Criterion being the latest dev studio being bought, some of us are already speculating about what will eventually come of them, or the people that make up Criterion.
The story is always exactly the same:
* Great Dev team makes impressive games
* A big Publisher notices this and buys them out to avoid having said team go to competing publishers/console makers
* Team does a few games on their own, like before, and then...
* The big Publisher wants to reach a greater audience and handicapps the original idea behind a game, they water it down
* Dev team loses sight of their goal (ie., making good games) and key people leave
* Dev team subsequently becomes a festival of mediocrity and the gamers are left wondering what happened to them
I bet this scenario took place at the building of the pyramids in Egypt. The architech probably had to change his vision of a perfect pyramid after having some dispute with the Faraoh. After that he took his most trusted guys and left for Mexico, where the pyramids today are more impressive than those in Egypt.
Anyways, I don't understand how many times this cycle needs to repeat itself before Pubs wake the fuck up and let dev teams do what they do best. Sony seems to have learned this lesson with PD since they seem to be giving them as much time as they want to make the game. GT series is also the only series that will have gotten more hardcore by its later iterations.
The story is always exactly the same:
* Great Dev team makes impressive games
* A big Publisher notices this and buys them out to avoid having said team go to competing publishers/console makers
* Team does a few games on their own, like before, and then...
* The big Publisher wants to reach a greater audience and handicapps the original idea behind a game, they water it down
* Dev team loses sight of their goal (ie., making good games) and key people leave
* Dev team subsequently becomes a festival of mediocrity and the gamers are left wondering what happened to them
I bet this scenario took place at the building of the pyramids in Egypt. The architech probably had to change his vision of a perfect pyramid after having some dispute with the Faraoh. After that he took his most trusted guys and left for Mexico, where the pyramids today are more impressive than those in Egypt.
Anyways, I don't understand how many times this cycle needs to repeat itself before Pubs wake the fuck up and let dev teams do what they do best. Sony seems to have learned this lesson with PD since they seem to be giving them as much time as they want to make the game. GT series is also the only series that will have gotten more hardcore by its later iterations.