect Andromeda and I don't think they'll ever return to form. Hope I'm wrong though.

 

[SJRB]

Confirmation again of the playstation version

 

[hinch7]

Lest this be a warning for publishers who keep trying to push the GaaS model onto everything.

Granted Redfalll was a poorly made game, we've definately hit a saturation point for live service titles.

 

[Topher]

I don't think the studio is dead, 70 people left during five years, they've probably been replaced. It's not like 70 people have just left.

Correct. And he doesn't say whether open vacancies had been filled during that time. He makes it sound like Arkane Austin is an empty office building now. Sorry, but I do not trust this guy. He's good for inside scoop on games that are or are not being made, but his "investigations" are politically skewed, include highly generalized points of view, and leave crucial details out.

 

[Riky]

It might as well be. Dev teams are the people that work there. If 70% of the team that made Prey are gone it's a completely different team at this point

The same way the infinity ward of 2007 to 2009 is dead. Yeah the name is the same but so what

The new people didn't really have much chance of salvaging something deep in development, we'll see if and when we see another game.
They may just fold studios into one.

 

[DeaDPo0L84]

They went from being one of my favorite developers to when I hear about them I'm like:

 

[Luigi Mario]

Funny how they were just hands on enough to save Sony the trouble of having this game on their platform, but not hands on enough to make it a good game or kill the project.

Really makes ya think..

What Harvey Smith said was probably true, Microsoft made sure that development of the PS5 version has halted early on and then they were hands-off the rest of the way.

 

[Riky]

Correct. And he doesn't say whether open vacancies had been filled during that time. He makes it sound like Arkane Austin is an empty office building now. Sorry, but I do not trust this guy. He's good for inside scoop on games that are or are not being made, but his "investigations" are politically skewed, include highly generalized points of view, and leave crucial details out.

The strange part is zenimax wanted a game with microtransactions but the game doesn't have a store, doesn't add up.

 

[ReBurn]

I take Schrierer's "investigations" with a truckload of salt personally.

Indeed. People in tech hop jobs every few years to advance their careers. I think a lot of people like to believe that the people who develop their favorite games stay with those studios forever.

 

[GHG]

So this means no more dishonored and no chance of "prey 2".

Very sad day.

 

[FunkMiller]

Lest this be a warning for publishers who keep trying to push the GaaS model onto everything.

But, but...

 

[Thirty7ven]

That they only wanted to hire people of a certain type of thinking into the company, yes. The same type of people that don't produce results.

That's not what it says at all. It says that they had difficulty hiring for multiple reasons, one of them was difficulty in hiring people who did not want to live in Texas for political and cultural reasons.

If you think that means they only wanted to hire certain types of people then you don't know how to read.

 

[nemiroff]

That they only wanted to hire people of a certain type of thinking into the company, yes. The same type of people that don't produce results.

Schreier implies that the quality of developer hires was impaired because of conservative politics in Texas. So in a way his notion implies the opposite of what you're implying.

 

[geary]

Now you are MS and just bought Zenimax and the first decision would be to cancel Redfall and the public would not know why, would not know the state of the game. How do you think that would have been perceived by media, twitter warriors and Neogaf? Everyone would think poor Arkane and bad MS who cancel dream games of the devs.

 

[Heisenberg007]

So much for buying the talented Arkane devs. LOL.

 

[Kacho]

That's not what it says at all. It says that they had difficulty hiring for multiple reasons, one of them was difficulty in hiring people who did not want to live in Texas for political and cultural reasons.

If you think that means they only wanted to hire certain types of people then you don't know how to read.

That was Jason inserting his own opinion. He said that ‘could’ be one of the reasons, but there’s no proof of that.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Now these devs will make a separate studio, Sony will fund their game, and eventually buy the studio for like 1/50th the price.

 

[balls of snow]

Rip Prey 2. We hardly knew ya. 70%, just axe the studio man.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Correct. And he doesn't say whether open vacancies had been filled during that time. He makes it sound like Arkane Austin is an empty office building now. Sorry, but I do not trust this guy. He's good for inside scoop on games that are or are not being made, but his "investigations" are politically skewed, include highly generalized points of view, and leave crucial details out.

Well you can look at Redfall and see an incomplete mess. 70% of the talent leaving over the course of development of a game isn't good regardless of how you want to cut it, specially when the finished game is a shit show. And if you think they lost those people and replaced them with people just as good or even better than you're out of your mind, Arkane ATM won't be where the best talent wants to go to that's for sure.

 

[Alebrije]

Yea another example of what happens when you put singleplayer developers to produce GAAS....

Deathloop was a signal...maybe it was the last game where those developers that left were involved...but good for them to left Arkane.

 

[reksveks]

If you think that means they only wanted to hire certain types of people then you don't know how to read.

Kinda harsh but true.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[jm89]

Now these devs will make a separate studio, Sony will fund their game, and eventually buy the studio for like 1/50th the price.

Spiritual successor to dishonoured or prey? Sign me up.

You know jimbo gonna be waiting in the bushes for that to happen.

 

[Dane]

Schreier's report is what i've been told about it years ago, Zenimax was going all in on GaaS after Prey and the following single player games flopped despite an E3 campaign called Save Player One, so the management said fuck it and made a 180º. I wish I knew Redfall was one of these projects destined to fail.

 

[onnextflix5]

Looking like Microsoft bought another rare,

 

[drganon]

 

[The artful mincer]

The new people didn't really have much chance of salvaging something deep in development, we'll see if and when we see another game.
They may just fold studios into one.

Well sure. My point was that we tend to judge a dev based on the people that work there. The new devs may be good but regardless there not the same team.

Another good example is people are doubtful about the mgs 3 remake because it's a completely different team from the original despite both games being made by Konami.

That's not to say MGS3 won't be good, It might but the new devs need to prove themselves. If the new Kojima Productions was doing the MGS3 remake I think players would be far more trusting.

 

[hinch7]

But, but...

Lol, yeah I don't think that's going to work out the way they want. Looking at the responses to the latest GaaS releases or delays.. that aren't already an established franchise (aka Diablo 4).

Bungie has a chance, and at worst they can fall back on Destiny. The rest, I have my doubts.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

MS accounting now calculating how much of those 7B will be written off

 

[Ozriel]

Can't wait to see what the amazing leadership at Xbox does to Acti-Blizz.

Based on this article, nothing?

And that’s the problem.

As many of us are saying, Phil really needs to implement some oversight mechanics.. I understand that the hands-off approach is working for Playground games f.ex. (and even third parties like Asobo), but in the case of f.ex. 343 and Arkane Austin, it's clearly not working.

Horrible policies with 343’s contract workers too.
Annoying seeing so many own goals from Xbox leadership for things that shouldn't be that complex

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.

They were forced to make a game they weren't keen on, that much is true. But they stayed on, and are expected to work professionally. Things like NPCs glitching, sliding down floors, hard crashes etc are things they should be fixing themselves. They owe it to the customers who buy the games.
I've had to do work i wasn't too thrilled about, early in my career. None of that stopped me from doing the best I could.

 

[Games of Today]

That $7.5 billion acquisition ain't lookin so hot.

Imagine being the one who made that call to buy them. Gun in mouth.