Sony Bend lays off 30% of their staff (40 people)

DeepEnigma said:
Apparently it was a studio vote. Between doing Day's Gone 2 or this GaaS trash in their pitch. Caused studio leads and designers to leave, and them to virtue signal about the "inclusivity and love" when he was exposing them and their "toxic positivity" culture.

Now we see the fruits of that "cult's" labor.
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They tried what was more likely to get greenlit. Sony would never supported days gone 2.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
Media Molecule is up there. NaughtyDog too.

Sony has been a mess this gen overall
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The thing with Media Molecule, Sony allows them to be a project experimentation studio.

Fabieter said:
They tried what was more likely to get greenlit. Sony would never supported days gone 2.
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Yet they just remastered it, are still having movie talks, and use Deacon in promos. Somehow, I doubt that FUD being spread.
 
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Mibu no ookami said:
See above.

First, don't think they were forced to do anything. Tell me why Sucker Punch isn't working on a live service or Housemarque. These studios largely pick their own projects and every interview with these studios have suggested that.

Second, that's massively misleading.

Helldivers 2 is one of Sony's most successful games of all time. Marvel Tokon is going to follow that up with maybe even greater success.

The problem isn't live service, it's the strategy and the execution of it in most cases.

7-8 million copies mostly at low price per unit and add zombie fatigue in the equation and the low critical reception... it fully makes sense to move on from Day's Gone.
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Never said they should make DG2. Just make more SP games.

H2 was a giant success among tons of bombed out games and studios. It's literally only one new GAAS success story (GT and baseball have gone on since PS1). On the other hand, how many of their big SP games failed that badly? Not too many. Even those second party SP games like Until Dawn, Detroit etc.... sell pretty well too.

Sony's focus on GAAS is killing them. Not just tons of failures lately and a bad Bungie buy, but they are still gunning for it. When Deviation Studios shut down, they retained Jason Blundell to lead Dark Outlaw games. Which surely will be another GAAS shooter.
 
DeepEnigma said:
The thing with Media Molecule, Sony allows them to be a project experimentation studio.
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Sure, but they should show more faith in them. Their last project got all support stopped in 3 years, without even considering a PC port, something a lot of people asked for and the kind of venue a game like Dreams could have thrived in.
 
In retrospect, Xbox kind of took Sony down with it. The Activision buyout made Sony panic and cause them to make blunder after blunder trying to get a COD alternative for themselves. The best part is they ended up not losing COD anyway.
 
Man, that Gaas initaitive is working out so well for Sony.

Gotta chase them get rich quick fad schemes.

Remind me again, what's their W/L ratio on the Live Service hustle so far?
 
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Perrott said:
Nah, they dug their own grave:
  • New hires at the studio made to get Days Gone out the door didn't want to continue to work with creative director (and sole writer!) John Garvin because of his temperament.
    • Bend management shows him the door the very week Days Gone comes out.
  • Following Garvin's exit, they go for a flat management structure, with no hierarchy in place. This makes it so that people who, for instance, don't understand shit about game design such as your newly-hired Hollywood writers or an art director suddenly begin to meddle with the vision for Days Gone 2.
    • A project that a sizeable amount of people at the studio, including management, didn't seem interested in pursuing at all, in spite of then-WWS president Shawn Layden being all in on the franchise.
  • Eventually, studio management has declined Days Gone 2 it's first greenlight for so long, refusing to take it to, say, Scott Rohde, Connie Booth or any other WWS executive along those lines, that it becomes clear that the game was not going to happen.
    • On top of it, management's plan to bring in Hollywood writers had failed, since their vision clashed with that of Days Gone game director Jeff Ross, who still remained at the studio at the time, fighting to get the sequel - and eventually even an open-world Resistance game - off the ground.
  • Without a project and without the narrative staff to get any new singleplayer, story-based game going on their own, the newly-appointed head of WWS Hermen Hulst makes the call to have Bend partner with creative leads from Naughty Dog, who would provide the creative direction and writing for the project, on an Uncharted spin-off game starring Sully.
    • Bend game director Jeff Ross, who had already collaborated with Naughty Dog on Uncharted: Golden Abyss, gladly takes on the task and so a collaboration begins and, in order to keep as much as Bend's workforce employed while the Uncharted game navigates pre-production, the studio is called in to go lend Naughty Dog a hand in establishing the foundations for the open-world San Francisco in which The Last Of Us Online was planned to take place.
  • Unsurprisingly, folks at Bend's trenches once again show their dissatisfaction with having, in their eyes, become a "Naughty Dog support studio" and eventually studio management asks PlayStation Studios executives if they could be taken off the Uncharted project and instead given the chance to pursue an original game of their own, not Days Gone, not Uncharted, but a new IP.
    • With no writers at the studio, this meant that the new IP would inherently have to be multiplayer-focused, a live-service game. Having had enough of this bullshit already, with morons at the trenches having killed two projects already, Jeff Ross departs the studio in late 2020.
If anything, Sony gave Bend's management too much rope, too much freedom -- which shows the level of confidence and autonomy that Sony gives their first-party teams. With Monday's newspaper, it is clear that perhaps what, in other context, could've been seen as a drastic and aggressive meassure -- to intervene the studio and force them to work on game X, be it Days Gone or Uncharted -- would've been the right call to make at the time.
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100% this. I don't believe Bend Studios is 100% innocent. They choise to be a part of this mess.
Both Sony and Bend Studios went full retarded on this one.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Never said they should make DG2. Just make more SP games.

H2 was a giant success among tons of bombed out games and studios. It's literally only one new GAAS success story (GT and baseball have gone on since PS1). On the other hand, how many of their big SP games failed that badly? Not too many. Even those second party SP games like Until Dawn, Detroit etc.... sell pretty well too.

Sony's focus on GAAS is killing them. Not just tons of failures lately and a bad Bungie buy, but they are still gunning for it. When Deviation Studios shut down, they retained Jason Blundell to lead Dark Outlaw games. Which surely will be another GAAS shooter.
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Sony is letting Tencent side dick their most successful new GaaS game this gen.

Wild.
 
adamsapple said:
Sure, but they should show more faith in them. Their last project got all support stopped in 3 years, without even considering a PC port, something a lot of people asked for and the kind of venue a game like Dreams could have thrived in.
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Weirdest decision ever. No Dreams PC port. Sony starts gunning for PC ports and the platform is 100x more atune to community creation games using m/kb. Yet it was walled off on PS using a gamepad. Dreams should had been among the first batch of games ported to PC years ago.
 
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DeepEnigma said:
Should have made Day's Gone 2 that you as a studio voted against causing disgruntled designers to leave, an IP that Sony unironically has been pushing again.
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The is the thing that most don't want to talk about. Sony Bend screwed over THEMSELVES! The one studio that could have just did a sequel to a single player game and been none the wiser.
 
DeepEnigma said:
Yet they just remastered it, are still having movie talks, and use Deacon in promos. Somehow, I doubt that FUD being spread.
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There is a gravity rush movie coming and there are rumors about remastering the games as well. I doubt we will see a third entry.
 
yet_another_alt said:
In retrospect, Xbox kind of took Sony down with it. The Activision buyout made Sony panic and cause them to make blunder after blunder trying to get a COD alternative for themselves. The best part is they ended up not losing COD anyway.
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"spend them out of business" - just some cheeky execs in their cheeky E.E.E. culture.

trojan horse gates GIF by South Park


Fabieter said:
There is a gravity rush movie coming and there are rumors about remastering the games as well. I doubt we will see a third entry.
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I don't. You remaster, make a movie and launch a third after when people want more.

Same would have worked out with Day's Gone 2.

And the same will happen for TLoU3 hype after season 3 is done.

adamsapple said:
Sure, but they should show more faith in them. Their last project got all support stopped in 3 years, without even considering a PC port, something a lot of people asked for and the kind of venue a game like Dreams could have thrived in.
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Yeah, the no PC port thing was stupid.
 
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DeepEnigma said:
How are they mismanaged? I'm not too privy on their inner workings.
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1.

  • Cutting 15–20% of staff indicates that the studio scaled up for a vision (Dreams) that didn't deliver a sustainable return.
  • Layoffs in a creative-first studio of Media Molecule's size often reflect poor forecasting or overinvestment in a risky concept.

2.

  • Spending nearly a decade on Dreams—a niche, non-monetizable platform—represents a significant misalignment with the broader market, especially in the context of Sony's AAA-focused strategy.
  • Despite technical achievement, the project lacked:
    • Multiplayer at launch.
    • Monetization tools for creators.
    • A compelling hook for casual players.
  • These omissions suggest scope mismanagement and possibly a lack of clear leadership focus.

3.

  • Ending support after just three years undercuts Dreams' premise as a long-term platform for user-generated content.
  • It indicates Sony or the studio lost confidence in its ability to grow or sustain the community—likely due to underperformance and a flawed support roadmap.
  • Mark Healey's own regret about not focusing on multiplayer reflects internal recognition of misjudged priorities.

4.

  • The fact that Media Molecule was reportedly near the top of Sony's potential closure list underscores vulnerability within the PlayStation Studios portfolio.
  • This raises flags about either:
    • Sony's mismanagement, in not redirecting or supporting the studio sooner.
    • Or Media Molecule's own failure to pitch viable, profitable follow-up projects post-Dreams.
5.
  • Co-founders Alex Evans and Mark Healey both leaving suggests potential disillusionment with the studio's direction or a lack of agency in shaping its future.
  • While high-profile exits aren't inherently signs of mismanagement, their timing amid the transition away from Dreams and the layoffs adds weigh


If You Say So Shrug GIF

Can't argue against AI.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Never said they should make DG2. Just make more SP games.

H2 was a giant success among tons of bombed out games and studios. It's literally only one new GAAS success story (GT and baseball have gone on since PS1). On the other hand, how many of their big SP games failed that badly? Not too many. Even those second party SP games like Until Dawn, Detroit etc.... sell pretty well too.

Sony's focus on GAAS is killing them. Not just tons of failures lately and a bad Bungie buy, but they are still gunning for it. When Deviation Studios shut down, they retained Jason Blundell to lead Dark Outlaw games. Which surely will be another GAAS shooter.
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If games like Stellar Blade or Rise of the Ronin were first party, they'd be called failures too.

Sucker Punch canceled a SP game before doing Ghost of Tsushima. No one talks about it because people recognize that games get cancelled all the time, but they talk non-stop about live service games being canceled, because GAF doesn't like live service. I don't like live service either, but I'm not going to shift logic because of my personal distaste for something.

Knack, The Order, Killzone Shadow Fall, Infamous Second Son, Ratchet and Clank, Rift apart, Last Guardian, Sackboy Adventure, Returnal... These all sold well?

I get it that no one is going to force people to be consistent with their arguments, but it doesn't hurt to say, you should try.

The money they make from Helldivers 2 and Marvel Tokon will easily overshadow any level of "failure" you perceive here.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Weirdest decision ever. No Dreams PC port. Sony starts gunning for PC ports and the platform is 100x more atune to community creation games using m/kb. Yet it was walled off on PS using a gamepad. Dreams should had been among the first batch of games ported to PC years ago.
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The director (I believe) of dreams said that they game was pretty much done on PC, but I think they had technical problems with it and there were some roadblocks to monetization. I think at the end of the day Sony made a deal with Roblox and realized it was cheaper to grab 30% of Roblox revenue rather than pump money into Dreams and try and make it work.
 
How depressing is it how many single player games weren't made all because of gaas nonsense from Sony. This is to be expected as they will have a bunch of people that only work on online stuff.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
If games like Stellar Blade or Rise of the Ronin were first party, they'd be called failures too.
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These games have made their studios grow, so no, they aren't a failure by any logical and objective measure.

Failure or success is linked to expectations and budget. A game made by a mid sized team like Stellar Blade or a small one like Expedition 33 has different goals from the new Naughty Dog or Santa Monica big thing.

Games like Returnal or Demons Souls, while not selling widly, also bring a so much needed portfolio variety.

Days Gone was a MASSIVE success. Not making a sequel was a mental decision, both from Sony and Bend's management.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
These games have made their studios grow, so no, they aren't a failure by any logical and objective measure.

Failure or success is linked to expectations and budget. A game made by a mid sized team like Stellar Blade or a small one like Expedition 33 has different goals from the new Naughty Dog or Santa Monica big thing.

Games like Returnal or Demons Souls, while not selling widly, also bring a so much needed portfolio variety.

Days Gone was a MASSIVE success. Not making a sequel was a mental decision, both from Sony and Bend's management.
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/thread
 
Another example of stellar studio management by Sony this gen

It feels like they are destroying bit by bit everything they managed to build during the past 15 years, for no good reason
 
DeepEnigma said:
Where your ideas get shouted down and colorful ideologue vomit gets precedent
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Replace 'colorful ideologue' with 'loudest/most assertive person in the room' and you got basically every tech centric company (games or otherwise) in the past 25 years.

I get the boogieman of 'the message' runs rampant in the entertainment industries for past decade or so, but games industry has never not been dysfunctional. While 'knitting clubs' may sound like questionable use of company time, the cultures spawned in 00s in some 'hardcore techie studios' would make even 2ch audience skins crawl.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
First Bend never pitched Sony DG2. Second, he was fired because he was an asshole and difficult work with, he acknowledges this himself in an interview with Jaffe, his behavior on twitter alone tells you what it would have been like to work with him. He flipped out when they put Deacon in Astro Bot and then complained about Day's Gone not being celebrated in a commercial for the 30th anniversary. He seems bipolar.

There are a multitude of reasons why you wouldn't tie up a studio on a zombie game in 2019/2020... the ceiling is super low on that, but please continue to push the idea that a Day's Gone 2 was really a good idea during peak zombie fatigue time. Not saying live service was a good choice either for this studio with limited multiplayer experience, but DG2 was not viable for a AAA studio.

And there is zero evidence that Sony has "forced" any studios to do live service.
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A good game is a good game. After the pr disaster days gone had at first it was immediate clear the game was fun. I got the platinum 3 weeks after it came out and it ran great for me.

Gavin seemed like an asshole everytime I heard he talk. He was super angry and felt betrayed. In hindsight I think he's right to feel that way.

Look at this article. It shows all the 1st party support from other teams; meaning Sony added 1st party elements like a God of War skin for the bike.

thebrokenroad.blog

Bend Studio Proved the Review Scores Wrong with Days Gone

It’s time to let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to enjoy a video game that was meant to be great. No, I’m not trying to bring anyone to the dark side here, but am …
thebrokenroad.blog thebrokenroad.blog

I remember Colin Moriarty talking at the time how weird and fucked up it was that the game was given to reviewers in such a technical state before the release of the game.

Listen starting at 10:40


Listening to Gavin years later on Colin's podcast you can tell he was really upset with the way Sony handled the situation.

Sony completely fucked up the release. Also bend used to make syphon filter until Sony told them to become a support studio and work on smaller vita games. I 100% believe that Sony has directed teams to work on gaas games against their wishes.

Sony should have realized with the bomba that Dreams was that gaas isn't the answer. It was at the same time as days gone. Sony completely whimped out when the ride you like a bike line started making the rounds.

I'm happy they remastered the game. But it's an embarrassing business blunder. They didn't know what they had, were anxious about the games long dev cycle, got scared by pre release feedback, and were probably upset at Gavin being hard to deal with. They bailed and chased the fast money with gaas. They're doing the same shit with arrowhead, arguably their only gaas success story.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
These games have made their studios grow, so no, they aren't a failure by any logical and objective measure.

Failure or success is linked to expectations and budget. A game made by a mid sized team like Stellar Blade or a small one like Expedition 33 has different goals from the new Naughty Dog or Santa Monica big thing.

Games like Returnal or Demons Souls, while not selling widly, also bring a so much needed portfolio variety.

Days Gone was a MASSIVE success. Not making a sequel was a mental decision, both from Sony and Bend's management.
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You can always tell when someone isn't being genuine.

I didn't compare Stellar Blade to Naughty Dog games. I compared them to Sony Bend a relatively small studio itself.

Do you deny a level of zombie fatigue exists? Yes or no?
 
Fafalada said:
Replace 'colorful ideologue' with 'loudest/most assertive person in the room' and you got basically every tech centric company (games or otherwise) in the past 25 years.

I get the boogieman of 'the message' runs rampant in the entertainment industries for past decade or so, but games industry has never not been dysfunctional. While 'knitting clubs' may sound like questionable use of company time, the cultures spawned in 00s in some 'hardcore techie studios' would make even 2ch audience skins crawl.
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Well, they sure as fuck made better games in that golden era before the blue haired "toxic positivity" takeover.
 
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Mibu no ookami said:
Knack, The Order, Killzone Shadow Fall, Infamous Second Son, Ratchet and Clank, Rift apart, Last Guardian, Sackboy Adventure, Returnal... These all sold well?
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Cmon Mibu. That list of games are not the same tier and budget as the big name games Sony makes. Sony's bread and butter first party games are GT and their big first party SP games. When Sony gamers ask for more SP games, they arent asking for more Sackboys. They want more big titles. Bend made one too with DG. And the next game they make is GAAS (cancelled). Sony has shit loads of money they floated the past bunch of years across GAAS games and buying up studios. And it seems it's all GAAS stuff which has all failed so far except H2.

If they got so much money burning a hole in their pockets, they could had focused on more big SP games.
 
BennyBlanco said:
If they are just starting a new game now that means they will be skipping the entire ps5 gen.
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Shit you're right, Days Gone in April 2019 was their last game.

Hope those laid off land on their feet somewhere else.

Personally, give them time to cook on a new IP. That's better than another Days Gone.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Cmon Mibu. That list of games are not the same tier and budget as the big name games Sony makes. Sony's bread and butter first party games are GT and their big first party SP games. When Sony gamers ask for more SP games, they arent asking for more Sackboys. They want more big titles. Bend made one too with DG. And the next game they make is GAAS (cancelled). Sony has shit loads of money they floated the past bunch of years across GAAS games and buying up studios. And it seems it's all GAAS stuff which has all failed so far except H2.

If they got so much money burning a hole in their pockets, they could had focused on more big SP games.
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My point is that not all of these studios are prestigious. The people saying, "just make more SP games" think talent comes from nowhere. It doesn't.

You can give a team like Bend more money, that doesn't mean their game is going to sell more copies.

Their GaaS initiative while poorly executed was about portfolio diversification. Hermen isn't fired yet because he's making more money than he is losing and it's probably not close.

Throwing more money into a shrinking pot isn't a great strategy, as much as we'd all probably prefer it and enjoy it.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
These games have made their studios grow, so no, they aren't a failure by any logical and objective measure.

Failure or success is linked to expectations and budget. A game made by a mid sized team like Stellar Blade or a small one like Expedition 33 has different goals from the new Naughty Dog or Santa Monica big thing.

Games like Returnal or Demons Souls, while not selling widly, also bring a so much needed portfolio variety.

Days Gone was a MASSIVE success. Not making a sequel was a mental decision, both from Sony and Bend's management.
Click to expand...

Witch ones the bigger failure.. Days Gone and its 8+ million sold.. or TLOU2 ? ... take expectations, scope of the IP and market share... Ill die, even if alone, on the hill that TLOU2 didnt meet expectations, not even close.

Days Gone build a fanbase... TLOUS2 cracked one...

Final sales numbers not always tells the whole truth.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
You can always tell when someone isn't being genuine.

I didn't compare Stellar Blade to Naughty Dog games. I compared them to Sony Bend a relatively small studio itself.

Do you deny a level of zombie fatigue exists? Yes or no?
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Yet they're a staple in every Call of Duty.

New Dying Light was just shown.

ILL is being oogled over.

Onimusha is literally Japanese zombies.

Resident Evil is face fucking gamers every time a new one is announced.

State of Decay 3 is wanted by its fans.

That "fatigue" was an excuse for people being cunts, either ideological or brandtards. The horde gameplay design was fantastic and fresh and would have been insane in a sequel on more capable hardware.
 
Some people here are blaming Sony for this situation. I would like to remind you that it's not Sony that didn't want to make Days Gone 2. It was management of the studio. Also, it's not that Sony made an order for them to make a GaaS game. It's studio management that wanted to hop into Sony's live service bandwagon.

You can blame Sony for their GaaS idea, but usually it's studios decision to go for it. And they are responsible for it's execution.

I don't want to play a role of devil's advocate but this is what people like Yoshida and directors of Days Gone said. Maybe Bend needs new management.
 
That really sucks, man. I hope they and the studio land on their feet again. I'd advise them to take on the DG2 sequel that's got a very strong following (understandably so).

Mibu no ookami said:
First Bend never pitched Sony DG2. Second, he was fired because he was an asshole and difficult work with, he acknowledges this himself in an interview with Jaffe, his behavior on twitter alone tells you what it would have been like to work with him. He flipped out when they put Deacon in Astro Bot and then complained about Day's Gone not being celebrated in a commercial for the 30th anniversary. He seems bipolar.

There are a multitude of reasons why you wouldn't tie up a studio on a zombie game in 2019/2020... the ceiling is super low on that, but please continue to push the idea that a Day's Gone 2 was really a good idea during peak zombie fatigue time. Not saying live service was a good choice either for this studio with limited multiplayer experience, but DG2 was not viable for a AAA studio.

And there is zero evidence that Sony has "forced" any studios to do live service.
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I swear, man... after playing the game for the first time recently, I absolutely understand why he would be pissed and bitter. The game at its core is great and full of passion. Its a slowburner and I'm pretty convinced the majority of the gaming media reviewers never gave it a proper shot other than dogpiling on some ridiculous issues like the character stareing at his GF's ass. It was an utterly embarrassing moment for "gaming journalism media". From a creator pov, I can absolutely understand why he'd feel that way.

He got pissed about the commercial since Bend has been one the of the longest running studios under PS' umbrella and they didn't even get a smidge of a mention. What is wrong with you.
 
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Bend was easily one of the most mismanaged Sony studios and I genuinely think there's a risk they get shuttered entirely if this new project doesn't get traction.

Sad to see people lose their jobs tbh.
 
Horribly poor mismanagement all round.

There is no world where they should have been making anything other than days gone 2, but the decision makers who decided against it are stupid, so here we are.
 
nial said:
Sad, indeed, but I have to imagine it's staff mostly dedicated on MP expertise no longer needed.
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During development of Days Gone, Sony Blend's staff was already around 110 employees, so, unless they changed most of their staff after that, I definitely doubt that this is the case
 
Fucking morons. They pushed for GAAS then fire them for their failure. Wasn't better Days Gone 2?
 
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MikeM said:
Just make Days Gone 2. Stop delaying the inevitable.
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I dont think they can.. apparently the "leaders" of that project are gone .. they have to go with a new ip and by the looks of it the new manegement cant make the right decisions (as for the multiple posts and insights in this thread)
 
Feels like days gone was released eons ago wtf has this team been doing all these years. Have they even announced a game yet?
 
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