Which big developer and/or publisher that’s still around has had the biggest decline since their peak?

D

DoubleClutch

Banned
I'm thinking it might be Ubisoft. They went from Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed (Ezio arc), Beyond Good and Evil, Brothers in Arms…. to what is Outlaws today.

Your thoughts?
 
atyourservice said:
Can't tell if they're doing worse than Sega
Click to expand...
Sega this year just released Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 Reload and they've got that Sonic Generations remaster coming in a couple of months

Konami has..... A silent hill 2 remake by the absolute worst people for the job and an MGS3 "remake" that's really just the original with a brand new paintjob

not comparable in the slightest

Konami used to be a juggernaut especially in the 90s with all the different franchises they managed and made series out of. MGS, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Parodius, Tokimeki Memorial, Rocket Knight, so on and so forth. All quality. Then in the 2000s their output dwindled to just Silent Hill and MGS. Then Silent Hill went to shit and the dev of MGS left them. They have fucking nothing now.
 
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64bitmodels said:
Sega this year just released Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 Reload and they've got that Sonic Generations remaster coming in a couple of months

Konami has..... A silent hill 2 remake by the absolute worst people for the job and an MGS3 "remake" that's really just the original with a brand new paintjob

not comparable in the slightest
Click to expand...
You have a point. I guess I was thinking about how far Sega has fallen from their very high heights. Konami would have been just one publisher of many on a sega console if things turned out differently
 
Cert.in.Death said:
Bioware
Click to expand...
I Agree Uh Huh GIF by Lillee Jean


It started with Mass Effect, they had one last try with Dragon Age: Origins, afterwards it's waifus and color-coded dialogue. Last 15 years it's been all thrash.
 
Ubisoft, Microsoft, Square Enix, Bethesda, Konami, Koei Tecmo, Sega, Bandai Namco.

Depressing idea for a thread, can't we reverse it? Biggest positive turn around? Hello Games
 
Fess said:
can't we reverse it? Biggest positive turn around? Hello Games
Click to expand...
the fact you only listed one positive turn around and 8 declines is sort of why we can't have the opposite thread. Even Nintendo isn't what they once used to be.

It's all about the new blood studios proving themselves for the best games these days
 
Ubisoft 100%
I used to love them back in the day but after watch dogs 1 (I loved that game,first game I had on ps4)
Just went to shit,the open world ubi formula sucks so bad and is in every one of their games where it is just mind numbingly boring.

I don't know how people still play the ubi style open world game in 2024.
 
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atyourservice said:
You have a point. I guess I was thinking about how far Sega has fallen from their very high heights. Konami would have been just one publisher of many on a sega console if things turned out differently
Click to expand...

Sega used to be an absolute force in the industry. It was started going downhill around when they sold Visual Concepts... a move I'll still never understand. Would love details on why that happened.

They used to make SO many games but going 3rd party changed them. Rather than make more games, because it's your principle function, they decided to make fewer games.

We saw a fighting game renaissance largely without Virtual Fighter. Yu Suzuki became a member of a long list of major Japanese devs who left their companies and really didn't have much success on his own. Yuji Naka is in a similar boat, but obviously disgraced with his legal issues.

A lot of this coincided with a lot of Japanese studios pushing back against Sony because they didn't want the PS2 to be too successful and create another Nintendo situation. Now they've created a new Nintendo situation in Japan and 3rd party games barely sell in this situation.

Capcom, Sega, Square Enix, Konami, they all fell.

Now they're standing by watching Western studios make Ghost of Tsushima and Assassin's Creed Shadows while they make games like Rise of the Ronin...

Maybe Japanese development will have a resurgence someday.
 
It's gotta be BioWare. They practically defined the modern WRPG genre and released so many amazingly high quality titles back in the day.

Now they're basically on life support and will probably get euthanized when Dragon Age 4 flops
 
64bitmodels said:
the fact you only listed one positive turn around and 8 declines is sort of why we can't have the opposite thread. Even Nintendo isn't what they once used to be.

It's all about the new blood studios proving themselves for the best games these days
Click to expand...
Yeah I know but I just don't like that we're focusing so much on negatives all the time.
 
EA. At one point was the dominant 3rd party with console and pc on lockdown. Then came kotor mmo for 500 million rumored cost. IMO they have not recovered from the 08/09 recession identity wise.
 
Easily Rockstar. The important talent is gone. GTA6 will have the same old scripted garbage gameplay and their GTA Online shenanigans are exactly the type of behavior they would have made fun of in their prime.
 
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Konami.

Well there's some positive signs of life due to the upcoming releases but once was a gaming juggernaut is now a pachinko salesman.
 
If this means from the late 2000's, then Bethesda, from 4 games in 5 years to what they are doing now, i can't choose Ubisoft as i liked Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, although very recently Ubisoft are really going downhill pulling shady stuff.
 
I won't count Konami as being around anymore. Their devs moved to Koji Pro and they are doing fine.

It's Bungie. As a fan watching them fall from the orbit of hype, sales, reviews and cultural impact of Halo 3, crash landing to the crater of their GaaS model it's been a sight to see. I hope they get better eventually, wherever they are.
LlqICO.gif
 
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Fess said:
Ubisoft, Microsoft, Square Enix, Bethesda, Konami, Koei Tecmo, Sega, Bandai Namco.

Depressing idea for a thread, can't we reverse it? Biggest positive turn around? Hello Games
Click to expand...
It's depressing only because it forces gamers to address the reality that things are bad right now lol

Imo the more gamers act like everything is sweet the longer the bad times last.

When you realize that say...

-ubisoft is now making corporate profit games
-Bioware is making bad games
-Bethesda dumbed down their games and barely releases
-Valve doesn't make games anymore
-Konami ain't really doing shit anymore
-Rockstar barely releases
-Naughtydog hadn't released all gen
-Ken Levine is just now releasing a title
-Blizzard is kinda cooked
-epic only cares about fortnite

That isn't good, and convos need to start happening lol
 
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ItJustWorks said:
It's depressing only because it forces gamers to address the reality that things are bad right now lol

Imo the more gamers act like everything is sweet the longer the bad times last.

When you realize that say...

-ubisoft is now making corporate profit games
-Bioware is making bad games
-Bethesda dumbed down their games and barely releases
-Valve doesn't make games anymore
-Konami ain't really doing shit anymore
-Rockstar barely releases
-Naughtydog hadn't released all gen
-Ken Levine is just now releasing a title
-Blizzard is kinda cooked
-epic only cares about fortnite

That isn't good, and convos need to start happening lol
Click to expand...
It's just tiresome to be negative all the time.

But whatever, in general western devs has completely lost it. US/UK people can never understand what it's like if you're out of that whole LGTVBBQAB+- thing, when devs tries to normalize something that is as normal where you live as aliens walking down the street you just stop caring. I can probably count the western devs that hasn't declined over the last 2-4 decades on one hand. I listed publishers because listing devs would make the list huge. And I avoided mentioning Sony because they're too loved here but I no longer use my PS so there's that. And Xbox in general is dying so it's hard to do a bigger decline than that, and I don't care how big MS is as a publisher they've still gone through a historical decline. And Nintendo is just milking Switch to beat PS2 on lifetime sales, I barely even buy one game per year there anymore. Give me something new, like 4 years ago. And so many games just can't be released in a feature complete state anymore, post-release patching for 3-6+ months has been fully normalized. 95% of the hobby had turned to shit, more or less.

I don't think this is a fun thing to talk about, but there you go.
 
64bitmodels said:
Sega this year just released Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 Reload and they've got that Sonic Generations remaster coming in a couple of months

Konami has..... A silent hill 2 remake by the absolute worst people for the job and an MGS3 "remake" that's really just the original with a brand new paintjob

not comparable in the slightest

Konami used to be a juggernaut especially in the 90s with all the different franchises they managed and made series out of. MGS, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Parodius, Tokimeki Memorial, Rocket Knight, so on and so forth. All quality. Then in the 2000s their output dwindled to just Silent Hill and MGS. Then Silent Hill went to shit and the dev of MGS left them. They have fucking nothing now.
Click to expand...
Even for once, Konami invented/popularize some genre back in 80s 90s, well well...
 
Cyberpunkd said:
It started with Mass Effect, they had one last try with Dragon Age: Origins, afterwards it's waifus and color-coded dialogue. Last 15 years it's been all thrash.
Click to expand...
They started with Baldur's Gate, methinks? Or is that considered just Black Isle? I'm a little confused on that one.
 
64bitmodels said:
konami

it will always be konami.
Click to expand...
Have to agree with this. Konami almost stopped releasing video games entirely and I still remember the years that things looked absolutely dire: 2016 and 2017.

I remember because MGSV came out in 2015, the Kojima split happened, and they went silent for 2 full years, only releasing the yearly Pro Evolution Soccer title (probably because they had to).

I legitimately thought one of the biggest foundational video game publishers and Capcom's literal rival was going to throw in the towel on gaming.
 
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At least here in the states, I don't think Konami reached the cultural highs that Bungie did with Halo. My god those early Xbox live days were buzzing. Does anyone give a shit about Halo now in light of the embarrassing TV show and ghost town Infinite?
 
Big publisher: EA (look at what EA put out in the 90s to early 2000s)
Big dev: A tie between Blizzard and Bungie
 
BigBeauford said:
At least here in the states, I don't think Konami reached the cultural highs that Bungie did with Halo.
Click to expand...

It depends on your age and generation. Konami was neck and neck with Capcom and Sega for a long while. Castlevania and Contra were household names that friends and locals knew. Also the Konami arcade games were extremely fun and nearly everywhere.

Halo had the benefit and curse of growing as the internet and social media grew at the same time.
 
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Nickolaidas said:
They started with Baldur's Gate, methinks? Or is that considered just Black Isle? I'm a little confused on that one.
Click to expand...
Black Isle was the publisher, together with Interplay. It was developed by BioWare which shows you how much they have fallen. Larian made a vastly superior RPG using their original IP, while BioWare is chasing GAAS.
 
Konami.

Like literally seeing the red/orange logo bring me joy........then I remember ohhhhh.....they are fucked.
Konami-Logo-history.png






Bioware second.
Probably Rocksteady.

Ubisoft is still raking in billions with Assassins Creed alone.
I dont even want to know what Siege, For Honor and FarCry bring in.

They literally dont need to make any other games beyond these ones.
But they still experiment with Avatar and Outlaws so i gotta give them juice.
BigBeauford said:
At least here in the states, I don't think Konami reached the cultural highs that Bungie did with Halo. My god those early Xbox live days were buzzing. Does anyone give a shit about Halo now in light of the embarrassing TV show and ghost town Infinite?
Click to expand...

Odd cuz Bungie doesnt make Halo, and havent since the well received Halo: Reach

They had a successful game in Destiny, I believe Destiny 2 was also well received initially then they started doing some weirdness with removing content.
And id argue Destiny and D2 were as culturally important as Halo was.......cuz for a while we got a bunch of Destiny clones.
 
64bitmodels said:
konami

it will always be konami.
Click to expand...
Agreed but not because eFootball isn't amazing as a F2P game versus old PES - still haven't spent anything in multi years playing and still rolled in Hristo Stoichkov, Ruben Neves and ... Roberto Carlos in the last week for free - but because the strength and depth of what Konami offered in addition to PES and MGS was so great.
 
Mibu no ookami said:
Sega used to be an absolute force in the industry. It was started going downhill around when they sold Visual Concepts... a move I'll still never understand. Would love details on why that happened.

They used to make SO many games but going 3rd party changed them. Rather than make more games, because it's your principle function, they decided to make fewer games.

We saw a fighting game renaissance largely without Virtual Fighter. Yu Suzuki became a member of a long list of major Japanese devs who left their companies and really didn't have much success on his own. Yuji Naka is in a similar boat, but obviously disgraced with his legal issues.

A lot of this coincided with a lot of Japanese studios pushing back against Sony because they didn't want the PS2 to be too successful and create another Nintendo situation. Now they've created a new Nintendo situation in Japan and 3rd party games barely sell in this situation.

Capcom, Sega, Square Enix, Konami, they all fell.

Now they're standing by watching Western studios make Ghost of Tsushima and Assassin's Creed Shadows while they make games like Rise of the Ronin...

Maybe Japanese development will have a resurgence someday.
Click to expand...
Confused by the assertion in bold. Very, very very confused.

If the PS2 3P situation was 3P's pushing back against Sony because they didn't want them to be too successful, idk what their execution was because they gave that baby everything they had and then some.

Even Nintendo in the 80-early 90s never enjoyed the 3P commitment that PS1-PS2 experienced.

Ps2 was still getting Japanese 3P exclusives in like 2010.

Now if you said this about PS3, I'd partially believe you.

But Ps2? That was an absolute circlejerk of riches from 3P to Sony.

As for your last statement, huh?

Anywhere you ask online, it's the Japanese is holding it down right now sentiment, and the western titles are pooing the bedsheets.
 
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64bitmodels said:
Sega this year just released Infinite Wealth and Persona 3 Reload and they've got that Sonic Generations remaster coming in a couple of months

Konami has..... A silent hill 2 remake by the absolute worst people for the job and an MGS3 "remake" that's really just the original with a brand new paintjob

not comparable in the slightest

Konami used to be a juggernaut especially in the 90s with all the different franchises they managed and made series out of. MGS, Silent Hill, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Parodius, Tokimeki Memorial, Rocket Knight, so on and so forth. All quality. Then in the 2000s their output dwindled to just Silent Hill and MGS. Then Silent Hill went to shit and the dev of MGS left them. They have fucking nothing now.
Click to expand...
They also have a Suikoden 1 and 2 remaster coming, and if they don't screw that up, it absolves them of any other sins.
 
Oof85 said:
Confused by the assertion in bold. Very, very very confused.

If the PS2 3P situation was 3P's pushing back against Sony because they didn't want them to be too successful, idk what their execution was because they gave that baby everything they had and then some.

Even Nintendo in the 80-early 90s never enjoyed the 3P commitment that PS1-PS2 experienced.

Ps2 was still getting Japanese 3P exclusives in like 2010.

Now if you said this about PS3, I'd partially believe you.

But Ps2? That was an absolute circlejerk of riches from 3P to Sony.

As for your last statement, huh?

Anywhere you ask online, it's the Japanese is holding it down right now sentiment, and the western titles are pooing the bedsheets.
Click to expand...

I love having conversations with people who weren't around at the time...

Many developers at the time said they wanted their games on other platforms because they didn't want Sony to have too much power. There are literally interviews where they said this.

Many games ended up going to the Dreamcast and Gamecube and even Xbox as a result. Games that naturally would have sold better on PS2. In fact many of these games eventually got ported to the PS2 at some point because they performed like garbage on the other platforms.

Examples of these games include

Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil Code Veronica
Resident Evil Remake
Resident Evil 4
PN03
Viewtiful Joe
Dead Phoenix
Killer 7
Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Sword of Mana (DS)
Ninja Gaiden


A lot of this continued and became in ways more prevalent on the 360, but that's a bit more nuanced due to the decline of the PS3, but the Japanese exodus didn't help the PS3. A lot of these games ended up on DS and 3DS as well.

Famous examples of this are Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tomonobu Itagaki, and Shinji Mikami.
 
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