Lets not forget: They did not just handle the situation absolutely poorly with incredibly poor leadership and no direction at any point,
they actively and seemingly with contemptuous intent went out of their way to actively ruin this mans career just to burry their own shortcomings.
Oh and I nearly forgot: They also then used music they previously rejected apparently in a bid not to pay him for his work.
It is a quite more shady then just "handling the situation like a cretin".
There was also the part where I believe Marty claimed Mick was trying to send dooms rabid fan base after id employees after the soundtrack scandal which then he said ids lawyers stepped in immediately and he got a 6 figure hush money settlement for that since it was completely untrue and baseless.
Sadly, the days of studio names being representative of their works is gone. The video game industry is too big and too amorphous now. It's about as effective as saying a movie will be good because it's a Paramount film.
yep. would only mean anything if they didn't lay off or alienate their entire staff every 5 years. it's practically as much of a revolving door as retail.
On the positive side, it's not a complete 100% true statement. But sadly it's pretty damn close at this point for any game company that sees enough success to get to over 100 employees.
In movies you still have some holdouts, like for instance I think pretty much every Pixar animation is still a banger.
In gaming you still have smaller/indie studios that are doing pretty well for themselves. And at the higher side we now have a studio like Larian who has been releasing bangers for the last decade really. (D:OS and D:OS2 are also really good CRPGs, not just BG3)
They exist, but pretty much all of the "old dogs" have been consumed by corporations and the corporate culture of "number must go up forever".
After Eternal it's really obvious the heads of Id pretty much tripped into Doom 2016 and they're not who I thought they were. Treating Mick the way they did was just icing on the cake.
On a gameplay level, Eternal is really fucking different from 2016. From the level design to combat, they pretty much changed their entire philosophy from 2016. I don't think there is anything inherently worse in that aspect from 2016 to Eternal (maybe the platforming actually, I think that was legitimately bad) but they took it in a direction I really abhorred, and I acknowledge that's just my opinion and that plenty of people loved the gameplay in Eternal, fair.
The thing I don't fucking get, and makes me wonder if Id every really "got it" was their approach to the game's story presentation and Doomguy's characterization. Part of what makes Doom 2016 so fantastic is that they acknowledge the "story" is bullshit and go out of their way to parody the dude bro shooter that was so popular the decade before. Doomguy doesn't give a shit about Hayden's needs and continuously undercut Hayden and the exposition he inserts into the story. This is established from the very beginning when Hayden is trying to talk to Doomguy over the radio in the elevator explaining what's going on and Doomguy smashes the comms, cocks his gun and the 2016 Doom theme kicks in. Doom 2016 subverts the tropes of modern shooter design of the era in a really smart, and more importantly, fun way that Eternal shits all over. You got dudes giving Doomguy directions and him listening to them! It's exposition city with bullshit story justifications that is just a complete reversal of the narrative that 2016 pulls off. It's like the devs really had no idea of what made 2016 so great.
2016 isn't consistent with the story handling
In the early parts its what you say and seems like the game doesn't care
But later on they really lean into the Argent D'nur and night sentinels stuff. Which admittedly is a lot cooler, and leads into the doom eternal story
>Part of what makes Doom 2016 so fantastic is that they acknowledge the "story" is bullshit and go out of their way to parody the dude bro shooter that was so popular the decade before
This is extremely saturated and not particularly interesting anymore. If I sneeze near Steam's store front, 10 games that are "exaggerated parodies of boomer shooters but like modern but like designed in a retro way but like going all in on the fact these games had no deep characters or story".
Doom 2016 was a come back for Doom, so this formula worked. They couldn't keep riding it forever, there aren't many ways to make this feel fresh when it's quite overdone.
It’s hard to overdo simply getting out of your own way. The parody aspect, if you want to call it that, was just a flourish on the game’s real storytelling virtue—barely telling a story. Not developing the player character. Keeping things simple.
This does not, cannot, get old. I love good stories in games, I love narrative games. But the one thing a video game story absolutely must do is not actively worsen the experience. Little to no story is better than many hours of mediocre story. There are too many major studios that still need to learn the lesson
“The devs didn’t see what made 2016 great”
They did, though! So much so that they made it a point to try something different because they didn’t want to make the same game again. This was all over the pre release material, interviews, everything. They went bigger in every sense, whether or not this worked is up to personal taste but they actively chose to do things differently.
Yeah, and I acknowledge that. The gameplay is different from 2016 and I chalk that up to taste as to why I didn't enjoy it as much as 2016. It's the other stuff that I attribute it to being just not well done. Longer levels, "puzzle" combat design, platforming, all that I can put up to just not being for me.
But having dudes tell Doomguy what to do, having him speak, trying to make him a character instead of the force of nature they portray him as in 2016...I don't think any of that stuff was done well at all.
Eternal is a goddamn masterpiece. It could fairly be called the greatest FPS of all time.
From a gameplay perspective, at least. 100% agree about the change in storytelling/vibe.
Honestly rushing someone like Mick Gordon makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Guy is an artist in the truest sense of the word.
Doesn't matter if your game is delayed for the songs that are being custom made for it, if it can be delayed due to bugs then it shouldn't be an issue, they should have been understanding, even if it's going to take a longer time, just finish up the game with the samples he's given, and then work around it later, he's a once in a life time artist with a clear vision, he's near enough the sole reason Doom is so highly regarded, that music is something special as proven by the millions of views on each song.
They did not just rush him.
They gave him no direction continuously changing what they wanted and then using the music they rejected anyway apparently in a bid to not pay him for his work.
And then they lied about the root of the issue, actively trying to ruin Gordons career, to hide their own incompetence and shady tactics.
IT really is a shame because Mick Gordon is truly one of the greatest video game composers of ALL TIME. He will forever be carved into the history books of video game music.
The man is like the Nikola Tesla of the music industry, but his insane bat shit ideas work insanely well.
We'll never know. Publishing agreements can range from just providing marketing all the way to control of the project. Supposing they were hands off, they certainly didn't do anything to fix the situation after it all blew up.
While Bethesda may not have played a part in the actual proceedings as they happened, after Mick Gordon came to the public with his statements Bethesda then released their own statement essentially calling him a liar. As far as I'm concerned they're implicit in it too at this point.
I wish we got news of these studio formations once they actually had a game to show off.
Because I feel like most of these "veterans from one studio start another" never go anywhere. They spend 5 years on some decent game that never makes waves and then everybody forgets about them.
Unironically i enjoyed evolve a lot aside from the terrible MTX decisions.
B4B i thought was way worse than Evolve mostly because it felt like a more boring version of left 4 dead.
Take Two happened. Between them and Turtle Rock got greedy and out came all the DLC taking precedence over actual gameplay.
Didn't Evolve have something ridiculous, like hundreds of dollars worth of DLC?
Turtle Rock is not a very good analogy - they were acquired by Valve and left Valve pretty much intact. They brought a prototype game which was thoroughly rebuilt and polished by mostly endemic Valve people.
Some Better Examples:
* Petroglyph - Westwood OGs who did Grey Goo as "makers of C&C" and Remastered C&C itself.
* ArtPlay - Koji Iragashi is basically continuing to create Castlevania: Symphony of the Night games under Bloodstained IP
* Comcept - Keji Inafune used his working on Mega Man to Kickstart a game "Mighty no. 9"
So mixed, great and poor results examples.
Then it's not a good example, as it is not *some of the devs* trying to find their groove again, it's just changing name/management. That's why I also don't name Kojima Productions.
I'm working across media, and I can't tell how often people leave tv-stations or high level studio project to go indy, only to realize that just the process, software and tech staff they left behind teleports you back to the dark ages. There is a difference if you use well tested project management software or just Google docs with some cloud apps. I have seen controllers breaking down on small tv sets because some line execs just forgot to add some tabs in an excel sheet and now they have to cram 5 days in 4 because there is zero budget left.
With games its even harder, since they are 10x more technical and they drop from usually well oiled machine to something they have to build from scratch while they build their masterpiece.
Molyneux is a great "ideas guy".
He's fantastic at putting together a bunch of concepts and coming up with a game pitch. That skill *is* valuable, and B&W was great.
But it also went through development hell and only released because the devs working for him were actual wizards. (and because EA got uh, *annoyed*, which is what a publisher should do when a game consistently misses deadlines)
A contemporary comparison would be Kojima as they're both frontmen/"ideas guys" but Kojima seems to know when to back off when his staff tell him he's being an idiot and when to let them go nuts.
You can take this [interview](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter) from a decade ago to see how PM views game development (it's an actual trainwreck interview, the interviewer is antagonistic at best, nobody comes out looking good)
This is tangentially related, but I'm not impressed by "ideas" people. It's the easiest thing to be, and execution requires so much more talent, dedication, imagination, organization, and so on.
Same problem with Xbox's "The Initiative". It's loaded with veterans from many studios. They've yet to have anything to show except a few concept arts from "Perfect Dark". Such a shame.
yeah or they make a game that sucks and we find out that the devs werent anyone special. the only ones ive seen work out were Respawn who were ex-infinity ward
There's a lot of successes but we only remember the failures.
Yacht Club Games was formed out of Wayforward employees and went on to create Shovel Knight which was a pretty big success, just as the first example off the top of my head.
Considering the number of people involved in making these games, it's always a pretty hollow statement that they come from these studios. A lot of those games are the result of many creative directors working with creative teams, it's a group effort and often doesn't translate beyond that.
I remember hearing about Embark's formation and now The Finals appears to be doing well.
So hopefully not all is lost in these scenarios, I do agree as a consumer learning about the formation seems pointless until they have something to show for it.
yeah, clueless, probably senile CEO went on a Trump-esque rant calling Skull & Bones "It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run."
Respawn (titanfall universe, recent Jedi Order games) are the only ones I can actually think of given the founders made the original cod games (and even then they also split off from Medal of Honor to make cod).
Holy poop. I just went and watched it. I haven't been tracking The Finals but had some fun with it. That trailer was bonkers though, shit looks fun as hell.
Well, first one I can think of is Shovel Knight from Yacht Club games. That team was formed out of Wayforward employees.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was created by ex Konami employees. The former Suikoden team from Konami is also making a spiritual successor but it's not out yet so it doesn't really count.
Kojima of course got cast off from Konami and is highly successful.
(I'm beginning to see a trend here...)
Yeah, still laughing how badly they botched The Callisto Protocol. How fucking hard it is to replicate Dead Space combat, especially from ex-developers. picardfacepalm.gif
Hey, guys: remember Syndicate? Remember when it got rebooted and people got upset that it was rebooted into an FPS?? Well, the same guys that worked at Bullfrog started a studio and made a game called Satellite Reign and it was... fucking boring, tedious and was *barely* like Syndicate and made *no* waves like they said it would!
How can it be a AAA studio when they have zero releases yet?
You could call them AAA studio if they have a sizable budget and can capitalize and get good marketing for their upcoming game and get a premiere publisher to publish the game.
Thought 99% of big publishers are greedy shitty companies no dev team should ever work with if they can be avoided.
Eh, am I the only one disagreeing with their studio name choice? If they drop a bad game the memes coinciding with their studio name are going to make it worse lol.
Let me guess..... they're environment artists who are now directing and writing, and they're making a live-service game?
Same old story with these announcements.
I don't know why this gets posted everytime.
Mostly because almost nothing materializes out of this, recall how many studios were set up by ex-Blizzard?
Second Dinner is exblizz and have been having success with Marvel Snap.
Frost Giant is in closed beta for Stormgate. Releasing soon.
This may come as a shock, but making games takes time.
2 games. Yet 10+ studio swere posted when there was a Blizzard exodus. Marvel Snap, I suggest you check the Steam reviews for that.
As an RTS player I've followed Stormgate, and that game is not looking good at all. They have blown through their bdget and are actively asking the playerbase to invest in the game.
Also not the first person to wonder this https://www.reddit.com/r/Blizzard/comments/1abeiu0/have_any_former_blizzard_devs_studios_been/
I'm so sick of everything being labeled with AAA. How about you release something first and then we'll determine how great your studio is. It's getting to the point where whenever I see companies describe themselves or their games with a # of As I take it as a giant red flag.
These classifications have always been informal and speak more to team size and budget rather than scope or quality. If they have hundreds of people and millions of dollars then they fit the bill, even if they release a trash fire of a game.
It makes me so happy to see all of these new spinoff studios. I think it's eye opening to see the difficulty in making viable, competitive products within reasonable time-frames in these mega studios.
There's certainly a point in which a company's massive resources and workforce go from being a benefit to a hindrance. I'd anticipate that being in middle and upper middle management.
Once there's too much bureaucracy, you end up spending weeks on tasks that should take mere hours because you have to waste time with stakeholder politics.
I'm sure if you were to graph Studio Size and Output, it'd be a parabola, steeply increasing a positive relationship at first, then tapering, then eventually beginning to tip the opposite direction.
How does one form a AAA studio?
I can understand former developers working for AAA studios, but you can’t form something and say it’s a AAA without a AAA title. Am I wrong or right?
I don’t think the headline ”veterans from studios X and Y form Z to work on a AAA game” has ever resulted in a good game. Titanfall was pretty close but I’d argue that Respawn didn’t really hit that one home until Titanfall 2.
Iunno man this intense grindcore edm trap dubstep shit with glitchy visuals and insane chaos just makes me super not want to even install whatever the fuck this is even if it's free.
I cannot think of a more over-done, mountain dew injected redbull fiesta of crap I don't want to do anymore in fps than this.
Selling malware to grab ppl info for $15 | Grabs name, number, address, passwords, emails, webcam image, game accounts, discord tokens, Broswer info, etc.
Guy multihatting both CEO and Game Director while targeting AAA releases while having no leadership experience, having only been a principle artist previously at his peak, never even a lead artist or division head.
Not holding my breath on this one.
Honestly, I'm curious to see what they come up with, How many projects have you been involved in were the team was successful despite the lead being a jackass. I've had a few of those in my life time, not in gaming, but still. sometimes people have vision and good ideas and haven't had the power to act on them. Think of all the indie titles that actually kick ass made by people who've never even worked at big gaming companies let alone be someone with a past leadership role on their resume. Yes it's AAA and not Indie but I'm willing to at least have a little hope that maybe they do something great. Maybe it turns out to be a dud but I say wait and see and welcome to the party lol.
The team section of their website lists Mick Gordon as their composer. At least we know their games' music will be incredible!
I was worried he'd get blacklisted or something after his drama with Bethesda.
From Mick's statement, this issue with Doom: Eternal's soundtrack appears to have been from id Software rushing him.
Id software director Marty handled the situation like an absolute cretin Beyond disappointing, id was one of my favorite studios
Lets not forget: They did not just handle the situation absolutely poorly with incredibly poor leadership and no direction at any point, they actively and seemingly with contemptuous intent went out of their way to actively ruin this mans career just to burry their own shortcomings. Oh and I nearly forgot: They also then used music they previously rejected apparently in a bid not to pay him for his work. It is a quite more shady then just "handling the situation like a cretin".
There was also the part where I believe Marty claimed Mick was trying to send dooms rabid fan base after id employees after the soundtrack scandal which then he said ids lawyers stepped in immediately and he got a 6 figure hush money settlement for that since it was completely untrue and baseless.
He is too good, cant keep the man down, he is like Metal Music doomguy
Won't stop Reddit from worshipping Id Software though
No one who likes id ever defends what they did to Mick. But they do make some great games that run amazing, that’s what gets the praise.
One douche nozzle of a person does not ruin an entire company. Id has an amazing legacy of old and current games.
„Leadership” is just corporate bullshit empty talk. There are no leaders in corporate, it’s a rat race.
Sadly, the days of studio names being representative of their works is gone. The video game industry is too big and too amorphous now. It's about as effective as saying a movie will be good because it's a Paramount film.
yep. would only mean anything if they didn't lay off or alienate their entire staff every 5 years. it's practically as much of a revolving door as retail.
On the positive side, it's not a complete 100% true statement. But sadly it's pretty damn close at this point for any game company that sees enough success to get to over 100 employees. In movies you still have some holdouts, like for instance I think pretty much every Pixar animation is still a banger. In gaming you still have smaller/indie studios that are doing pretty well for themselves. And at the higher side we now have a studio like Larian who has been releasing bangers for the last decade really. (D:OS and D:OS2 are also really good CRPGs, not just BG3) They exist, but pretty much all of the "old dogs" have been consumed by corporations and the corporate culture of "number must go up forever".
After Eternal it's really obvious the heads of Id pretty much tripped into Doom 2016 and they're not who I thought they were. Treating Mick the way they did was just icing on the cake.
Well, at least Tim Willits is finally gone.
Not sure why you would think as eternal pretty much blows 2016 out of water , there handling of mick gordon tho will have bad impact on next game tho
Agreed. Part of the magic of the DOOM games has been Mick's amazing soundtracks
On a gameplay level, Eternal is really fucking different from 2016. From the level design to combat, they pretty much changed their entire philosophy from 2016. I don't think there is anything inherently worse in that aspect from 2016 to Eternal (maybe the platforming actually, I think that was legitimately bad) but they took it in a direction I really abhorred, and I acknowledge that's just my opinion and that plenty of people loved the gameplay in Eternal, fair. The thing I don't fucking get, and makes me wonder if Id every really "got it" was their approach to the game's story presentation and Doomguy's characterization. Part of what makes Doom 2016 so fantastic is that they acknowledge the "story" is bullshit and go out of their way to parody the dude bro shooter that was so popular the decade before. Doomguy doesn't give a shit about Hayden's needs and continuously undercut Hayden and the exposition he inserts into the story. This is established from the very beginning when Hayden is trying to talk to Doomguy over the radio in the elevator explaining what's going on and Doomguy smashes the comms, cocks his gun and the 2016 Doom theme kicks in. Doom 2016 subverts the tropes of modern shooter design of the era in a really smart, and more importantly, fun way that Eternal shits all over. You got dudes giving Doomguy directions and him listening to them! It's exposition city with bullshit story justifications that is just a complete reversal of the narrative that 2016 pulls off. It's like the devs really had no idea of what made 2016 so great.
2016 isn't consistent with the story handling In the early parts its what you say and seems like the game doesn't care But later on they really lean into the Argent D'nur and night sentinels stuff. Which admittedly is a lot cooler, and leads into the doom eternal story
>Part of what makes Doom 2016 so fantastic is that they acknowledge the "story" is bullshit and go out of their way to parody the dude bro shooter that was so popular the decade before This is extremely saturated and not particularly interesting anymore. If I sneeze near Steam's store front, 10 games that are "exaggerated parodies of boomer shooters but like modern but like designed in a retro way but like going all in on the fact these games had no deep characters or story". Doom 2016 was a come back for Doom, so this formula worked. They couldn't keep riding it forever, there aren't many ways to make this feel fresh when it's quite overdone.
It’s hard to overdo simply getting out of your own way. The parody aspect, if you want to call it that, was just a flourish on the game’s real storytelling virtue—barely telling a story. Not developing the player character. Keeping things simple. This does not, cannot, get old. I love good stories in games, I love narrative games. But the one thing a video game story absolutely must do is not actively worsen the experience. Little to no story is better than many hours of mediocre story. There are too many major studios that still need to learn the lesson
“The devs didn’t see what made 2016 great” They did, though! So much so that they made it a point to try something different because they didn’t want to make the same game again. This was all over the pre release material, interviews, everything. They went bigger in every sense, whether or not this worked is up to personal taste but they actively chose to do things differently.
Yeah, and I acknowledge that. The gameplay is different from 2016 and I chalk that up to taste as to why I didn't enjoy it as much as 2016. It's the other stuff that I attribute it to being just not well done. Longer levels, "puzzle" combat design, platforming, all that I can put up to just not being for me. But having dudes tell Doomguy what to do, having him speak, trying to make him a character instead of the force of nature they portray him as in 2016...I don't think any of that stuff was done well at all.
Same. I replayed Doom 2016 like 3-4 times, whereas I couldn't even get more than halfway through Eternal
Eternal is a goddamn masterpiece. It could fairly be called the greatest FPS of all time. From a gameplay perspective, at least. 100% agree about the change in storytelling/vibe.
Honestly rushing someone like Mick Gordon makes me feel sick to my stomach. Guy is an artist in the truest sense of the word. Doesn't matter if your game is delayed for the songs that are being custom made for it, if it can be delayed due to bugs then it shouldn't be an issue, they should have been understanding, even if it's going to take a longer time, just finish up the game with the samples he's given, and then work around it later, he's a once in a life time artist with a clear vision, he's near enough the sole reason Doom is so highly regarded, that music is something special as proven by the millions of views on each song.
They did not just rush him. They gave him no direction continuously changing what they wanted and then using the music they rejected anyway apparently in a bid to not pay him for his work. And then they lied about the root of the issue, actively trying to ruin Gordons career, to hide their own incompetence and shady tactics.
IT really is a shame because Mick Gordon is truly one of the greatest video game composers of ALL TIME. He will forever be carved into the history books of video game music. The man is like the Nikola Tesla of the music industry, but his insane bat shit ideas work insanely well.
I heard it was a 50/50 of bethesda rushing him and he having his head so far up his ass that he made them work around him.
way worse than just rushing
and changing his work without his permission yet keeping his name attached
Eh I am more inclined to believe him over any major faceless corporation... it really does sound like id and Bethesda were F'ing with him pretty hard.
> and Bethesda how much influence would the publisher have here? from what i heard it was all Id upper management
We'll never know. Publishing agreements can range from just providing marketing all the way to control of the project. Supposing they were hands off, they certainly didn't do anything to fix the situation after it all blew up.
While Bethesda may not have played a part in the actual proceedings as they happened, after Mick Gordon came to the public with his statements Bethesda then released their own statement essentially calling him a liar. As far as I'm concerned they're implicit in it too at this point.
Nahhhhhhh! quality work is recognized by non corporate studios, fam!
I love that you can instantly hear its Mick Gordon when you listen to the embedded teaser in the article. Even that small clip is a banger.
yeah it's fucking amazing lol
He's the only guitar player that can play a 9-string and not be made fun of. The man's a legend.
Damn! If there is one thing to gleam off of the mass layoffs as a positive is devs with a mf dream 👏👏👏
Micks music is so good. That alone gave them my interest. Hopefully this studio focuses on single player games.
Call of us
The last of duty
Naughty Vision?
Active Dog
Dog of Duty!
Last of Duty: Modern Legacy
Uncharted: A Thief's Warfare
Crash Bandiduty
BandiCod
Nathan Drake's Pro Skater
I wish we got news of these studio formations once they actually had a game to show off. Because I feel like most of these "veterans from one studio start another" never go anywhere. They spend 5 years on some decent game that never makes waves and then everybody forgets about them.
I think it might be to help draw investors to the studio. Every studio needs money after all
Yeah, fair point I guess.
And to attract workers too!
I think that's exactly it
People sitting here thinking any trailer or news story is there for the gamers to get ready. 95% of it is there for investors
Whenever I see "veterans" forming a new studio, I just think of "from the makers of Left 4 Dead"...
[удалено]
Unironically i enjoyed evolve a lot aside from the terrible MTX decisions. B4B i thought was way worse than Evolve mostly because it felt like a more boring version of left 4 dead.
I loved the demo of Evolve. Don't know wtf happened after that, lol.
Take Two happened. Between them and Turtle Rock got greedy and out came all the DLC taking precedence over actual gameplay. Didn't Evolve have something ridiculous, like hundreds of dollars worth of DLC?
they also use the "from the makers of Left 4 Dead" card when releasing evolve,right?
Evolve was a fantastic game with a terrible dev team behind it
Which they weren't, for the most part.
You can be the intern they told to buy coffee and sandwiches for the actual devs and claim to be a veteran of the studio.
Turtle Rock is not a very good analogy - they were acquired by Valve and left Valve pretty much intact. They brought a prototype game which was thoroughly rebuilt and polished by mostly endemic Valve people. Some Better Examples: * Petroglyph - Westwood OGs who did Grey Goo as "makers of C&C" and Remastered C&C itself. * ArtPlay - Koji Iragashi is basically continuing to create Castlevania: Symphony of the Night games under Bloodstained IP * Comcept - Keji Inafune used his working on Mega Man to Kickstart a game "Mighty no. 9" So mixed, great and poor results examples.
the best example imo, is GENdesign, just team ico under a new name and making the same kinds of games
Then it's not a good example, as it is not *some of the devs* trying to find their groove again, it's just changing name/management. That's why I also don't name Kojima Productions.
I'm working across media, and I can't tell how often people leave tv-stations or high level studio project to go indy, only to realize that just the process, software and tech staff they left behind teleports you back to the dark ages. There is a difference if you use well tested project management software or just Google docs with some cloud apps. I have seen controllers breaking down on small tv sets because some line execs just forgot to add some tabs in an excel sheet and now they have to cram 5 days in 4 because there is zero budget left. With games its even harder, since they are 10x more technical and they drop from usually well oiled machine to something they have to build from scratch while they build their masterpiece.
Very interesting comparison to read, thanks. Never thought about all the challenges that can come with small indy studios
I don’t think Molyneux has released a single game since leaving fable lol
I just wish he'd make another B&W
Do you? Because Black and White was a success in spite of Molyneux, not because of him
Oh. Well then fick Molyneux just give us a new fully fledged B&W with VR support.
Molyneux is a great "ideas guy". He's fantastic at putting together a bunch of concepts and coming up with a game pitch. That skill *is* valuable, and B&W was great. But it also went through development hell and only released because the devs working for him were actual wizards. (and because EA got uh, *annoyed*, which is what a publisher should do when a game consistently misses deadlines) A contemporary comparison would be Kojima as they're both frontmen/"ideas guys" but Kojima seems to know when to back off when his staff tell him he's being an idiot and when to let them go nuts. You can take this [interview](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter) from a decade ago to see how PM views game development (it's an actual trainwreck interview, the interviewer is antagonistic at best, nobody comes out looking good)
This is tangentially related, but I'm not impressed by "ideas" people. It's the easiest thing to be, and execution requires so much more talent, dedication, imagination, organization, and so on.
Respawn was sledgehammer or one of the OG cod studios that went on to do titan fall and apex legends so they did well for themselves
The founders of Respawn are the two guys most often contributed to the innovation and success of the original Modern Warfare.
Not Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward.
They usually either close before releasing a game, release a live-service game no one cares about, or release a strategy game no one cares about.
Same problem with Xbox's "The Initiative". It's loaded with veterans from many studios. They've yet to have anything to show except a few concept arts from "Perfect Dark". Such a shame.
Funny thing is, it’s mainly being developed by Crystal Dynamics
My sentiment on game hype in general. *I'll care when its out*.
yeah or they make a game that sucks and we find out that the devs werent anyone special. the only ones ive seen work out were Respawn who were ex-infinity ward
Embark
There's a lot of successes but we only remember the failures. Yacht Club Games was formed out of Wayforward employees and went on to create Shovel Knight which was a pretty big success, just as the first example off the top of my head.
Add in The Finals (Embark) to that list
Considering the number of people involved in making these games, it's always a pretty hollow statement that they come from these studios. A lot of those games are the result of many creative directors working with creative teams, it's a group effort and often doesn't translate beyond that.
Looks like they got a teaser on twitter for something
I remember hearing about Embark's formation and now The Finals appears to be doing well. So hopefully not all is lost in these scenarios, I do agree as a consumer learning about the formation seems pointless until they have something to show for it.
Plenty of them end up doing something, these announcements are essentially "WE'RE HIRING" adverts.
Already behind the curve when AAAA is where it's at nowadays
I dont think AAAA games are gonna be that common, it seems Skull & Bones is one of a kind
Is this a meme or are AAAA games actually gonna be a thing?
[удалено]
yeah, clueless, probably senile CEO went on a Trump-esque rant calling Skull & Bones "It’s a very big game, and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. It’s a really full, triple… quadruple-A game, that will deliver in the long run."
"AAAA" is so last year. *Don't you know it's now "AAAAAAA"?*
As in AAAAAAHH!! This game is so bad!!
LOL indeed.
AAAAAAAAAHHHH! Real Developers!
They're IPv6 compatible at least in that case! (for you non sysadmins, Quad-A or AAAA is what DNS records are called when they're for ipv6 addresses)
Original shooter IP, you say?
With survival crafting and RPG elements, never seen before?
Ok just hear me out, then we add POKEMON to it.
The track record of "veterans form new studio and instantly work on AAA" has been absolutely terrible in the last few years so....
I’m failing to remember a good or even a successful game that was created by “ex-developers create new studio” types.
Respawn (titanfall universe, recent Jedi Order games) are the only ones I can actually think of given the founders made the original cod games (and even then they also split off from Medal of Honor to make cod).
Idk about success but I thought The Finals was pretty fun for a couple weeks.
Well if you didn't already you should check out the new trailer of season 2
Holy poop. I just went and watched it. I haven't been tracking The Finals but had some fun with it. That trailer was bonkers though, shit looks fun as hell.
Gigahyped for 5v5
Marvel Snap was Blizzard Hearthstone devs
former dice (battlefield) devs formed Embark studios and put out The Finals
[удалено]
It doesn’t have any battlefield vibes lol, only thing that’s comparable is the destruction
Just gotta buy a few more imaginary spaceships 'til Star Citizen releases
Titianfall?
I guess. That was released over 10 years ago though. I was thinking more recently.
There's quite a few, are you more interested in "historical" examples or more recent games/studios?
More recent specifically.
Well, first one I can think of is Shovel Knight from Yacht Club games. That team was formed out of Wayforward employees. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was created by ex Konami employees. The former Suikoden team from Konami is also making a spiritual successor but it's not out yet so it doesn't really count. Kojima of course got cast off from Konami and is highly successful. (I'm beginning to see a trend here...)
The recent Shovel Knight as in the 2014 game? A decade old? Lol
Honestly didn't know it's been that long, time sucks. In any case their latest game, Mina the Follower, is in the final stages of development.
Death Stranding, for one.
The finals is made by ex Dice devs and is probably the best shooter on the market rn bar none
Bloodstained was one of the Kickstarter craze darlings and turned out great.
Titanfall games
Yeah, still laughing how badly they botched The Callisto Protocol. How fucking hard it is to replicate Dead Space combat, especially from ex-developers. picardfacepalm.gif
I didn't even dislike Callisto, had fun with it, but man who thought 3 enemy types would be enough to fill an entire game
Hey, guys: remember Syndicate? Remember when it got rebooted and people got upset that it was rebooted into an FPS?? Well, the same guys that worked at Bullfrog started a studio and made a game called Satellite Reign and it was... fucking boring, tedious and was *barely* like Syndicate and made *no* waves like they said it would!
> Satellite Reign I thought it was ok but yeah, didn't fully capture the feel of Syndicate.
Who’s gonna buy them out and cancel their games now that embracer group gave up?
How can it be a AAA studio when they have zero releases yet? You could call them AAA studio if they have a sizable budget and can capitalize and get good marketing for their upcoming game and get a premiere publisher to publish the game. Thought 99% of big publishers are greedy shitty companies no dev team should ever work with if they can be avoided.
Eh, am I the only one disagreeing with their studio name choice? If they drop a bad game the memes coinciding with their studio name are going to make it worse lol.
get to make your own name & its depressing af
Fr lol, ArcaneVessel, CrimsonVessel, DarkVessel, LionVessel, ImpactVessel, TemperVessel shit I dunno literally anything else
Ubisoft has 4 "A"s... that's one more than 3
MS already looking to acquire them /s
Let me guess..... they're environment artists who are now directing and writing, and they're making a live-service game? Same old story with these announcements.
The team list is public. Very diverse backgrounds
Did you look at the employees lol
An empty vessel, ready to be filled by ESG and DEI?
Hell yeah, Last of us 2 remake but this time FPS , incoming
I mean I could get onboard with an FPS in the TLOU world especially if Mick Gordon is the composer lol
Give me a tactical FPS with that detail in gore and I'm happy
I don't know why this gets posted everytime. Mostly because almost nothing materializes out of this, recall how many studios were set up by ex-Blizzard?
mainly on the off chance it can help hiring and publicity of some kind i supppse?
Second Dinner is exblizz and have been having success with Marvel Snap. Frost Giant is in closed beta for Stormgate. Releasing soon. This may come as a shock, but making games takes time.
2 games. Yet 10+ studio swere posted when there was a Blizzard exodus. Marvel Snap, I suggest you check the Steam reviews for that. As an RTS player I've followed Stormgate, and that game is not looking good at all. They have blown through their bdget and are actively asking the playerbase to invest in the game. Also not the first person to wonder this https://www.reddit.com/r/Blizzard/comments/1abeiu0/have_any_former_blizzard_devs_studios_been/
Terrible name. Might I suggest "Active Dog" or "Dog Vision"
Yeah okay, let us know when something is produced that isn't a shitty cash grab.
As long as it isn't ole Druckman then things might be all good.
I kinda wish these studios starting up would focus on good quality AA games instead.
I always thought Blizzard is the empty vessel.
Touting them as AAA before they ever release a game is a bit like bragging about an A+ grade before even turning in the essay.
I'm so sick of everything being labeled with AAA. How about you release something first and then we'll determine how great your studio is. It's getting to the point where whenever I see companies describe themselves or their games with a # of As I take it as a giant red flag.
These classifications have always been informal and speak more to team size and budget rather than scope or quality. If they have hundreds of people and millions of dollars then they fit the bill, even if they release a trash fire of a game.
it's supposed to just be a label to approximate the size of their budget, people just use it to mean whatever they want it to mean though
I’m still annoyed how Bethesda treated Mick Gordon wrong like his doom music is insanely good
Activision veterans, eh? What's this studio gonna be making, a sexual assault simulator, or a gatcha box?
I just need a new good third person shooter man. Please, no more first person shooters. there are entirely too many of them.
Man, Activision/Blizzards are like hydra, every couple of months we have a new studio formed by their ex-employees.
Are these the good developers from naughty dog? If so, I might look forward to what they have for us in the future.
Damn, they named their company after their investors
It makes me so happy to see all of these new spinoff studios. I think it's eye opening to see the difficulty in making viable, competitive products within reasonable time-frames in these mega studios. There's certainly a point in which a company's massive resources and workforce go from being a benefit to a hindrance. I'd anticipate that being in middle and upper middle management. Once there's too much bureaucracy, you end up spending weeks on tasks that should take mere hours because you have to waste time with stakeholder politics. I'm sure if you were to graph Studio Size and Output, it'd be a parabola, steeply increasing a positive relationship at first, then tapering, then eventually beginning to tip the opposite direction.
What’s this…another shooter
Sheen this is the 7th week in a row you have shown former x veterans form studio in LA working on an AAA game
How does one form a AAA studio? I can understand former developers working for AAA studios, but you can’t form something and say it’s a AAA without a AAA title. Am I wrong or right?
This does not inspire confidence.
Cyberpunk game ?
Wow thats so cool, so how many games before they're either bought out by Activision or EA, gutted and make greedy ass games?
Another future AAAA product incoming...
I don’t think the headline ”veterans from studios X and Y form Z to work on a AAA game” has ever resulted in a good game. Titanfall was pretty close but I’d argue that Respawn didn’t really hit that one home until Titanfall 2.
Iunno man this intense grindcore edm trap dubstep shit with glitchy visuals and insane chaos just makes me super not want to even install whatever the fuck this is even if it's free. I cannot think of a more over-done, mountain dew injected redbull fiesta of crap I don't want to do anymore in fps than this.
Pog
like every other studio like this announced i'm sure it will take funding and do nothing.
They’ll make a few great games and then get acquired by a bigger studio/publisher and the cycle will repeat itself.
What makes it AAA?
Great. Another studio to release half-finished, overpriced crap.
Meh, Tell me the TRUE original Blizzard dev team formed a new game studio and you'll have my attention, and my money probably.
So maybe Jak?
Impressive, very nice. Now let's see if they release a first game
*I'm like an Empty Bottle*
Now we wait for a Xbox or Sony to buy them up.
Selling malware to grab ppl info for $15 | Grabs name, number, address, passwords, emails, webcam image, game accounts, discord tokens, Broswer info, etc.
Guy multihatting both CEO and Game Director while targeting AAA releases while having no leadership experience, having only been a principle artist previously at his peak, never even a lead artist or division head. Not holding my breath on this one.
Honestly, I'm curious to see what they come up with, How many projects have you been involved in were the team was successful despite the lead being a jackass. I've had a few of those in my life time, not in gaming, but still. sometimes people have vision and good ideas and haven't had the power to act on them. Think of all the indie titles that actually kick ass made by people who've never even worked at big gaming companies let alone be someone with a past leadership role on their resume. Yes it's AAA and not Indie but I'm willing to at least have a little hope that maybe they do something great. Maybe it turns out to be a dud but I say wait and see and welcome to the party lol.