Bloodbath at MS studios

danutz_plusplus

danutz_plusplus

SasqWatch
Supporter
Joined
July 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Ok, this was unexpected.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1787838809104691342
View: https://twitter.com/RinoTheBouncer/status/1787838809104691342


MS is closing Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall), Tango Gameworks (Evil Within 1/2 & Hifi Rush)

Damn, nothing saving you from the grim corporate ripper.

Interesting to hear what'll happen to people that preordered the season pass for Redfall and didn't get anything.
EDIT: nevermind. seems they're free to just give you fake money to buy something else in the ms ecosystem, or something; it seems.
It doesn't sound like they should be able to do that. They should be forced to refund you, or the difference.

1715091593928.png
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Never heard of three them but Arkane Austin isn't a surprise. There last game was a big flop. So you can't always blame your corporate master. You cost more then you earn.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,706
Location
Spudlandia
Couchpotato said:
Never heard of three them but Arkane Austin isn't a surprise. There last game was a big flop. So you can't always blame your corporate master. You cost more then you earn.
Click to expand...
Yes, and before that they delivered the fantastic Prey. So it just proves they're almost always one game away from being shut down.
Tango's games are at least decent to very solid. I liked Evil Within, Ghostwire Tokyo looked interesting, and Hi-fi Rush I hear was a big success.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
It's more then that though none of us have the cost vs earn ratio report, and what goes on behind the scenes. I do know that MS did say they would be cost cutting this year.

Guess that expensive Activision-Blizzard deal and lower XBox sales are the main factor.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,706
Location
Spudlandia
Hopefully at least some of the devs from Arkane Austin get a chance to stay on with Arkane's other studio.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,685
Location
Florida, US
https://twitter.com/x/status/1787895987291222248
View: https://twitter.com/XcloudTimdog/status/1787895987291222248


This'll really knock the air out of Hellblade 2. Man what shitshow of a games company microsoft is turning out to be.

I have a feeling Ninja Theory might be next. It's pretty obvious that Hellblade 2 will not be a significant seller.
Probably best case it'll be close to Hi-Fi Rush in terms of sales, but it probably cost a lot more to produce.

Also, there's absolutely no marketing for Hellblade. You'd never know it was coming out in 2 weeks.

It's impressive how bad of a job they're doing, with theoretical endless finances.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
FFS. Fuck all these motherfucking suits.

Hi-fi Rush was big (surprise) success.
It's also on this month's Humble Choice if anyone wants to try it. :)

I feel for Arkane Austin. Redfall felt almost like something that Arkane were forced into by their overlords, it was so out of their wheelhouse. And now they pay the price.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,344
Location
New Zealand
Shagnak said:
I feel for Arkane Austin. Redfall felt almost like something that Arkane were forced into by their overlords, it was so out of their wheelhouse. And now they pay the price.
Click to expand...
I think it was confirmed that a very good number on their team never wanted to make Redfall, but it was a project hatched to keep them busy since they couldn't get greenlight on Dishonored 3 or anything else.
So not sure who proposed and decided on Redfall but it's pretty obvious it was not made out of passion of the team. Even on paper it's just your generic looter co-op game. It's the type of shit you make when you have no other better idea.
It's even strongly rumored that a good chunk of the people that worked on Prey left the company because of Redfall.

You really can't make this shit up, if it's true.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Excuses ...excuses.... excuses.... it's always somebody's else's fault. As for Arkane it's been all downhill since Dishonored. Their games always underperform sale wise.

Dishonored 2 it's expansion, prey, and office politics ruined the developer. In a recent interview a few years back they even hinted they hated Dishonored 2.

It's called business and in business people get fired and companies closed.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,706
Location
Spudlandia
danutz_plusplus said:
I think it was confirmed that a very good number on their team never wanted to make Redfall, but it was a project hatched to keep them busy since they couldn't get greenlight on Dishonored 3 or anything else.
Click to expand...
I think it's unlikely a Dishonored 3 would have been developed by the Austin studio anyways. Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider were developed solely by the Lyon studio.

danutz_plusplus said:
So not sure who proposed and decided on Redfall but it's pretty obvious it was not made out of passion of the team. Even on paper it's just your generic looter co-op game. It's the type of shit you make when you have no other better idea.

It's even strongly rumored that a good chunk of the people that worked on Prey left the company because of Redfall.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Redfall has suits written all over it.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,685
Location
Florida, US
JDR13 said:
I think it's unlikely a Dishonored 3 would have been developed by the Austin studio anyways. Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider were developed solely by the Lyon studio.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but given that Lyon was busy with Deathloop I wouldn't have batted an eye in giving Austin a shot with the 3rd one, given what a good job they did with Prey.
I guess it could've started some rivalry between the teams, but I don't know. I'd take that over the shit they pulled with Redfall.
From what I understand DH3 wasn't greenlit period, because it never managed to be a very significant hit. At least compared to the expectations of the suits, most probably.

What I cannot understand is there was really no other pitch other than Redfall? Or again, the suits wanted a co-op looter shooter with cosmetics sold for real money, and that was that.

I hate to give it to Steve Jobs, since I think he's seriously overrated, but on this he was spot on. The moment the money people get to be in charge, it's bye bye.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4

Thank god that financialization hasn't taken over all industries, markets and business. *sarcasm* :(
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Again someone here didn't read the Interviews and articles a few years back. After Dishonored 2 and Prey failed to sell the company was in serious trouble.

Eventually MS stepped in and meddled and we got Deathloop and Red fall.

Major talent even left the developer as well in the last few years.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,706
Location
Spudlandia
danutz_plusplus said:
From what I understand DH3 wasn't greenlit period, because it never managed to be a very significant hit. At least compared to the expectations of the suits, most probably.
Click to expand...
It was definitely planned at one point. It was part of a list of future titles that was leaked from Bethesda awhile back.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,685
Location
Florida, US
Couchpotato said:
Again someone hete idn't read the Interviews and articles a few years back. After Dishonored 2 and Prey failed to sell the company was in trouble
Click to expand...
I'm always skeptical of when something fails to sell. Often it fails to sell when compared to certain expectations.
And if you hear these corporate fuckers, and how they create their projected sales numbers that they're sure they'll hit, you want to shoot yourself in the head.
So when it fails to hit those numbers, it's a failure.
I don't know which recent Tomb Raider remake sold 5+ million => failure.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Each of those games sold under two million and didn't meet their projected goals. Square Enix did the same crap with the Deus Ex games were they got sold off.

Sorry about the bad grammar but my keypad is broke on my phone.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,706
Location
Spudlandia
Although officially they said they shutdown these studios to focus on a select few projects, it's still kind of scary to think that any other studio could be on the chopping block.
Ninja Theory is likely the very next candidate. No way are they making back the money that went into that passion project.

Then I wonder what are the chances for id or machinegames to suffer a similar fate.
Doom and these fast-paced shooters are generally pretty niche, compared to mainstream titles. No?

It's so stupid since I thought the whole plan for ms was to have as diverse a palette of games, that will drive membership on gamepass. But it seems that again, expectations weren't met. So they probably changed course.
Thank god they spent 70 billion on Activision-Blizzard. Personally, I'd rather they splinter that studio. And give the IPs (Diablo, Starcraft, etc) to some fresh teams that have new ideas.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,633
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom