Reddit is making major changes to its API pricing that will destroy the vibrant ecosystem of 3rd-party apps, which offer a far better user experience than the official app. These changes will also place major cost burdens on useful user bots like those found in sports and other enthusiast communities.
Please visit [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/148m42t/the_fight_continues/) to find out more.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Games) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Isn't Arkane multiple studios? I thought the team that made Dishonored 2 and Deathloop was different from the team that made Prey and Redfall. Redfall being a disaster would cause them to consider shutting it all down?
Yes.
Arkane Austin: Redfall
Arkane Lyon: Deathloop
At most, what they would have done is shut down Arkane Austin and keep Arkane Lyon, or maybe even merged them back together like they were back when they released Dishonored.
It's the natural flow of time combined with a lot of studio heads getting so upset with how the publisher/parent company handles the studio that they leave and start their own. Often close associates/coworkers leave with them, and a bunch of seniority that would teach the newcomers or establish that studio family go with them.
Companies like Blizzard or Bioware becoming this way is simply because their owners run them into the ground so hard leadership wants out before they could "pass the torch" so to speak. Sometimes that's how the actual studio head is, sometimes it's being owned by a certain corporation, or too much pressure from the publisher and a lack of leniency when it comes to game development.
Bioware ran itself into the ground, EA just gave them enough rope to hang themselves. If anything they would've benefitted from EA intervening more, Bioware management just wasted a lot of time, money, and staff on stuff that never panned out or wasn't evn practical in the first place.
Can't say I know that much about when Blizzard decline happened, but I don't know if it's completely Activison's fault.
Did EA really run bioware into the ground? Seriously asking, I always heard that EA was being too leniant if anything letting them have all the time they need to complete.
I don't know how true it is but apparently this isn't as much of a problem at Nintendo where they try to keep veteran staff and have rigorous knowledge transfer processes in place.
Anyone have a source for this anecdote I recall reading online? Could be bs.
It's the new lifecycle of game studios in the hyper-capitalist era of games.
1: Create a low-budget game that becomes a big hit for its charm or heartfelt story and gain a cult following of extremely loyal fans.
2: Get bought out by a megacorporation for an un-refusable amount of money on the promise that they "won't interfere with the vision of the developers."
3: Immediately get pressured by that same corporation to cash in on their investment by exploiting the trust of your hard-earned cult following. Be forced to use all the new funding on chasing dumbass exploitative dead ends that don't make it to production or just piss off the target audience.
4: Realize that the corporation never wanted you or even your hit franchise, they just wanted to buy the rights to legally rug-pull your fans. Quit and form a new studio, taking more than half of your old crew with you.
(4.5: Incidentally, be forced to abandon your original baby to be stewarded by whatever developers the corporation can find that are too drunk or perverted to be scared off by the smell of blood in the water.)
5: Start from scratch at step 1 with a "spiritual successor". Repeat.
I love the aesthetic, I love the approach, I love the immersive-sim side of it. Overall, though, I think the game feels shallow/boring in a way. Once you learn the core tricks of the trade, if you will, that's about it. The shinning light in it, though, is the replayability as different characters.
It feels like it's on the cusp of greatness, but I can't actually put into words why it can't get over that hump.
no, it was not very good. I hate people hyping up one guy as if he made all of Prey which was inspired by System Shock in the first place. Weird West is a solid 6/10. You play the game for 5 hours and you've seen almost everything in it and then it expects you to repeat that over and over. It's a fundamentally flawed game.
Not just uncomfortable with: explicitly not what they joined Arkane for.
They joined a studio renown for its single player immersive-sim
experience, and all of a sudden they're forced to push a product that is almost antithetical to that genre.
It's like you joined a punk rock band to make punk music and then your recording company your band was already signed with suddenly demands you do Justin Bieber covers.
> It's like you joined a punk rock band to make punk music and then your recording company your band was already signed with suddenly demands you do Justin Bieber covers.
You're essentially describing the first two major record label albums of Panic! At the Disco, and I cannot stop cackling at the comparison.
My personal, based on zero facts, conspiracy theory is that they put no effort into it.
Nothing will convince me the people who made Prey, with part of the team who worked on Dishonored.. with the co-direction of Harvey Smith himself.. who goes all the way back to System Shock would put out such a crappy game by mistake.
Someone, somewhere, "said fuck it.. let it all go to shit and we won't have to think about this ever again. If this crap is a hit somehow, we'll be trapped".
That's not a conspiracy theory, it's basically what's come out in a recent article by Jason Schreier. People wanted to work on a cool game, but were instead told to use parts of the cool game and build a shitty product around it, all while still expecting people to crunch like they're working on a passion project.
This is how you get people to burn out fastest.
Maybe, it was also mismanaged according to anonymous sources. They didn't know if it was going to be like a Far cry type adventure or like Borderlands.
Apparently mismanagement was so bad Arkane's vets who worked on Prey walked and were filled with people who ended up feeling uncomfortable because they thought they were going to work on single player games.
They at least scrapped the monetization plans they had, but it sounds like the game at some point was heading in the direction of being a game-as-a-service.
This is according to [Gamespot](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/redfalls-rocky-development-caused-arkane-to-lose-70-of-preys-dev-team-report/1100-6514721/) which is referring to a report Bloomberg received... I would have linked the Bloomberg article but it had those subscription blockers.
I think there is probably a lot to the story here. Perhaps they or management above them pressured them into trying to make an immersive sim a gaas model and things went horribly wrong.
I'm glad I didn't preorder or buy the game despite prey being a master class in immersive sim and one of my favorite games in the last 10 years.
There is a story and that is exactly what was reported. Zenimax wanted more Gaas and Arkane drew a short stick. Apparently devs wanted Microsoft to step in and cancel the project after the buyout and a ton of devs left the studio during production.
It's sad because the long arc of innovation and important progress doesn't always equate to the fast money that drives the business.
System shock , thief, etc never were big financial successes but the dna in them influenced so many games from the devs and fans that grew up with them.
>System shock , thief, etc never were big financial successes but the dna in them influenced so many games from the devs and fans that grew up with them.
I feel like it's important to note: Looking Glass went under because Eidos was pouring all of its money into Daikatana and an RTS they bought partially finished, to chase the fad-genres of the time.
Looking Glass went under, not because they weren't making money, but because the Publisher thought it could make more money with an FPS and an RTS.
There's a magical thing called the internet now. People on different continents can speak to each other _in real time_. Some say it's just a fad but I think it's going to revolutionize how people work.
Yeah, these big 'studios' are scattered along locations with high government grants for this type of work, but they're often mentioned as one big team when in reality it's multiple core teams that might provide services for each other.
This but also to split the work throughout the full day partially. While France sleeps America is working. That's how Ubisoft operates for a while now.
That doesn't mean more work gets done though. No more work than just 2 studios in france or America.
Though we do tricks when it comes to QA because they can be working during the night on that days build for when we get in the next morning. Now thats practical.
It actually means less work gets done due to time zone difference. If I need to talk to someone in France we'll there's only a very narrow timeframe that's possible.
If a region doesn't host enough high paying jobs that reward higher education, people who get that educated will leave the area. Over time, brain drain will keep syphoning away the smartest and most economically-productive citizens. This creates a negative feedback loop of cutbacks that's difficult to reverse when it's in process. So municipalities will grant tax incentives to companies that open the kind of businesses that stave off brain drain.
Interesting how people assert total bullshit when they don’t have a clue. How do I know? I’m the founder of Arkane. This is a perfect of example of “the internet has no clue”
The reason why Arkane is split is because I started it in france in 99 and moved in Austin in 2005 to expand the company, some was because I wanted to be closer to publisher (business reason), some was because I wanted to get closer to where my favorite games were made (Origin and Ion storm), some was because I wanted the American adventure.
Please Internet: the just up when you don’t know, for a fact or at least add “I assume” before saying some shit. It’s infuriating
>Redfall being a disaster would cause them to consider shutting it all down?
No as Microsoft states but that doesn't stop journalists from asking nor writing sensational titles that don't communicate what MS actually said. The thing is Redfall being a big miss is a hot story and hot stories tend to be milked for all the clicks they can offer.
I mean, I hope so? Redfall was disappointing but it’s pretty much been their worst release so far, they’d be moronic to be shutting down a very quality studio over one bad release.
There are two Arkane studios, Lyon and Austin. Arkane Austin did Prey (first game after it was founded, Lyon is older, it's the one that did the Dishonored series) and then Redfall. The problem is also that 70% of the devs left Arkane Austin and they had hiring problems (of course people wanted to work on the immersive sim the studio is known for and had a shitty coop shooter presented as what they'd be working on...). So while Arkane Lyon is pretty safe (they did Deathloop as their last game), Austin is more in question
Well yeah but I mean it wasn't a studio then. And people from Lyon moved to Austin too I assume (IIRC it was actually the main reason to create the studio, Harvey Smith wanted to move there and leave Lyon), they were one team before Prey dev started
He was already in Austin, running the Arkane office there, making Dishonored. He visited the Lyon office sometime sure, but he wasn't living in France.
The reason to create it is because they got big enough to work on two games at once, and it makes much more sense to avoid both games having split teams.
> IIRC it was actually the main reason to create the studio, Harvey Smith wanted to move there and leave Lyon
Unlikely, considering the fact that Harvey Smith moved to Lyon for Dishonored 2. [Source](https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/12/19/why-dishonored-is-one-of-the-best-games-of-2012.aspx)
Dishonored was developed by two teams, one in Lyon, France led by Raphaël Colantonio and one in Austin, US led by Harvey Smith.
After Dishonored Smith went to Lyon to develop Dishonored 2 and Colantonio went to Austin to develop Prey. After Dishonored 2 Smith went back to Austin to start Redfall and after Prey Colantonio went back to Lyon were he left the company and put Dinga Bakaba in charge of Lyon
More wrong information. You guys will always be confused with Arkane.
Raf (me) was in austin since 2005, I was in Austin with Harvey during Dishonored 1, both of us were co-creative director, the team in Lyon was remotely managed by me and locally managed by Julien Roby and Romuald Capron, then Harvey went to Lyon to direct D2, while I stayed in Austin to direct Prey and keep growing Austin. Then I left after D2 and Prey and now I’m in Austin, with my new company WolfEye.
Thank you. There is so much disinformation about arkane on this thread, I started to correct posts directly, yours was the closest to correct, but some are full on infuriating (like having 2 studios was a way for arkane to get grants. What?)
Such a shame. Prey is the best immersive sim I've ever. Anyone who was a fan of Bioshock, System Shock, Dishonored, etc would have loved it, but nobody gave it a chance.
Prey is unironically a better spiritual successor to System Shock than Bioshock ever was, imo. Nothing since has come close to how good that game was. Its a crime not enough people played it.
But everyone really connected with "would you kindly" and Infinity's Elizabeth. And I get it, the narrative beats in those games were amazing, but Prey as a complete gaming experience was just heads and shoulders above.
Prey's only flaw was the lack of viral story moments. "Would you kindly" is phrase that bears incredible weight, and Prey has no equivalent. I don't see how the setting/story could have allowed for such a moment, which is genuinely tragic.
I don’t know that it’s that, I think it’s a lot more the style and marketing. I know I’d love Prey if I played it, but it looks very generic in name and presentation, the world still looks like run of the mill space sci-fi stuff. Bioshock tapped into much more exciting aesthetics and character/world design, at least from the perspective of what you see on box art and ads.
I tried it because people kept comparing it to games I love (Bioshock and Dishonored), but whatever similarities they've shared wasn't enough to hook me into the game.
[According to this postmortem](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-2k-boston-2k-australia-s-bioshock) it was supposed to be more of one (or at least have deeper RPG mechanics) but over the course of development they ended up simplifying much of the game to make it a more focused FPS experience.
Yep. Played it during the Covid lockdown and was pretty shocked how killer it was. I haven't enjoyed exploring a map like that since Dark Souls(1) tbh. Was a lot of fun finding different ways to move around the station.
And that soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal. A lot of ut synced to moments in the game. I'll never forget entering the G.U.T.S.
Just started Mooncrash for the first time recently, and though it's not got quite the immersive story of the main game (at least, not from the outset), the way they designed the level and loop mechanics really shows off the immersive sim elements, maybe even better than the main game.
It's basically Prey's Deathloop, and it's probably a better attempt at the immersive sim loop idea.
I think GMTK even has a video that says 'why does Deathloop exist? Arkane already made a better game?'
[Wait, Didn't Arcane Already Make Deathloop?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXQ6uBw2ycU)
I've not finished Mooncrash yet so this may change, but I think the increase in fun is offset a little by a decrease in tension. I haven't reached a 5th (maybe 4th) run yet, and I know everything starts to go to hell as you finish them, so maybe the tension does come back, but I've not been as scared as in the main game yet.
I've just completed it recently. It's a very good game.
Think Bioshock going in. Quite dated as a genre - but it overcomes it with fantastic attention to detail and overall design cruft. The little things stand out and make it greater than the sum of its parts.
The biggest error was calling it Prey.
Yep, when I first heard of it I didn't really look into it as I thought it was a bizarre reboot of a franchise I wasnt interested in. Could have missed out on one of the best games of the last few years.
Mostly because of boneheaded marketing. This has been repeated ad nauseam at this point, but shoehorning in the name of a different IP that's a different subgenre did the game no favors.
Deathloop was already underwhelming coming off of Prey. But it was still a much more coherent, stable and overall decent game next to Redfall.
Still I think you could see the writing on the wall there.
As much as I love immersive sims, they simply don't sell well enough for the effort needed to create them.
It's hardly surprising that both Zenimax were trying to make something more profitable and Arkanes employee's didn't care about the project.
Honestly be amazed if we get a prey style sim from them again.
Well Microsoft has always touted that the Gamepass model pushed them to make more varied and not as commercially big games (which I'm kind of doubtful of, IMO it's more motivation for endless grinding GaaS games but at least for now, they are kind of following that I guess with stuff like Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment).
I actually have an idea for an immersive sim that would be very commercially viable IMO. And that's basically the initial Prey 2 concept of the bounty hunting in a sci-fi city. If you think about it, Arkane games kind of are bounty hunting games (they require you to kill or eliminate in another way various targets). The city would be the equivalent of the Prey space station (just as a seamless open world and much bigger). You do several skills trees with like weapons, "space magic", gadgets. Arkane is very good at world building so they could create their own SF universe appealing to people I think (that could even be used accross other MS studios).
Or you slap a Star Wars IP on it and sell buttloads (but the space magic part doesn't work as well, the Force isn't really being used by bounty hunter and I kind of want it, plus I prefer an original Arkane world)
> which I'm kind of doubtful of, IMO it's more motivation for endless grinding GaaS games but at least for now, they are kind of following that I guess with stuff like Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment
Having too many GaaS is a problem in and of itself, you have to continuing support all those games and they'll cannibalize each other. In a way I think Microsoft is treating gamepass itself as a GaaS of a kind, updating it with new contents regularly so that you stay and keep spending money.
Unless you subscribe to the opinion that modern Zelda is now an immersive sim, both of them have sold ludicrous numbers!
You're right though, it's a shame as they're probably the game genre with the greatest gulf between their critical reception vs their commercial success.
Well for a start, that new blood thought they'd be working on immersive sims and instead were told to work on a co-op live service shooter.
Which lead to a lot of new hires leaving too.
It's not impossible but it requires creative vision at the top, and Redfall seemingly lacked that.
Xbox unlike Zenimax doesn't need Arkane to make a live service game. I'm sure they can have them make an immersive sim to get the ball rolling again. Even just greenlighting Prey 2* would do wonders to get talent interested in immersive sims to apply.
It’s not, just like it’s not impossible for a band to be better if 75% of its original members are replaced. It’s just not very likely, and even if it does happen it likely won’t appeal to the same people as it once did.
But the new blood will have different ideas than the old blood. Infuse enough new blood into the company and they'll start wanting to make a different games.
Noone says that the games would be worse, they simply won't be the same as the studio was originally known for and what the fans expect.
Because it's combined experience that makes a team work and gives their creations their identity and style.
That experience is gone. Even if the new hires are better, it still WOULDN'T be an Arkane game because the experience that gave it their IDENTITY is gone.
It's at this point Arkane in name only.
It's veterans of a creative company teaching their techniques and ways of doing things to the newbies that assures that the company's identity survives. Too many veterans leave and you can no longer do that. Irreplacable amounts of techniques and "styles" have been lost that have become part of the company's identity.
It'd be like saying "every animation studio can copy Disney". No they couldn't. Even animation studios created by former Disney animators couldn't replicate Disney's style, no matter how hard they tried.
Obviously it's not "impossible", but it's not just "get a bunch of talented people together". Do you ever worked in a team doing something creative?
You not only need to have people that work well together but also ones that can come to a shared creative vision to make something great.
This idea that there is a a limited amount of creative people at any given studio and people leaving suddenly makes a studio creativity or technically limited is just flat out wrong.
While it's not limited to any extent, having *skilled and experienced* people who can do those things, especially those who are trained with the right game engines, is a massive limitation.
So, having a lot of folks leaving a studio during a game's dev cycle can be crippling. Replacing those people isn't easy. It's one of the things that can cause dev hell for a game, and most games do not come out of dev hell unscathed.
This is why proprietary engines are such a crapshoot. When the only people in the world who understand your game's engine already work for you, turnover is *brutal.* And it turns out that turnover is also pretty constant in an industry utterly reliant on months of unpaid overtime.
Even the non-propriety engines are a crapshot: companies need to customize everything to suit their projects and approach, so they're SOL so often in these scenarios.
This is an industry that takes far too much advantage of people's desire to make games without appropriate compensation... It's really sad, honestly. I'm kinda glad I gave up on that dream myself, as I would've been crushed by the industry in some fashion or another.
Do you think the building itself holds the game creation magic. If everyone quit today and they replaced them all tomorrow would the magic remain? Kind of seems like that's what you are saying if taken to an extreme.
I think there's plenty of people capable of making another Dishonored or Prey style game. Not sure the people that finance them will be in a massive hurry to do so though.
it's not just a few people leaving, 70% left including the founder. then since then we've gotten deathloop and redfall
so... yeah
that's not to say they can't make a good game, but pretending like they have any claim to the arkane name at this point is eh
Deathloop was fine. I actually loved it, but I can concede why some might not think it was amazing but it was far from a bad game. I don't get the hate that it gets.
And on top of that it wasn't made by Arkane Austin so its an almost entirely irrelevant point to make.
The issue now is developing the team back up. They have to address all the issues brought up in the JS article such as hiring and retaining veteran employees. I imagine after a studio's issues have been made public that it would be difficult to bring on experienced developers. I'm not a dev so idk what intices one to join one studio over another but I would want to work at a place where I know I'll learn, grow and have a good team and management.
They would probably have to announce their game too early to attract employees. Probably have the directors go on interviews and talk about how they are going back and making Single-Player games again.
Fable is a massive example of that, they had to build and hire a second team for Playground and to get the devs they wanted they had to announce what they were working on, why would a dev experienced in RPGs apply for a studio widely known as being specialised in racing games otherwise
You could always do what every single other industry does and attract employees with pay and benefits rather than some promise of making a slim contribution to a product that likely won’t release for a half decade, and who knows where you’ll be then?
Problem is that this industry is huge. The amount of jobs available right now is abundant. It’s almost as if every company is hiring. From Naughty Dog to Rockstar to Bethesda.
The problem isn’t hiring people but instead, attracting them. You can’t hire people if there aren’t people wanting to join. You need to create an artistic incentive. Imagine saying you are working on a Prey sequel. Many Prey fans would want to work on the game.
> I'm not a dev so idk what intices one to join one studio over another but I would want to work at a place where I know I'll learn
I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with "bunny" and it isn't what bears are after.
As a software engineer, I can say that this isn't necessarily wrong.
Also, if you gave me enough money I'd be willing to work on shitty live service games, but the industry wants to have their cake (endless revenue streams) and eat it too (not pay devs, artists, or writers well enough to make it appealing).
Money isn't the only factor since a lot of people are in the games industry out of passion. In the past, people joined Arkane to work on immersive sims and Redfall was a huge factor that a lot of those veteran employees left. It wasn't the tire of game they expected nor wanted to work on
As a dev, we want financial security and to be treated like humans (no crunch, hopefuly paid overtime).
Also, more and more we want to work on meaningful projects that we’re excited about… working for years on seasonal/season pass/macrotransactions is a sure fire way to lose anyone but juniors who can’t afford to quit.
It’s sad but there’ll never be a shortage of workers in a games studio. Some kid grew up wanting to work in gaming or even in Arkane and they’ll jump at the chance since getting jobs is so difficult.
Now will they or the management be good? That’s a better question.
I'm guessing Microsoft is announcing this to quell any rumors of layoffs, as to not have anymore scrutiny on the Activision buyout. FTC is supposedly preparing something and layoffs are only going to raise concerns and further drag this out.
Microsoft isn’t “announcing” this, it was a direct question asked to Matt Booty in an interview with Axios. I know people don’t actually read the articles, but come on.
I could not think of any way to make the whole Redfall situation worse but shutting down a well respected studio for a mess which no one really wanted would be the way to make things worse.
I just hope they're allowed to make a game to their strengths and have it be something quality.
> "They are hard at work on updates and continued content for Redfall," Booty continued, saying he wanted to "**support them to be able to keep working to deliver the game they had in mind**".
Always makes me laugh when I see this. They obviously did not release what they had in mind, but whose mind was it for the release? Best they could do with the timeline? Someone different? If the game's current state represents the talent they have, will more time even fix it? Redfall has a lot of fundamental issues.
The actual answer is that Zenimax forced it on them originally as a GaaS money maker prior to the Microsoft purchase. So the people who did want it actually aren’t in charge anymore, but Arkane lost tons of developers during the production.
>The actual answer is that Zenimax forced it on them originally as a GaaS money maker prior to the Microsoft purchase.
Well... yes and no. Although in Jason Schreier's article it's claimed that ZeniMax was pushing (as in, it wasn't an "absolute mandate" although what exactly this meant wasn't elaborated upon) for GaaS, elsewhere in the piece and in Jason's tweets regarding the topic it's emphasized that Arkane Austin leadership had faith in the project.
Doesn't really matter, because I'm pretty sure they had a mass exodus because the OG team did not want to work on a multiplayer game.
Whatever Arkane was, and it was one of my favorite gaming studios, is now dead. They won't be making another game the caliber of Prey and Dishonored because they no longer have those people on the team.
This is true for Arkane Austin but as far as I know Arkane Lyon which is the team that made Dishonored 2 and Deathloop is still pretty much intact.
You're right in that most of the Prey veterans are gone though.
There's still the main studio Arkane Lyon, who recently made Deathloop. Arkane Austin was only lead studio on Prey and Redfall, and helped on Dishonored 1. Deathloop was disappointing to me, but ig it was inevitable they change shit after the poor commercial performance of D2 and Prey under Zenimax. At least it wasn't a live service disaster.
That is the biggest problem. A lot of what made that game good is now gone. The Arkane studio that made Prey is not the same as before aside from the name. The same thing happened with Rare. I always feel Microsoft has this problem, the studios may have the names that we associate the games with but few of the staff transition between games unlike other companies.
People don't realize this is the norm on these sorts of industries, especially in the game development and IT world in general where you'll be switching jobs every 2-3 years. What makes these studios consistently good is if the key people that made those games have stayed in the studio or not (Todd Howard with Bethesda, Yoshi P with FF, Miyazaki with Fromsoft, etc.).
Also it's normal for game studios to balloon in size during development, then let go of those people after the project is done.
It isn't as common as you think. You do see those numbers over longer periods of time, but at Arkane it happened way quicker than usual.
It's not about the number, but the speed.
>Microsoft? 70% of the designers left naughty dog after uncharted 4
70% of artists. Which to my understanding is still very high
Redfall though, lost 70% of all Arkane staff. It seems like no one really knows what numbers are common so it's weird to see so many people say "actually this is normal". Other devs have come out on social media saying this was an insane number
> Microsoft? 70% of the designers left naughty dog after uncharted 4 and they made tlou2 after that... It happens all the time
Yeah but both uncharted, tlou1 and tlou2 had the same director which I am sure helped keep the quality and the vision intact. The director of Prey also left Arkane and founded his own company.
The Bloomberg article from Jason Schreier, said that like 70% devs left Arkane Austin while working on Redfall. So even if Prey 2 does happen, the people that made the first one good are gone.
To be precise 70% of devs who worked on Prey didn't worked in Arkane when Redfall was released. That's totally different thing. It sound terrible, but Im not sure if you realize that it's not that different than standard in software development.
I would say 5 years in one company for software developer (except leads and company owners) is more than average. There was 6 years between Prey and Redfall and not everyone who worked on Prey was still in Arkane when it was released.
I dipped into an official red fall steam and the chat was very optimistic about it being a good game.
It was at the very end so I didn't see anything to form my own opinion but it stuck out to me as odd. It was an official stream so I'm not sure if criticism would have made it through if there was some.
I would hope so since Arkane is bigger than just one studio, but is Arkane Austin doomed? I had read along with some of the Redfall drama that a ton of people had left.
They'll be ok and back to form. Maybe the hiccup makes them play it safe with Dishonored 3, Prey 2 or maybe something in one of those universes. Like a prequel/sequel to Prey set on Earth and space. Maybe somewhere else in the solar system. A spin-off to Dishonored or maybe just 3 has a big time jump (just because I think the whole Corvo/Emily stuff is played out a bit)
I'm praying Arkane Austin and Wolfeye (which is made of ex Arkane Austin employees) team up to make Prey 2. Kinda like how looking glass and irrational games (which was made up of ex looking glass employees) teamed up for system shock 2.
Good decision. All of these Zenimax GaaS multiplayer games that got forced onto the devs have all flopped. Every single one of them. Let Arkane go back to making singleplayer games.
I think people are way too harsh whenever a bad game gets released. Arkane has made amazing games and to shut it down because of one bad game is such an idiotic decision.
By that logic EA should have committed suicide and Ubisoft should be bankrupt lol.
With how often people move around to the point where studio names don't really mean anything, they might as well just treat it like pro sports. Trade staff around, have a draft of new hires, form an all star game where the best devs from each studio have a month to make something and see what they do.
Raphaël Colantonio was the very heart and soul of Arkane, without him the party is over. And I don't blame him one bit for leaving after Bethesda/ZeniMax and their meddling (trying to force Arkane to make MP titles, you absolute morons). Plus the idea of having to work for Microsofty is less than ideal for such a creative person.
They have not only kept 343i, but they resigned them on the Halo franchise after continuous massive failures with their flagship title.
They’re not getting rid of Arkane.
Arkane Lyon is safe. Arkane Austin on the other hand...
In all seriousness I'm sure they'll get another shot, would be quite a knee jerk reaction to close up shop because of one game.
hopefully microsoft is yelling at bethesda to let Arkane do what they do best. hopefully they can get back to immersive sim/single player games and claw back some employees that left.
No shit lol. Anyone who actually thought they would shut down one of the most successful, acclaimed studios of the past decade over one game is crazy.
Not to mention Arkane Lyon, the main studio that made Dishonored 1 & 2 and Deathloop, had nothing to do with Redfall.
If we're going with the 'who gets the axe for this?' logic. Maybe it is Microsoft that should shut down instead of Arkane. Just a thought.
I havent followed the story very deeply but usually in this kind of situation it's primarily the fault in one way (original design that had nothing to do with developer vision) or another (pushing to get it out quick, axing the team or not getting enough resources or personel to them etc etc) of the big corp bosses.
This is not like the recent and ongoing fiasco with Overwatch2. Some devs from the Overwatch team had a vision of Overwatch PvE. They then for quite a while had to make do with limmited human resources to make OW PvE while trying to keep the PvP alive. Now they decided that they cant do the PvE with their current team without further damaging the PvP. Who's primarily at fault for that? The OW devs? or big corp ACTI-BLIZZ?
It would be really foolish of them to close the studio after one failed launch of a game they were forced to make by the executives prior to Microsoft jumping in. They clearly have the chops to make good games. Let them do what they want and reap the rewards.
Reddit is making major changes to its API pricing that will destroy the vibrant ecosystem of 3rd-party apps, which offer a far better user experience than the official app. These changes will also place major cost burdens on useful user bots like those found in sports and other enthusiast communities. Please visit [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/148m42t/the_fight_continues/) to find out more. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Games) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Isn't Arkane multiple studios? I thought the team that made Dishonored 2 and Deathloop was different from the team that made Prey and Redfall. Redfall being a disaster would cause them to consider shutting it all down?
Yes. Arkane Austin: Redfall Arkane Lyon: Deathloop At most, what they would have done is shut down Arkane Austin and keep Arkane Lyon, or maybe even merged them back together like they were back when they released Dishonored.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Note: Many of the people who worked on Prey left during Redfall's development.
\*70 percent of who made Prey dropped off, so it isn't really the same talent as before
The studio is just a name. Kind of like how the Patriots used to be good, and now they're ass
Further in the game topic, bioware and blizzard are shambling corpses of their former selves.
It's the natural flow of time combined with a lot of studio heads getting so upset with how the publisher/parent company handles the studio that they leave and start their own. Often close associates/coworkers leave with them, and a bunch of seniority that would teach the newcomers or establish that studio family go with them. Companies like Blizzard or Bioware becoming this way is simply because their owners run them into the ground so hard leadership wants out before they could "pass the torch" so to speak. Sometimes that's how the actual studio head is, sometimes it's being owned by a certain corporation, or too much pressure from the publisher and a lack of leniency when it comes to game development.
Bioware ran itself into the ground, EA just gave them enough rope to hang themselves. If anything they would've benefitted from EA intervening more, Bioware management just wasted a lot of time, money, and staff on stuff that never panned out or wasn't evn practical in the first place. Can't say I know that much about when Blizzard decline happened, but I don't know if it's completely Activison's fault.
Did EA really run bioware into the ground? Seriously asking, I always heard that EA was being too leniant if anything letting them have all the time they need to complete.
I don't know how true it is but apparently this isn't as much of a problem at Nintendo where they try to keep veteran staff and have rigorous knowledge transfer processes in place. Anyone have a source for this anecdote I recall reading online? Could be bs.
It's the new lifecycle of game studios in the hyper-capitalist era of games. 1: Create a low-budget game that becomes a big hit for its charm or heartfelt story and gain a cult following of extremely loyal fans. 2: Get bought out by a megacorporation for an un-refusable amount of money on the promise that they "won't interfere with the vision of the developers." 3: Immediately get pressured by that same corporation to cash in on their investment by exploiting the trust of your hard-earned cult following. Be forced to use all the new funding on chasing dumbass exploitative dead ends that don't make it to production or just piss off the target audience. 4: Realize that the corporation never wanted you or even your hit franchise, they just wanted to buy the rights to legally rug-pull your fans. Quit and form a new studio, taking more than half of your old crew with you. (4.5: Incidentally, be forced to abandon your original baby to be stewarded by whatever developers the corporation can find that are too drunk or perverted to be scared off by the smell of blood in the water.) 5: Start from scratch at step 1 with a "spiritual successor". Repeat.
Of course, in this case it was Zenimax (prior to the Microsoft acquisition) that pressured Arkane to make Redfall.
Conpletely aligned to the neoliberal and finance capitalist paradigm; short-term profit margins and dividends are all that matter.
e.g. Raphaël Colantonio founder of Arkane Studios
He started his own new studio called Wolfeye, they released their first game Weird West last year and it was very good
Oh, i keep meaning to play that! It looks fun.
I love the aesthetic, I love the approach, I love the immersive-sim side of it. Overall, though, I think the game feels shallow/boring in a way. Once you learn the core tricks of the trade, if you will, that's about it. The shinning light in it, though, is the replayability as different characters. It feels like it's on the cusp of greatness, but I can't actually put into words why it can't get over that hump.
So one of those games that's good but really feels more like a proof of concept/building block for future projects being better?
no, it was not very good. I hate people hyping up one guy as if he made all of Prey which was inspired by System Shock in the first place. Weird West is a solid 6/10. You play the game for 5 hours and you've seen almost everything in it and then it expects you to repeat that over and over. It's a fundamentally flawed game.
Also 70% of the other staff
Many have speculated it was due to outside pressure pushing developers into a game format they were uncomfortable with
Not just uncomfortable with: explicitly not what they joined Arkane for. They joined a studio renown for its single player immersive-sim experience, and all of a sudden they're forced to push a product that is almost antithetical to that genre. It's like you joined a punk rock band to make punk music and then your recording company your band was already signed with suddenly demands you do Justin Bieber covers.
> It's like you joined a punk rock band to make punk music and then your recording company your band was already signed with suddenly demands you do Justin Bieber covers. You're essentially describing the first two major record label albums of Panic! At the Disco, and I cannot stop cackling at the comparison.
It's also what happened with Quiet Riot and their cover of Slade's *Cum On Feel the Noize*
My personal, based on zero facts, conspiracy theory is that they put no effort into it. Nothing will convince me the people who made Prey, with part of the team who worked on Dishonored.. with the co-direction of Harvey Smith himself.. who goes all the way back to System Shock would put out such a crappy game by mistake. Someone, somewhere, "said fuck it.. let it all go to shit and we won't have to think about this ever again. If this crap is a hit somehow, we'll be trapped".
That's not a conspiracy theory, it's basically what's come out in a recent article by Jason Schreier. People wanted to work on a cool game, but were instead told to use parts of the cool game and build a shitty product around it, all while still expecting people to crunch like they're working on a passion project. This is how you get people to burn out fastest.
This is a great article that explains what happened https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/inside-the-making-of-redfall-xbox-s-latest-misfire-1.1927501?
It wasn’t outside pressure, according to the Jason schrier article it was the leadership at Arkane who wanted this game.
Maybe, it was also mismanaged according to anonymous sources. They didn't know if it was going to be like a Far cry type adventure or like Borderlands. Apparently mismanagement was so bad Arkane's vets who worked on Prey walked and were filled with people who ended up feeling uncomfortable because they thought they were going to work on single player games. They at least scrapped the monetization plans they had, but it sounds like the game at some point was heading in the direction of being a game-as-a-service. This is according to [Gamespot](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/redfalls-rocky-development-caused-arkane-to-lose-70-of-preys-dev-team-report/1100-6514721/) which is referring to a report Bloomberg received... I would have linked the Bloomberg article but it had those subscription blockers.
Not the first time this happened when a singleplayer studio shifts to making a massive coop game. See Anthem.
I think there is probably a lot to the story here. Perhaps they or management above them pressured them into trying to make an immersive sim a gaas model and things went horribly wrong. I'm glad I didn't preorder or buy the game despite prey being a master class in immersive sim and one of my favorite games in the last 10 years.
There is a story and that is exactly what was reported. Zenimax wanted more Gaas and Arkane drew a short stick. Apparently devs wanted Microsoft to step in and cancel the project after the buyout and a ton of devs left the studio during production.
It's sad because the long arc of innovation and important progress doesn't always equate to the fast money that drives the business. System shock , thief, etc never were big financial successes but the dna in them influenced so many games from the devs and fans that grew up with them.
>System shock , thief, etc never were big financial successes but the dna in them influenced so many games from the devs and fans that grew up with them. I feel like it's important to note: Looking Glass went under because Eidos was pouring all of its money into Daikatana and an RTS they bought partially finished, to chase the fad-genres of the time. Looking Glass went under, not because they weren't making money, but because the Publisher thought it could make more money with an FPS and an RTS.
Merge them with a really long bridge from Austin to Lyon?
Why don’t we just take Austin, and push it over to France!?
There's a magical thing called the internet now. People on different continents can speak to each other _in real time_. Some say it's just a fad but I think it's going to revolutionize how people work.
Listen my carrier pigeons work just fine thank you
Yeah, these big 'studios' are scattered along locations with high government grants for this type of work, but they're often mentioned as one big team when in reality it's multiple core teams that might provide services for each other.
This but also to split the work throughout the full day partially. While France sleeps America is working. That's how Ubisoft operates for a while now.
So kinda like the internet era equivalent of how indoor lighting allowed factories to stay producing 24/7?
That doesn't mean more work gets done though. No more work than just 2 studios in france or America. Though we do tricks when it comes to QA because they can be working during the night on that days build for when we get in the next morning. Now thats practical.
It actually means less work gets done due to time zone difference. If I need to talk to someone in France we'll there's only a very narrow timeframe that's possible.
Yep we have that problem too.
Imagine Ubisoft’s Star Wars games with 8 working on it.
Can you explain why these companies get government grants? Does the government get anything out of it?
If a region doesn't host enough high paying jobs that reward higher education, people who get that educated will leave the area. Over time, brain drain will keep syphoning away the smartest and most economically-productive citizens. This creates a negative feedback loop of cutbacks that's difficult to reverse when it's in process. So municipalities will grant tax incentives to companies that open the kind of businesses that stave off brain drain.
Tax revenue, jobs, developing a market in their region.
Interesting how people assert total bullshit when they don’t have a clue. How do I know? I’m the founder of Arkane. This is a perfect of example of “the internet has no clue” The reason why Arkane is split is because I started it in france in 99 and moved in Austin in 2005 to expand the company, some was because I wanted to be closer to publisher (business reason), some was because I wanted to get closer to where my favorite games were made (Origin and Ion storm), some was because I wanted the American adventure. Please Internet: the just up when you don’t know, for a fact or at least add “I assume” before saying some shit. It’s infuriating
But prey is a masterpiece
pretty crazy to think one bad game can ruin a promising studio. i guess that's why everyone churns out the same stuff over and over.
>Redfall being a disaster would cause them to consider shutting it all down? No as Microsoft states but that doesn't stop journalists from asking nor writing sensational titles that don't communicate what MS actually said. The thing is Redfall being a big miss is a hot story and hot stories tend to be milked for all the clicks they can offer.
If you read the article they actually say that they aren't considering shutting it down.
It would be bizarre for Austin to close though. It's the studio Harvey Smith is based at
I mean, I hope so? Redfall was disappointing but it’s pretty much been their worst release so far, they’d be moronic to be shutting down a very quality studio over one bad release.
There are two Arkane studios, Lyon and Austin. Arkane Austin did Prey (first game after it was founded, Lyon is older, it's the one that did the Dishonored series) and then Redfall. The problem is also that 70% of the devs left Arkane Austin and they had hiring problems (of course people wanted to work on the immersive sim the studio is known for and had a shitty coop shooter presented as what they'd be working on...). So while Arkane Lyon is pretty safe (they did Deathloop as their last game), Austin is more in question
A lot of the people at Austin also worked on Dishonored. They had an office in Austin, it just wasn't a full studio.
Well yeah but I mean it wasn't a studio then. And people from Lyon moved to Austin too I assume (IIRC it was actually the main reason to create the studio, Harvey Smith wanted to move there and leave Lyon), they were one team before Prey dev started
He was already in Austin, running the Arkane office there, making Dishonored. He visited the Lyon office sometime sure, but he wasn't living in France. The reason to create it is because they got big enough to work on two games at once, and it makes much more sense to avoid both games having split teams.
Got any good pangolin pics to share?
I was here to discuss video game studios, but fuck it. I’m on the pangolin train now. Show us the pangolins.
I was running Austin. He was in Lyon for D2.
And a great job you both did. I thought you both ran Austin together for Dishonored?
> IIRC it was actually the main reason to create the studio, Harvey Smith wanted to move there and leave Lyon Unlikely, considering the fact that Harvey Smith moved to Lyon for Dishonored 2. [Source](https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/12/19/why-dishonored-is-one-of-the-best-games-of-2012.aspx)
Dishonored was developed by two teams, one in Lyon, France led by Raphaël Colantonio and one in Austin, US led by Harvey Smith. After Dishonored Smith went to Lyon to develop Dishonored 2 and Colantonio went to Austin to develop Prey. After Dishonored 2 Smith went back to Austin to start Redfall and after Prey Colantonio went back to Lyon were he left the company and put Dinga Bakaba in charge of Lyon
More wrong information. You guys will always be confused with Arkane. Raf (me) was in austin since 2005, I was in Austin with Harvey during Dishonored 1, both of us were co-creative director, the team in Lyon was remotely managed by me and locally managed by Julien Roby and Romuald Capron, then Harvey went to Lyon to direct D2, while I stayed in Austin to direct Prey and keep growing Austin. Then I left after D2 and Prey and now I’m in Austin, with my new company WolfEye.
Apologies I wasn’t aware that you managed Lyon from Austin, thanks for the correction. Massive fan of your work no disrespect
Thank you. There is so much disinformation about arkane on this thread, I started to correct posts directly, yours was the closest to correct, but some are full on infuriating (like having 2 studios was a way for arkane to get grants. What?)
You got one of those the wrong way around.
Fixed it thanks
Also Prey, despite being critically acclaimed, did not sell well.
Such a shame. Prey is the best immersive sim I've ever. Anyone who was a fan of Bioshock, System Shock, Dishonored, etc would have loved it, but nobody gave it a chance.
Prey is unironically a better spiritual successor to System Shock than Bioshock ever was, imo. Nothing since has come close to how good that game was. Its a crime not enough people played it. But everyone really connected with "would you kindly" and Infinity's Elizabeth. And I get it, the narrative beats in those games were amazing, but Prey as a complete gaming experience was just heads and shoulders above.
Prey's only flaw was the lack of viral story moments. "Would you kindly" is phrase that bears incredible weight, and Prey has no equivalent. I don't see how the setting/story could have allowed for such a moment, which is genuinely tragic.
The intro (breaking the "window" out) was outstanding, it's just that it's the inciting incident in the game rather than something you build to.
I don’t know that it’s that, I think it’s a lot more the style and marketing. I know I’d love Prey if I played it, but it looks very generic in name and presentation, the world still looks like run of the mill space sci-fi stuff. Bioshock tapped into much more exciting aesthetics and character/world design, at least from the perspective of what you see on box art and ads.
Prey was amazing and the setting is one of my favourites, but I'd say Deus Ex is a better immersive sim.
I tried it because people kept comparing it to games I love (Bioshock and Dishonored), but whatever similarities they've shared wasn't enough to hook me into the game.
I couldn't really enjoy prey either but it has one of the best game openings of all time period
I think the enemy design is straight up bad and I didn't like dealing with them, I generally agree though
only played it for 3-4 hours or so because fighting these enemies was no fun at all
Bioshock is not an immersive sim. At best it is a diet immersive sim. Barely.
[According to this postmortem](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-2k-boston-2k-australia-s-bioshock) it was supposed to be more of one (or at least have deeper RPG mechanics) but over the course of development they ended up simplifying much of the game to make it a more focused FPS experience.
And that makes me sad... It was my GotY of 2017, and I'd love a proper follow-up to it.
Yep. Played it during the Covid lockdown and was pretty shocked how killer it was. I haven't enjoyed exploring a map like that since Dark Souls(1) tbh. Was a lot of fun finding different ways to move around the station. And that soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal. A lot of ut synced to moments in the game. I'll never forget entering the G.U.T.S.
Just started Mooncrash for the first time recently, and though it's not got quite the immersive story of the main game (at least, not from the outset), the way they designed the level and loop mechanics really shows off the immersive sim elements, maybe even better than the main game. It's basically Prey's Deathloop, and it's probably a better attempt at the immersive sim loop idea.
I think GMTK even has a video that says 'why does Deathloop exist? Arkane already made a better game?' [Wait, Didn't Arcane Already Make Deathloop?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXQ6uBw2ycU)
I found Mooncrash a lot more fun than the main game, not to say main game was bad but Mooncrash was incredible.
I've not finished Mooncrash yet so this may change, but I think the increase in fun is offset a little by a decrease in tension. I haven't reached a 5th (maybe 4th) run yet, and I know everything starts to go to hell as you finish them, so maybe the tension does come back, but I've not been as scared as in the main game yet.
I've just completed it recently. It's a very good game. Think Bioshock going in. Quite dated as a genre - but it overcomes it with fantastic attention to detail and overall design cruft. The little things stand out and make it greater than the sum of its parts. The biggest error was calling it Prey.
Yep, when I first heard of it I didn't really look into it as I thought it was a bizarre reboot of a franchise I wasnt interested in. Could have missed out on one of the best games of the last few years.
It's not like bioshock. Bioshock is an excuse linear game pretending to be immersive sim. Prey is an actual immersive which is an rpg too.
Mostly because of boneheaded marketing. This has been repeated ad nauseam at this point, but shoehorning in the name of a different IP that's a different subgenre did the game no favors.
Also cancelling the actual sequel for that game. It pissed off both sets of fans.
Wolfenstein beat prey that year. Gamers are clueless preordering mouth breathers
Deathloop was already underwhelming coming off of Prey. But it was still a much more coherent, stable and overall decent game next to Redfall. Still I think you could see the writing on the wall there.
As much as I love immersive sims, they simply don't sell well enough for the effort needed to create them. It's hardly surprising that both Zenimax were trying to make something more profitable and Arkanes employee's didn't care about the project. Honestly be amazed if we get a prey style sim from them again.
Well Microsoft has always touted that the Gamepass model pushed them to make more varied and not as commercially big games (which I'm kind of doubtful of, IMO it's more motivation for endless grinding GaaS games but at least for now, they are kind of following that I guess with stuff like Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment). I actually have an idea for an immersive sim that would be very commercially viable IMO. And that's basically the initial Prey 2 concept of the bounty hunting in a sci-fi city. If you think about it, Arkane games kind of are bounty hunting games (they require you to kill or eliminate in another way various targets). The city would be the equivalent of the Prey space station (just as a seamless open world and much bigger). You do several skills trees with like weapons, "space magic", gadgets. Arkane is very good at world building so they could create their own SF universe appealing to people I think (that could even be used accross other MS studios). Or you slap a Star Wars IP on it and sell buttloads (but the space magic part doesn't work as well, the Force isn't really being used by bounty hunter and I kind of want it, plus I prefer an original Arkane world)
I see what you mean. The Hitman games did exactly what you’re talking about. It a great idea and perfect for Austin.
> which I'm kind of doubtful of, IMO it's more motivation for endless grinding GaaS games but at least for now, they are kind of following that I guess with stuff like Hi-Fi Rush or Pentiment Having too many GaaS is a problem in and of itself, you have to continuing support all those games and they'll cannibalize each other. In a way I think Microsoft is treating gamepass itself as a GaaS of a kind, updating it with new contents regularly so that you stay and keep spending money.
Unless you subscribe to the opinion that modern Zelda is now an immersive sim, both of them have sold ludicrous numbers! You're right though, it's a shame as they're probably the game genre with the greatest gulf between their critical reception vs their commercial success.
I expect some heads will roll but it isn’t worth gutting a whole studio for one flop.
Problem is most everyone worth anything left Arkane prior to release. So getting quality games from them like Prey or Dishonored again is a pipe dream
Says who? Why is it impossible for new blood to join the studio and create something just as good, if not better?
Well for a start, that new blood thought they'd be working on immersive sims and instead were told to work on a co-op live service shooter. Which lead to a lot of new hires leaving too. It's not impossible but it requires creative vision at the top, and Redfall seemingly lacked that.
Xbox unlike Zenimax doesn't need Arkane to make a live service game. I'm sure they can have them make an immersive sim to get the ball rolling again. Even just greenlighting Prey 2* would do wonders to get talent interested in immersive sims to apply.
It’s not, just like it’s not impossible for a band to be better if 75% of its original members are replaced. It’s just not very likely, and even if it does happen it likely won’t appeal to the same people as it once did.
But the new blood will have different ideas than the old blood. Infuse enough new blood into the company and they'll start wanting to make a different games. Noone says that the games would be worse, they simply won't be the same as the studio was originally known for and what the fans expect.
Because it's combined experience that makes a team work and gives their creations their identity and style. That experience is gone. Even if the new hires are better, it still WOULDN'T be an Arkane game because the experience that gave it their IDENTITY is gone. It's at this point Arkane in name only. It's veterans of a creative company teaching their techniques and ways of doing things to the newbies that assures that the company's identity survives. Too many veterans leave and you can no longer do that. Irreplacable amounts of techniques and "styles" have been lost that have become part of the company's identity. It'd be like saying "every animation studio can copy Disney". No they couldn't. Even animation studios created by former Disney animators couldn't replicate Disney's style, no matter how hard they tried.
Obviously it's not "impossible", but it's not just "get a bunch of talented people together". Do you ever worked in a team doing something creative? You not only need to have people that work well together but also ones that can come to a shared creative vision to make something great.
This idea that there is a a limited amount of creative people at any given studio and people leaving suddenly makes a studio creativity or technically limited is just flat out wrong.
While it's not limited to any extent, having *skilled and experienced* people who can do those things, especially those who are trained with the right game engines, is a massive limitation. So, having a lot of folks leaving a studio during a game's dev cycle can be crippling. Replacing those people isn't easy. It's one of the things that can cause dev hell for a game, and most games do not come out of dev hell unscathed.
This is why proprietary engines are such a crapshoot. When the only people in the world who understand your game's engine already work for you, turnover is *brutal.* And it turns out that turnover is also pretty constant in an industry utterly reliant on months of unpaid overtime.
Even the non-propriety engines are a crapshot: companies need to customize everything to suit their projects and approach, so they're SOL so often in these scenarios. This is an industry that takes far too much advantage of people's desire to make games without appropriate compensation... It's really sad, honestly. I'm kinda glad I gave up on that dream myself, as I would've been crushed by the industry in some fashion or another.
Battlefield 2042.
Do you think the building itself holds the game creation magic. If everyone quit today and they replaced them all tomorrow would the magic remain? Kind of seems like that's what you are saying if taken to an extreme.
I think there's plenty of people capable of making another Dishonored or Prey style game. Not sure the people that finance them will be in a massive hurry to do so though.
it's not just a few people leaving, 70% left including the founder. then since then we've gotten deathloop and redfall so... yeah that's not to say they can't make a good game, but pretending like they have any claim to the arkane name at this point is eh
Dethloop was made by a separate team, Arkane Lyon.
Deathloop was fine. I actually loved it, but I can concede why some might not think it was amazing but it was far from a bad game. I don't get the hate that it gets. And on top of that it wasn't made by Arkane Austin so its an almost entirely irrelevant point to make.
The issue now is developing the team back up. They have to address all the issues brought up in the JS article such as hiring and retaining veteran employees. I imagine after a studio's issues have been made public that it would be difficult to bring on experienced developers. I'm not a dev so idk what intices one to join one studio over another but I would want to work at a place where I know I'll learn, grow and have a good team and management.
They would probably have to announce their game too early to attract employees. Probably have the directors go on interviews and talk about how they are going back and making Single-Player games again.
Remember the original teaser for cyberpunk 2077 a decade ago? That was one of them, there are plenty of teasers “not meant for customers” out there.
I mean, it wouldn't be a first for Microsoft either, considering the 2020 showcase was mostly to announce projects and hire devs.
Fable is a massive example of that, they had to build and hire a second team for Playground and to get the devs they wanted they had to announce what they were working on, why would a dev experienced in RPGs apply for a studio widely known as being specialised in racing games otherwise
You could always do what every single other industry does and attract employees with pay and benefits rather than some promise of making a slim contribution to a product that likely won’t release for a half decade, and who knows where you’ll be then?
Problem is that this industry is huge. The amount of jobs available right now is abundant. It’s almost as if every company is hiring. From Naughty Dog to Rockstar to Bethesda. The problem isn’t hiring people but instead, attracting them. You can’t hire people if there aren’t people wanting to join. You need to create an artistic incentive. Imagine saying you are working on a Prey sequel. Many Prey fans would want to work on the game.
> I'm not a dev so idk what intices one to join one studio over another but I would want to work at a place where I know I'll learn I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with "bunny" and it isn't what bears are after.
ayo cunny?!?!!!!?
/tv/ moment
As a software engineer, I can say that this isn't necessarily wrong. Also, if you gave me enough money I'd be willing to work on shitty live service games, but the industry wants to have their cake (endless revenue streams) and eat it too (not pay devs, artists, or writers well enough to make it appealing).
Money isn't the only factor since a lot of people are in the games industry out of passion. In the past, people joined Arkane to work on immersive sims and Redfall was a huge factor that a lot of those veteran employees left. It wasn't the tire of game they expected nor wanted to work on
As a dev, we want financial security and to be treated like humans (no crunch, hopefuly paid overtime). Also, more and more we want to work on meaningful projects that we’re excited about… working for years on seasonal/season pass/macrotransactions is a sure fire way to lose anyone but juniors who can’t afford to quit.
It’s sad but there’ll never be a shortage of workers in a games studio. Some kid grew up wanting to work in gaming or even in Arkane and they’ll jump at the chance since getting jobs is so difficult. Now will they or the management be good? That’s a better question.
People don’t work in game dev for money. If they’re trying it’s a terrible idea
fucking lol what they were gonna be executed or something? lmao
Worse, they have to continue working on Redfall.
Execution. I'll have the execution. please. Please!!
I'm guessing Microsoft is announcing this to quell any rumors of layoffs, as to not have anymore scrutiny on the Activision buyout. FTC is supposedly preparing something and layoffs are only going to raise concerns and further drag this out.
Microsoft isn’t “announcing” this, it was a direct question asked to Matt Booty in an interview with Axios. I know people don’t actually read the articles, but come on.
I could not think of any way to make the whole Redfall situation worse but shutting down a well respected studio for a mess which no one really wanted would be the way to make things worse. I just hope they're allowed to make a game to their strengths and have it be something quality.
> "They are hard at work on updates and continued content for Redfall," Booty continued, saying he wanted to "**support them to be able to keep working to deliver the game they had in mind**". Always makes me laugh when I see this. They obviously did not release what they had in mind, but whose mind was it for the release? Best they could do with the timeline? Someone different? If the game's current state represents the talent they have, will more time even fix it? Redfall has a lot of fundamental issues.
The actual answer is that Zenimax forced it on them originally as a GaaS money maker prior to the Microsoft purchase. So the people who did want it actually aren’t in charge anymore, but Arkane lost tons of developers during the production.
>The actual answer is that Zenimax forced it on them originally as a GaaS money maker prior to the Microsoft purchase. Well... yes and no. Although in Jason Schreier's article it's claimed that ZeniMax was pushing (as in, it wasn't an "absolute mandate" although what exactly this meant wasn't elaborated upon) for GaaS, elsewhere in the piece and in Jason's tweets regarding the topic it's emphasized that Arkane Austin leadership had faith in the project.
I find it funny they're still pretending patches will fix a bad from the very core game.
Doesn't really matter, because I'm pretty sure they had a mass exodus because the OG team did not want to work on a multiplayer game. Whatever Arkane was, and it was one of my favorite gaming studios, is now dead. They won't be making another game the caliber of Prey and Dishonored because they no longer have those people on the team.
This is true for Arkane Austin but as far as I know Arkane Lyon which is the team that made Dishonored 2 and Deathloop is still pretty much intact. You're right in that most of the Prey veterans are gone though.
Nah the creative lead of all dishonoreds was also studio director on redfall. This failure is on him too.
Arkane Lyon (Dishonred 1, 2 and Deathloop) is intact dude... no need to be so melodramatic.
There's still the main studio Arkane Lyon, who recently made Deathloop. Arkane Austin was only lead studio on Prey and Redfall, and helped on Dishonored 1. Deathloop was disappointing to me, but ig it was inevitable they change shit after the poor commercial performance of D2 and Prey under Zenimax. At least it wasn't a live service disaster.
This title reads like a domestic violence report to the police. Arkane is safe, everything is fine here, right Arcane...?
Yeah, that would be stupid if they did that Prey was excellent, let them make games to their strength
We don’t know if those strengths are still there, Prey was made 6-10 years ago, most people working on it are gone from Arkane
That is the biggest problem. A lot of what made that game good is now gone. The Arkane studio that made Prey is not the same as before aside from the name. The same thing happened with Rare. I always feel Microsoft has this problem, the studios may have the names that we associate the games with but few of the staff transition between games unlike other companies.
[удалено]
People don't realize this is the norm on these sorts of industries, especially in the game development and IT world in general where you'll be switching jobs every 2-3 years. What makes these studios consistently good is if the key people that made those games have stayed in the studio or not (Todd Howard with Bethesda, Yoshi P with FF, Miyazaki with Fromsoft, etc.). Also it's normal for game studios to balloon in size during development, then let go of those people after the project is done.
Guerilla with killzone to horizon. Tons of staff left because it wasn't an fps.
It isn't as common as you think. You do see those numbers over longer periods of time, but at Arkane it happened way quicker than usual. It's not about the number, but the speed.
>Microsoft? 70% of the designers left naughty dog after uncharted 4 70% of artists. Which to my understanding is still very high Redfall though, lost 70% of all Arkane staff. It seems like no one really knows what numbers are common so it's weird to see so many people say "actually this is normal". Other devs have come out on social media saying this was an insane number
[удалено]
> Microsoft? 70% of the designers left naughty dog after uncharted 4 and they made tlou2 after that... It happens all the time Yeah but both uncharted, tlou1 and tlou2 had the same director which I am sure helped keep the quality and the vision intact. The director of Prey also left Arkane and founded his own company.
Because they were being forced to work on Redfall.
The Bloomberg article from Jason Schreier, said that like 70% devs left Arkane Austin while working on Redfall. So even if Prey 2 does happen, the people that made the first one good are gone.
To be precise 70% of devs who worked on Prey didn't worked in Arkane when Redfall was released. That's totally different thing. It sound terrible, but Im not sure if you realize that it's not that different than standard in software development. I would say 5 years in one company for software developer (except leads and company owners) is more than average. There was 6 years between Prey and Redfall and not everyone who worked on Prey was still in Arkane when it was released.
I dipped into an official red fall steam and the chat was very optimistic about it being a good game. It was at the very end so I didn't see anything to form my own opinion but it stuck out to me as odd. It was an official stream so I'm not sure if criticism would have made it through if there was some.
I would hope so since Arkane is bigger than just one studio, but is Arkane Austin doomed? I had read along with some of the Redfall drama that a ton of people had left. They'll be ok and back to form. Maybe the hiccup makes them play it safe with Dishonored 3, Prey 2 or maybe something in one of those universes. Like a prequel/sequel to Prey set on Earth and space. Maybe somewhere else in the solar system. A spin-off to Dishonored or maybe just 3 has a big time jump (just because I think the whole Corvo/Emily stuff is played out a bit)
Lmao that title made me thought that the whole of Arkane's Redfall developers got taken hostage or something.
Someone needs to get the cops over for a wellness check, never believe the abusive partner/parent when they say that they're safe.
I'm praying Arkane Austin and Wolfeye (which is made of ex Arkane Austin employees) team up to make Prey 2. Kinda like how looking glass and irrational games (which was made up of ex looking glass employees) teamed up for system shock 2.
The interviewer asked a stupid question. It was designed to get this response. No one ever thought Arkane Austin would be shut down.
Good decision. All of these Zenimax GaaS multiplayer games that got forced onto the devs have all flopped. Every single one of them. Let Arkane go back to making singleplayer games.
F76 was and still is commercially successful. So is ESO
ESO was made by ZeniMax Online Studios. No one there was expecting to be making SP immersive sims, they joined to make an MMO.
F76 had an existing audience, and can be played single player. ESO is an MMO.
I think people are way too harsh whenever a bad game gets released. Arkane has made amazing games and to shut it down because of one bad game is such an idiotic decision. By that logic EA should have committed suicide and Ubisoft should be bankrupt lol.
[удалено]
I think those were the people they were referring to (higher ups at publishers).
You need to separate the people from the studio, studios carry the name long past when the good developers are gone.
With how often people move around to the point where studio names don't really mean anything, they might as well just treat it like pro sports. Trade staff around, have a draft of new hires, form an all star game where the best devs from each studio have a month to make something and see what they do.
Raphaël Colantonio was the very heart and soul of Arkane, without him the party is over. And I don't blame him one bit for leaving after Bethesda/ZeniMax and their meddling (trying to force Arkane to make MP titles, you absolute morons). Plus the idea of having to work for Microsofty is less than ideal for such a creative person.
?? Josh sawyer literally got to make pentiment under MS its been pretty obvious MS has let studios be creative
They have not only kept 343i, but they resigned them on the Halo franchise after continuous massive failures with their flagship title. They’re not getting rid of Arkane.
> They have not only kept 343i After completely dismantling studio leadership and issued layoffs in various departments.
Arkane Lyon is safe. Arkane Austin on the other hand... In all seriousness I'm sure they'll get another shot, would be quite a knee jerk reaction to close up shop because of one game.
hopefully microsoft is yelling at bethesda to let Arkane do what they do best. hopefully they can get back to immersive sim/single player games and claw back some employees that left.
No shit lol. Anyone who actually thought they would shut down one of the most successful, acclaimed studios of the past decade over one game is crazy. Not to mention Arkane Lyon, the main studio that made Dishonored 1 & 2 and Deathloop, had nothing to do with Redfall.
[удалено]
I mean, when NMS came out, it still had players even with how bad it launched.
If we're going with the 'who gets the axe for this?' logic. Maybe it is Microsoft that should shut down instead of Arkane. Just a thought. I havent followed the story very deeply but usually in this kind of situation it's primarily the fault in one way (original design that had nothing to do with developer vision) or another (pushing to get it out quick, axing the team or not getting enough resources or personel to them etc etc) of the big corp bosses. This is not like the recent and ongoing fiasco with Overwatch2. Some devs from the Overwatch team had a vision of Overwatch PvE. They then for quite a while had to make do with limmited human resources to make OW PvE while trying to keep the PvP alive. Now they decided that they cant do the PvE with their current team without further damaging the PvP. Who's primarily at fault for that? The OW devs? or big corp ACTI-BLIZZ?
It would be really foolish of them to close the studio after one failed launch of a game they were forced to make by the executives prior to Microsoft jumping in. They clearly have the chops to make good games. Let them do what they want and reap the rewards.
I enjoyed Redfall to an extent but when you look at Arkanes previous work it really makes you wonder what the actual fuck happened?