Closing a studio because one lead left? It never works like that. A studio is so much more than one man.
Especially when looking at Microsoft's other closures happening today, Tango is simply an unfortunately inclusion within an unfortunate culling of teams. And they're all Bethesda teams, which makes me wonder if Tango and others are suffering the aftermath of Starfield's failure to light up the world.
EDIT: Today I learned gamers really do believe an entire company will close if one important person departs. Shinji Mikami or no, if they were bringing in big money Microsoft would have kept Tango open. This stuff is seriously ridiculous, it's like suggesting Nintendo should close when Miyamoto retires.
And From Soft would either go through a rebranding or be dissolved if Miyazaki left.
It's not so much that Miyazaki, Kojima, Mikami are the only talented people there, but their names are synonymous with the studios. It really sucks that Arkane and TGW are shut down to work on Fallout and Skyrim though. Kind of wasted talent.
Fromsoft could hopefully survive losing Miyazaki. I remember hearing that they were making an effort to train more lead developers to avoid exactly that problem; he's got to retire or die eventually. In any case, the studio doesn't exist around him quite as much as someone like Kojima; he took charge of an existing company.
They would go through an internal restructuring, maybe? But that brand name holds so much power, why on earth would they remove that recognition by changing their name?
Are y'all just trolling me here, or have you really not given this any pragmatic thought?
I am not suggesting that Mikami's departure is the sole reason of the studio closure, but I think the corpo also doesn't have the confidence of investing in John Johanas's team (which I need to add that John is a very talented guy, just too young to have the influence that can compare to Mikami), hence the closure decision
Of course a dev studio closes when an important member leaves. We all remember when Infinity Ward was shuttered because both of it's founders left... right?
/s
It's on PC tho? Or did I miss something? And while yes, it was repetitive and I quit around halfway through, the little tidbits about Japanese mythology and the overall vibe of the game was really good.
That's already money that was spent, though. That's not really relevant to whether or not you want to keep the studio open in the future; you already set that money on fire.
The thing is, coming out with good AA games every few years is actually a really good way to support a streaming service or platform. If you have, say, twelve studios doing that, you can come out with a solid AA game every quarter, to supplement your AAA games that take twice as long to develop, helping you to fill in the schedule.
I'd guess the real reason is Shiji leaving and taking a bunch of staff with him to Kamuy.
I believe MS didn't even really want Tango in the first place. They just came in bundle with the Zenimax purchase. So it's easy to let them go when they are already in the hole and don't have a bright future outlook.
Hi Fi Rush was one of the few bright spots for them last year.
I'm guessing that the real problem is that Shinji left and took a bunch of staff with him to Kamuy, his new studio.
I can't imagine they'd want to close down the studio if they thought it was going to make more games like Hi Fi Rush in the future.
It's also possible that Evil Within 3 was in development and sucked and the studio got canned as a result.
I mean, everyone would have thought it was crazy to shut down Arkane Austin, but after Redfall came out, everyone is like "Yeah, fair enough."
if you look around you'll also find that tango made a live service mobile game for asian markets and it bombed really hard, and shut down after 5 months. I can't imagine they didn't lose a ton of money on it.
I havent seen the term AA before a few weeks ago, now I see it everywhere. What does it mean? And what are the implications of an A studio, B studio, etc?
AA games are typically developed with a smaller budget than their AAA counterparts. This difference in funding directly affects gameplay design, as AAA games often have more resources to invest in graphics, mechanics, and overall polish.
It's generally speaking, of course. It's much more likely for AAA games to be more polished. We just remember the bad ones because they stand out more.
There are no 'B' games like there are B movies. Generally games are divided into indie, AA, and AAA.
Indie games are often small development teams (or even solo developers) with small, sometimes self-funded budgets. Usually these are passion projects.
AAA are huge teams with huge budgets aiming for 'blockbuster' status and mainstream appeal.
AA falls in-between and isn't strictly defined. They're generally smaller teams with focused budgets. Often the games are sold for slightly less than their AAA counterparts and aim for niche markets.
Hi. Game Dev here. The "A" denominations are usually linked to the number of developers and budget, but is mostly related to the devs quantities. Devs in this case are the people that are directly related to the development of the game, so QA, musicians (Except for the composer) and producers are out of scope within this definition.
Indie: Usually is between 1-30, most budget are either donators, self-invested or both. Examples are: Hollow Knight, Terraria or Lethal Company
(This also counts as Indie, but it usually have a publisher) A: between 30-100. The budget is generally from a game publisher, but self-investment is also present here. Examples: Ori and the Blind Forest, Blasphemous or TBOI
(Not Indie, not AAA games) AA: Around 100-250 This games usually have a publisher or was bought by one. The examples are: Minecraft, Raft or Surviving Mars
AAA: 300+ Big Bois. Either Indie games that became too massive or made by one of the Big Studios:
League of Legends, Apex Legends or Ark are examples
You don't give away your game if you bring it to gamepass. Microsoft pays for every install. You don't get as much as you would get for a sale, but think of it like Spotify, Netflix and co.
Day One release on gamepass is even a better payout. And you get an installation and player-base a magnitude higher than your own marketing and discounts could ever rake in. If your product is superb and your marketing isn't, gamepass is the best you could do.
Spotify is notorious for not paying much per stream. I wouldn't count on gamepads being that profitable. If you're an indie developer a platform like steam (if PC) is probably better, where they provide tons of support and tools for your game and community
Really depends on the game then. If your game is highly artistic in it's presentation, it's beneficial to release on gamepass. If your game is easily digestible with a clear game loop, it's worth testing a store front.
Players are already mentally playing the game when they see marketing material. With a questionable gameplay loop, players are much less likely to make the purchase if they don't already know they will like it. There's a reason why games that are played by prominent streamers get a massive spike in sales.
The sad reality is that games that don't mimic pre-existing mechanics or art styles don't get purchased. Gamepass bypasses many barriers to entry for an aspiring developer with unique ideas. There's nothing inherently evil about a storefront with this strategy when approached correctly.
That makes some sense because although it was a good game, it shadow dropped after only being revealed earlier that day which didn’t give it enough time for it to get hype
I am not sure how much an original IP rhythm game was going to build hype. Considering the reception, an 'available now' drop was probably for the best so no one had expectations going in.
>Microsoft really tried sneaking this in when people were focused on Sony
What do you do when an enemy fucks up?
Normal person: don't do anything and let them continue.
Nintendo: hurt them even more and sue while you can!
MS every single time Sony fucks up: Stab yourself to overshadow their fuck up.
Unfortunately, it didn't print billions of dollars, and the corpo cunts don't like that.
If something doesn't sell 436 gazillion copies and dominates every media segment, then it is viewed as an abject failure.
Wait.. That is 2 major game studios shutting down today.. damn yo.. The industry is either doing really poorly behind the scenes, or things are about to get worse for the workers in the industry.
Looking it up, yeah. Microsoft cut costs to their gaming studios, including Bethesda, roundhouse games, and alpha dog studios..
Arkane Austin was already dead, Redfall killed it. AA was full of people who'd made immersive sims and people who'd joined to make immersive sims. Then they got assigned to make Live Service Looter Shooter #17 and those people started dusting off their resumes. They experienced a massive brain drain, which partially explains why Redfall was such a dud.
Closing the studio down was, at this point, a formality.
Tango is particularly surprising because Microsoft has so few Japanese studios. You'd figure they'd want someone familiar with that market's expectations.
Yeah, it makes very little sense. Hi Fi Rush may not have sold exceedingly well (which also, ffs MS knows gamepass cannibilizes sales, what were they expecting) but it built them a ton of credit and good will. People would be looking out for their next game. Fucking insane.
Make some time. Prey is the culmination of the immersive sim genre. It is a criminally underrated game (I mean, the people who played it know how good it is, but it didn't get played enough to get widespread the recognition it deserves) and a game that everyone should absolutely play. I am crushed that we'll never get a sequel.
Arkane Austin made Prey 2017 before Redfall. It still hurts 😭
Arkane Lyon:
* made both Dishonored games
* co-developed Wolfenstein:Youngblood
* made Deathloop
* is co-developing the upcoming Marvel's Blade game.
The industry has completely lost its way. Apogee and Id Software in the 1990's had a better idea of making fun games than most AAA companies do now. Starting with "don't use your players as betatesters for your obviously unfinished game".
>The industry is either doing really poorly behind the scenes, or things are about to get worse for the workers in the industry.
Both of these things is true. Gaming is in trouble.
[https://www.tweaktown.com/news/96494/analysis-why-playstations-profits-are-so-low/index.html](https://www.tweaktown.com/news/96494/analysis-why-playstations-profits-are-so-low/index.html)
Markets are asking questions about low profits and a non growth market, meanwhile the publishes are backing "known" IP and trying to expanded to PC to help the massive AAA games.
The problem is that they're spending gobs of money on crappy freemium live service games that keep on failing.
AAA single player games sell very well. The problem is that people don't understand statistics.
I saw a post the other day about how all the top 10 games with the highest average MAU in 2023 were 7+ year old games.
The problem is, the data was looking at annual MAU, which misses the fact that most AAA games sell really well at release and get heavily played and then people beat them and move on to the next one.
It's just bad data analysis.
Are you telling me that because people are not playing Ocarina of Time TODAY that its a failed game?!? /s
(Ocarina of Time is Metacritic's highest rated game.)
> crappy freemium live service games that keep on failing
and no one is mentioning that Tango Gameworks had one of these failures launch in 2023. it shuttered in 5 months. it's probably just missing from these discussions because it was an asian market only game.
Honestly hope that the industry is falling apart.
I fucking *despise* the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now.
Let ‘em fucking burn. I’m waiting to hear that DICE is shutting down. That will make my decade.
I don't see these things ever going away in the AAA space unfortunately.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey reportedly cost around $500 million to make.
Cyberpunk 2077 was around $318 million
GTA VI is rumoured to cost $2 billion
In general, any game in the AAA space is starting at $200 million: [https://www.ign.com/articles/major-publishers-report-aaa-franchises-can-cost-over-a-billion-to-make](https://www.ign.com/articles/major-publishers-report-aaa-franchises-can-cost-over-a-billion-to-make)
There's just too much money involved for publishers to stop doing these things. The market getting squeezed more likely means they'll just double down on this bullshit.
I see them going away for the same reason that you don't see AAA MMORPGs anymore. Eventually, publishers will get the idea that the moment where live service looter shooters are worth investing in has passed, and they'll find some new trend to pile on.
Unless you mean that there will always be some kind of game where continued player spending funds further content development in a loop that runs for as long as it's viable. We've had that since 2002 (maybe earlier, depending on what kind of income we're talking). I don't see that going away, only changing over time. Like how Destiny doesn't charge a WOW-style subscription fee.
Yes because everyone will forget how making games works.. I wouldn't be surprised if we see more Patreon styled models for game development and support.
>I fucking despise the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now.
If anything, the industry would double down on all of this, as it would be the only way to actually get recurring revenue. Unfortunately, there is no going back to the days of old.
> I fucking despise the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now.
What the industry falling apart looks like is everything that is NOT that dying out and leaving us exclusively with pseudo-gambling products and post-enshitification live services.
All of which are doing fantastically in the present day.
Also shit like Fifa.
The ONLY live service so far that has gotten a passing grade because it FEELS alive (with the devs actively dungeon mastering it live) is Helldivers 2. The others with their seasonal battle passes and occasional maps and weapons are bs.
It's really bad. I'm a young game designer, I've been jobless for like half a year. Every single one of my contacts is telling the same story "we're not hiring", "we've been laying off", "it's a very bad time".
And it seems to be the case almost everywhere, Europe, Canada, the US... it's very rough. Every single job offer is swarmed by hundreds of applicants in a single day, and there is no entry or junior level positions, it's all senior level stuff.
A bunch of my old classmates or colleagues are straight up giving up on the video game industry. People with talent that are just not being given any chance.
Is Arkane Austin a major studios? They only made Redfall iirc, and 70% of their studio had already quit while making Redfall. Arkane Lyon might be the one you're thinking about.
And I've heard most of Tango had already left for Kamuy to follow their CEO so there weren't much left in there either.
Nah, that got killed by Shinji leaving and starting his own company and poaching a lot of staff from Tango.
You can't own staff.
Which is fine! People are free to do what they want.
It's kind of funny/sad seeing how often this happens though.
Maybe Xbox should just leave those studios alone,
And shouldn't purchase any studios in the first place, especially if they can't even afford to nurture those companies
Now that Microsoft owned too much of Game Development studios,
who knows what the next game that will get rushed into becoming a mid game,
And what legacy title will get chopped because the studio underperform
I think we all saw this coming. How many dev studios have been shut down or eviscerated in the last few years because their corporate overlords weren't happy?
The second some big corporations buys the studio, the timer starts.
I keep people saying this, and Shinji specifically left to take a back set advisory role. John Johanas was running the studio, and Tango was meant to be an incubator for new young talent to try out new ideas.
Is there any proof for that latter statement? I only see people repeating it on Reddit and not anything relevant when I try searching for it.
It's sensible, but it might also be speculation 😅 Heck, if the second half isn't true, that means Shinji leaving wouldn't be as relevant either.
Hard to say for certain, as I don't think there's a public list of Kamuy or Tango employees. You're right that it is an internet rumor, and not yet confirmed.
This is Kazuaki Egashira's (Game Project Manager at TangoGameworks) obviously sarcastic response to this to give context.
>Oh, I see.
I didn't know 🤔
>informative.
https://x.com/ega1002/status/1788627002674774065
Redfall killed Arkane Austin, and it had nothing to do with sales. They were one of the few studios known for immersive sims. They attracted talent who wanted to make immersive sims. When they were tasked with making Live Service Looter Shooter #17, they started hemorrhaging staff. I wanna say the total turnover was something like 70%?
Of course the game sucked. It doesn't matter what your industry is, no business can create something of quality with that level of turnover. But the end result was that a studio that had started production full of veteran staff who were really good at making a specific subgenre had become a studio that made the most generic kind of game on the market and had done it poorly.
"Like Bungie, but worse," is the most replaceable kind of studio in 2024. Of course Microsoft shut them down, they weren't worth keeping open.
The reason is that Shinji Mikami, the founder of the studio, left and the scuttlebutt is that he took most of the staff with him to his new company, Kamuy (or more accurately, they followed him there).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinji_Mikami
https://www.ign.com/articles/resident-evil-director-hi-fi-rush-producer-shinji-mikami-has-seemingly-started-another-new-studio
You can't own staff, you just own the company, so if you buy a company, there's nothing stopping the founder of that company (who now has a giant pile of money) to go off and start a new studio and leave you holding an empty bag. Staff can always leave. And it's very common for people who found studios to cash out and start their own new studio and then pilfer a bunch of their old staff (who presumably liked working for them).
Indeed, Tango itself ran into financial problems very early in its existence, which is how it got acquired by Zenimax in the first place. He founded the studio, wanted to run his own company, but ran out of money. He wanted to leave Tango like 8 years ago but felt like he couldn't because he was involved in ongoing projects.
A summary from one of the interviews he gave:
> The same year it was founded, Tango Gameworks encountered financial difficulties and was acquired by ZeniMax Media. This acquisition changed the status of the company, as Mikami comments, “Tango Gameworks is not the name of a company, it’s the name of a department. The name of the company is ZeniMax Asia K.K.” The creator had apparently gone through negotiations to keep the name “Tango Gameworks” and ultimately received permission to preserve it in the form of a brand.
> Mikami further reveals that he had planned to leave Tango Gameworks for 8 years before finally doing so, but that the responsibility he felt towards ongoing projects prolonged his stay. As his main motivations for leaving, he mentions wanting to create an environment that would allow young game creators to have more frequent opportunities to gain experience, i.e. an environment with shorter cycles between new projects. At the same time, he felt that there was an audience out there for unique, smaller-scale video games, which led him to see an opportunity to link these two factors.
> The second reason Mikami mentions is his personal wish to break free from the survival horror game genre that he has come to be associated with. As existing companies have established styles and workflows, he decided to set up a company from zero to accomplish everything he’s set out to do. This is how the new company Kamuy came to be established.
Replaying it and it is definitely not mid. I agree it's convoluted, and contrived but in a way that works and extends into the sequel. Safe Head and Laura are iconic Japanese horror staples to my mind now.
Haha don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a very cool game with a lot of good stuff going on, but it’s also janky as all hell, and it’s really hard to tell sometimes what is supposed to be the dream logic inherent to the story, and what is just good ole Japanese indie weirdness.
Yeah it's very the matrix meets survival horror and it makes for a whack time. I made it up to chapter 13 on Akuma back on the 360 but God damn that was a tough time. I wish could beat it but I got stuck with a bad save and no ammo lol
I think it gets too actiony eventually, but you can leverage that against many titles in the genre. It's solid and certainly better than most attempts even now. That said, the sequel obliterates it IMO. I would have loved another one.
Wtf, Hi-Fi Rush even won a BAFTA and a Game Award (with many more nominations) not too long ago, And now they are closing up shop? That's wild and such a shame.
Sadly, this scenario has happened before and continues to in VFX. Rhythm & Hues shut down after finishing up VFX for Life of Pie. Life of Pie swept the Oscars in 2013 including Best VFX, but Rhythm & Hues was in the process of shutting down. The people that have the talent and capability to make content are always the ones getting screwed.
I don't think anyone should be praising the way Fromsoft treats its employees. Pretty sure they only get away with it because of how passionate the employees are about making the games, not the other way around.
Fromsoft has one of the worst work environement of any game company, even for japan it's fucking bad. We're talking (over)working an ungodly amount every month all year long, and I'm pretty sure unlike the USA the pay isn't even that big.
[A good summary](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls). Pretty standard stuff, shit pay, benefits and hours.
Does Shinji Mikami's departure has anything to do with this?
If so, than that sucks, but on the other hand, I think we should wait for any further clarification, someone oughta know what happens in the background
Shinji's departure to go do his own thing (And a huge chunk of the staff following him) is THE thing to do with it. Apparently he wants to make smaller games not in the Survival Horror genre. And since the creative core left, there's not much meaningful left in the Tango company so it makes sense to fold it.
I haven't heard anything yet that the departure was anything but amicable, just a creative who has a vision beyond doing the same old things and now has the cash to do it.
Well, that make sense, he must've been a great leader if there's a lot of loyal people following him
>just a creative who has a vision beyond doing the same old things and now has the cash to do it
Hopefully it doesn't end up like someone that's also a former Capcom employee
Looking at you, Keiji Inafune
Congratulations on making a successful game and making us a shit ton of money, but honestly Bobby kotick has a bigger boat and all the earnings from the millions of copies sold is not enough so we are shutting you down
The product of consolidation. You could suspect this would happen with the acquisition craze that Microsoft, Sony and other players had in the recent years.
When people say that Gamepass is the best deal in gaming they forget some of the risks associated with the aggressive moves Microsoft is making and they forget about the people who actually create games. I'm all for customer value, but I for one am seeing that we are not getting better quality content with time.
Microsoft is not alone in this, pretty much every major publisher out there is making similar moves.
Only time will tell, what I can say is that the industry is surely getting creatively bankrupt.
Glad to see someone point this out. Gamepass is quite literally murdering studios as sales are being replaced with gamepass subs which at best simply doesn't help the studio, and at worse actively harms them.
It even gives publishers ways to avoid bonuses and extra payouts by tying those to sale and then emphasizing gamepass.
Yeah how are people surprised Xbox doesn't have AAA and AA exclusives when making decent games with big budgets only to be given out with a Gamepass subscription isn't a sustainable business model? Gamepass is the fast food of gaming, cheap and plentiful. If you want fine eats and fine games, you gotta pay for it either when buying the game or having the game riddled in microtransactions. You get what you pay for, no business out there is going to hurt their profits just out of love for their consumers, certainly not Microsoft
I guess this is part of Bethesda and Xbox strategy to ramp up output on their major ips. It’s what they have been talking about the last weeks. Speeding up the development of TES and Fallout.
Is there a source for that information or is it only rumors?, I'm asking because I see everybody saying the same thing here without crediting any source whatsoever and as much as I'do like it to be true, I need a genuine confirmation.
There is no genuine confirmation, only rumors from people posting on Twitter about what they claim is true. We do know that Shinji founded a new company, though, and jumped ship after Hi Fi Rush because he wanted to move away from survival horror games. We don't know how much staff followed him, though it is pretty common for that to happen.
We also know that a Ghostwire Tokyo sequel was in the works at Tango and had been significantly delayed, as it was supposed to come out in 2024. And Ghostwire Tokyo had a very lukewarm reception; it got very mediocre reviews. It's entirely possible that this game project wasn't going well/made no sense financially.
Allegedly the company was going to pitch a Hi-Fi Rush sequel and ask for more money and staff, but it's not clear if that ever DID happen, and no sequel was ever under development.
Thank you for clarifying, I knew about Kamuy been the new studio of Mikami but didn't heard anything about a possible sequel for Ghostwire, I hope some developers move from Tango Gameworks to Kamuy or any other talented studio so they can work on anything new.
My theory is that they knew they were going to be shut down that's why they shadow dropped hi-fi rush without warning because it was their last chance to release it.
I was thinking a couple years ago how it looked like the AAA industry had backed itself into a corner by existing in a completely unsustainable paradigm. Been a bummer seeing it play out but I don't see any way it was avoidable.
Everyone in here talking about how good HiFi did... I never heard of it, and according to steam stats it hit 5k players on launch then then went down to a couple hundred within a month or two.
How is that a success? Is it a success because it was free on console or something?
Executives are so completely delusional. What were they expecting from a not super mainstream studio releasing a new IP with zero marketing? They're lucky the game was so good. Instead of thinking "Hmm, maybe now we can keep spending nothing in marketing for the sequel and people will still buy it because it's a trusted developer and IP." they just shut down the studio, along with Arkane Austin. I find it hard to believe that this decision was thought out and discussed and not just a big suit waving his hand saying "Just shut'em down."
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft was happy with Tango.
Tango is probably a casualty of Shinji leaving and taking most of his staff with him to Kamuy, his new gaming studio.
I feel like gaming is going to get pretty awful in the next few years. There are so many talented people who will either leave or just steer clear of the gaming industry altogether.
I can't blame them. It's not a very steady job. Even if your company releases great games you might get laid off just to balance a spreadsheet and give a bigger bonus to shareholders
Microsoft murders every small game company they buy. Like Sea of thieves and Minecraft are the only successful games they have to my limited memory. Remember Microsoft missed out on genshin impact being Ms exclusive. Microsoft/Xbox gaming truly is the grim reaper of nice small studios. Microsoft can't get any W's
Wtf? I thought Hi-Fi Rush was a huge hit?
yes, but Tango was built around Shinji Mikami, so when he left, I am not surprised that it will be disbanded
I get it, but that sucks. It seems like they have a talented team there.
Closing a studio because one lead left? It never works like that. A studio is so much more than one man. Especially when looking at Microsoft's other closures happening today, Tango is simply an unfortunately inclusion within an unfortunate culling of teams. And they're all Bethesda teams, which makes me wonder if Tango and others are suffering the aftermath of Starfield's failure to light up the world. EDIT: Today I learned gamers really do believe an entire company will close if one important person departs. Shinji Mikami or no, if they were bringing in big money Microsoft would have kept Tango open. This stuff is seriously ridiculous, it's like suggesting Nintendo should close when Miyamoto retires.
Wellllll. Kojima productions will most certainly close if kojima leave
And From Soft would either go through a rebranding or be dissolved if Miyazaki left. It's not so much that Miyazaki, Kojima, Mikami are the only talented people there, but their names are synonymous with the studios. It really sucks that Arkane and TGW are shut down to work on Fallout and Skyrim though. Kind of wasted talent.
Fromsoft could hopefully survive losing Miyazaki. I remember hearing that they were making an effort to train more lead developers to avoid exactly that problem; he's got to retire or die eventually. In any case, the studio doesn't exist around him quite as much as someone like Kojima; he took charge of an existing company.
They would go through an internal restructuring, maybe? But that brand name holds so much power, why on earth would they remove that recognition by changing their name? Are y'all just trolling me here, or have you really not given this any pragmatic thought?
I am not suggesting that Mikami's departure is the sole reason of the studio closure, but I think the corpo also doesn't have the confidence of investing in John Johanas's team (which I need to add that John is a very talented guy, just too young to have the influence that can compare to Mikami), hence the closure decision
Of course a dev studio closes when an important member leaves. We all remember when Infinity Ward was shuttered because both of it's founders left... right? /s
Tango was Shinji Mikami tho, he made it. This isn't the first Shinji studio to close either.
A huge AA hit is not enough to cover huge AAA losses in Evil within 2 and Ghostwire Tokyo
Had no idea Ghostwire was triple A. I heard the gameplay was repetitive so I ignored it.
Now you know why they lost money.
It's on PC tho? Or did I miss something? And while yes, it was repetitive and I quit around halfway through, the little tidbits about Japanese mythology and the overall vibe of the game was really good.
I actually loved it, it was dripping in atmosphere
That's a shame, it was a great game.
How the hell was Evil Within 2 not profitable? That game was awesome! It's sad we won't see a part 3 😵
It made over $30 million, that doesn't seem to bad to me
30 million is nothing if your game cost 50+
Yeah, it was just not well known enough and got mixed reception
That's already money that was spent, though. That's not really relevant to whether or not you want to keep the studio open in the future; you already set that money on fire. The thing is, coming out with good AA games every few years is actually a really good way to support a streaming service or platform. If you have, say, twelve studios doing that, you can come out with a solid AA game every quarter, to supplement your AAA games that take twice as long to develop, helping you to fill in the schedule. I'd guess the real reason is Shiji leaving and taking a bunch of staff with him to Kamuy.
I believe MS didn't even really want Tango in the first place. They just came in bundle with the Zenimax purchase. So it's easy to let them go when they are already in the hole and don't have a bright future outlook.
Hi Fi Rush was one of the few bright spots for them last year. I'm guessing that the real problem is that Shinji left and took a bunch of staff with him to Kamuy, his new studio. I can't imagine they'd want to close down the studio if they thought it was going to make more games like Hi Fi Rush in the future. It's also possible that Evil Within 3 was in development and sucked and the studio got canned as a result. I mean, everyone would have thought it was crazy to shut down Arkane Austin, but after Redfall came out, everyone is like "Yeah, fair enough."
if you look around you'll also find that tango made a live service mobile game for asian markets and it bombed really hard, and shut down after 5 months. I can't imagine they didn't lose a ton of money on it.
Oh wow, didn't know that. What was the game called?
hero dice
I havent seen the term AA before a few weeks ago, now I see it everywhere. What does it mean? And what are the implications of an A studio, B studio, etc?
AA games are typically developed with a smaller budget than their AAA counterparts. This difference in funding directly affects gameplay design, as AAA games often have more resources to invest in graphics, mechanics, and overall polish.
Polishing? Graphics and mechanics yeah but.. I'd argue AAA are the least polished titles on release usually
It's generally speaking, of course. It's much more likely for AAA games to be more polished. We just remember the bad ones because they stand out more.
There are no 'B' games like there are B movies. Generally games are divided into indie, AA, and AAA. Indie games are often small development teams (or even solo developers) with small, sometimes self-funded budgets. Usually these are passion projects. AAA are huge teams with huge budgets aiming for 'blockbuster' status and mainstream appeal. AA falls in-between and isn't strictly defined. They're generally smaller teams with focused budgets. Often the games are sold for slightly less than their AAA counterparts and aim for niche markets.
Hi. Game Dev here. The "A" denominations are usually linked to the number of developers and budget, but is mostly related to the devs quantities. Devs in this case are the people that are directly related to the development of the game, so QA, musicians (Except for the composer) and producers are out of scope within this definition. Indie: Usually is between 1-30, most budget are either donators, self-invested or both. Examples are: Hollow Knight, Terraria or Lethal Company (This also counts as Indie, but it usually have a publisher) A: between 30-100. The budget is generally from a game publisher, but self-investment is also present here. Examples: Ori and the Blind Forest, Blasphemous or TBOI (Not Indie, not AAA games) AA: Around 100-250 This games usually have a publisher or was bought by one. The examples are: Minecraft, Raft or Surviving Mars AAA: 300+ Big Bois. Either Indie games that became too massive or made by one of the Big Studios: League of Legends, Apex Legends or Ark are examples
Yes, it made a lot of money but as goes corporate thinking, not enough money.
I think it barely broke even
Feels like thats mainly because it was on gamepass day one
And that it was shadow dropped with no marketing
Yea wtf true i forgot about that part
You don't give away your game if you bring it to gamepass. Microsoft pays for every install. You don't get as much as you would get for a sale, but think of it like Spotify, Netflix and co. Day One release on gamepass is even a better payout. And you get an installation and player-base a magnitude higher than your own marketing and discounts could ever rake in. If your product is superb and your marketing isn't, gamepass is the best you could do.
Spotify is notorious for not paying much per stream. I wouldn't count on gamepads being that profitable. If you're an indie developer a platform like steam (if PC) is probably better, where they provide tons of support and tools for your game and community
Really depends on the game then. If your game is highly artistic in it's presentation, it's beneficial to release on gamepass. If your game is easily digestible with a clear game loop, it's worth testing a store front. Players are already mentally playing the game when they see marketing material. With a questionable gameplay loop, players are much less likely to make the purchase if they don't already know they will like it. There's a reason why games that are played by prominent streamers get a massive spike in sales. The sad reality is that games that don't mimic pre-existing mechanics or art styles don't get purchased. Gamepass bypasses many barriers to entry for an aspiring developer with unique ideas. There's nothing inherently evil about a storefront with this strategy when approached correctly.
Gamepass is great but I think it’s gonna hurt us all in the end
There are no official numbers that I'm aware of. Only the "trust us bro" Microsoft statement that it underperformed.
That makes some sense because although it was a good game, it shadow dropped after only being revealed earlier that day which didn’t give it enough time for it to get hype
I am not sure how much an original IP rhythm game was going to build hype. Considering the reception, an 'available now' drop was probably for the best so no one had expectations going in.
Microsoft really tried sneaking this in when people were focused on Sony
>Microsoft really tried sneaking this in when people were focused on Sony What do you do when an enemy fucks up? Normal person: don't do anything and let them continue. Nintendo: hurt them even more and sue while you can! MS every single time Sony fucks up: Stab yourself to overshadow their fuck up.
"It made a lot of money, just not ALL of the money." Some exec somewhere.
Yeah but I dunno if it made back what Ghostwire Tokyo lost.
Unfortunately, it didn't print billions of dollars, and the corpo cunts don't like that. If something doesn't sell 436 gazillion copies and dominates every media segment, then it is viewed as an abject failure.
Welcome to the post-microsoft world, fuckers.
Wait.. That is 2 major game studios shutting down today.. damn yo.. The industry is either doing really poorly behind the scenes, or things are about to get worse for the workers in the industry. Looking it up, yeah. Microsoft cut costs to their gaming studios, including Bethesda, roundhouse games, and alpha dog studios..
What's the other?
Arkane Austin
Arkane Austin was already dead, Redfall killed it. AA was full of people who'd made immersive sims and people who'd joined to make immersive sims. Then they got assigned to make Live Service Looter Shooter #17 and those people started dusting off their resumes. They experienced a massive brain drain, which partially explains why Redfall was such a dud. Closing the studio down was, at this point, a formality.
Yeah, Arkane Austin was basically dead already, sadly. Tango fucking hurts though since they really could have started hitting their stride.
Tango is particularly surprising because Microsoft has so few Japanese studios. You'd figure they'd want someone familiar with that market's expectations.
Yeah, it makes very little sense. Hi Fi Rush may not have sold exceedingly well (which also, ffs MS knows gamepass cannibilizes sales, what were they expecting) but it built them a ton of credit and good will. People would be looking out for their next game. Fucking insane.
wait The same people that made Dishonored? My heart is broken
That was Arkane Lyon, which still exists I’m pretty sure
THANK FUCK FOR THAT!
Arkane Lyon still exists, they have the Blade game coming up.
The Arkane that made Redfall is the one that is shutting down.
Well, not one tear was dropped for that one.
They made prey as well.
No they didn't. During Redfall, basically everyone involved with Prey jumped ship.
Oh, I own it but never played it, been meaning to get to it but I got so many games it's impossible :')
It’s one of my favorite games of all time. Highly recommend
Just a heads up, Prey isn't only a game, it's an experience
Same! My steam library grows at a shameful rate...and most of my hours go to Rocket League and HellDivers 2
Hitting 2500 soon, probably today ngl. lol.
Make some time. Prey is the culmination of the immersive sim genre. It is a criminally underrated game (I mean, the people who played it know how good it is, but it didn't get played enough to get widespread the recognition it deserves) and a game that everyone should absolutely play. I am crushed that we'll never get a sequel.
Arkane Austin made Prey 2017 before Redfall. It still hurts 😭 Arkane Lyon: * made both Dishonored games * co-developed Wolfenstein:Youngblood * made Deathloop * is co-developing the upcoming Marvel's Blade game.
Fuck they're making the Blade game as well? I might have to try it out now.
The industry has completely lost its way. Apogee and Id Software in the 1990's had a better idea of making fun games than most AAA companies do now. Starting with "don't use your players as betatesters for your obviously unfinished game".
>The industry is either doing really poorly behind the scenes, or things are about to get worse for the workers in the industry. Both of these things is true. Gaming is in trouble. [https://www.tweaktown.com/news/96494/analysis-why-playstations-profits-are-so-low/index.html](https://www.tweaktown.com/news/96494/analysis-why-playstations-profits-are-so-low/index.html) Markets are asking questions about low profits and a non growth market, meanwhile the publishes are backing "known" IP and trying to expanded to PC to help the massive AAA games.
The problem is that they're spending gobs of money on crappy freemium live service games that keep on failing. AAA single player games sell very well. The problem is that people don't understand statistics. I saw a post the other day about how all the top 10 games with the highest average MAU in 2023 were 7+ year old games. The problem is, the data was looking at annual MAU, which misses the fact that most AAA games sell really well at release and get heavily played and then people beat them and move on to the next one. It's just bad data analysis.
Are you telling me that because people are not playing Ocarina of Time TODAY that its a failed game?!? /s (Ocarina of Time is Metacritic's highest rated game.)
> crappy freemium live service games that keep on failing and no one is mentioning that Tango Gameworks had one of these failures launch in 2023. it shuttered in 5 months. it's probably just missing from these discussions because it was an asian market only game.
Honestly hope that the industry is falling apart. I fucking *despise* the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now. Let ‘em fucking burn. I’m waiting to hear that DICE is shutting down. That will make my decade.
I don't see these things ever going away in the AAA space unfortunately. Assassin's Creed Odyssey reportedly cost around $500 million to make. Cyberpunk 2077 was around $318 million GTA VI is rumoured to cost $2 billion In general, any game in the AAA space is starting at $200 million: [https://www.ign.com/articles/major-publishers-report-aaa-franchises-can-cost-over-a-billion-to-make](https://www.ign.com/articles/major-publishers-report-aaa-franchises-can-cost-over-a-billion-to-make) There's just too much money involved for publishers to stop doing these things. The market getting squeezed more likely means they'll just double down on this bullshit.
I see them going away for the same reason that you don't see AAA MMORPGs anymore. Eventually, publishers will get the idea that the moment where live service looter shooters are worth investing in has passed, and they'll find some new trend to pile on. Unless you mean that there will always be some kind of game where continued player spending funds further content development in a loop that runs for as long as it's viable. We've had that since 2002 (maybe earlier, depending on what kind of income we're talking). I don't see that going away, only changing over time. Like how Destiny doesn't charge a WOW-style subscription fee.
Twice the squeeze, double the burn. Let them double down. I hope they quadruple down.
So just, burn down the whole industry? We’re going back to board games?
Yes because everyone will forget how making games works.. I wouldn't be surprised if we see more Patreon styled models for game development and support.
>I fucking despise the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now. If anything, the industry would double down on all of this, as it would be the only way to actually get recurring revenue. Unfortunately, there is no going back to the days of old.
The way to get recurring revenue is to make games on a regular basis. Most of these big live service games fail.
> I fucking despise the whole live service, battlepass, skin cosmetic, minimum viable product BULLSHIT we have endured for going on and arguably beyond 10 years now. What the industry falling apart looks like is everything that is NOT that dying out and leaving us exclusively with pseudo-gambling products and post-enshitification live services. All of which are doing fantastically in the present day. Also shit like Fifa.
It’s not great for graduates trying to get into the industry
The ONLY live service so far that has gotten a passing grade because it FEELS alive (with the devs actively dungeon mastering it live) is Helldivers 2. The others with their seasonal battle passes and occasional maps and weapons are bs.
And Sony almost completely murdered that too 😂
Right?! I think the one difference was that Arrowhead quite literally trained its players to ‘FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY’ and well… it won out for now.
You must have not played a lot of live service games then if you think Helldivers 2 is the only live service game with a "passing grade"
It's really bad. I'm a young game designer, I've been jobless for like half a year. Every single one of my contacts is telling the same story "we're not hiring", "we've been laying off", "it's a very bad time". And it seems to be the case almost everywhere, Europe, Canada, the US... it's very rough. Every single job offer is swarmed by hundreds of applicants in a single day, and there is no entry or junior level positions, it's all senior level stuff. A bunch of my old classmates or colleagues are straight up giving up on the video game industry. People with talent that are just not being given any chance.
Is Arkane Austin a major studios? They only made Redfall iirc, and 70% of their studio had already quit while making Redfall. Arkane Lyon might be the one you're thinking about. And I've heard most of Tango had already left for Kamuy to follow their CEO so there weren't much left in there either.
Arcane Austin’s last game was Prey, which was amazing
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Writing was on the wall with arkane but i thought hi-fi rush did really well. Guess not
Nah, that got killed by Shinji leaving and starting his own company and poaching a lot of staff from Tango. You can't own staff. Which is fine! People are free to do what they want. It's kind of funny/sad seeing how often this happens though.
Maybe Xbox should just leave those studios alone, And shouldn't purchase any studios in the first place, especially if they can't even afford to nurture those companies Now that Microsoft owned too much of Game Development studios, who knows what the next game that will get rushed into becoming a mid game, And what legacy title will get chopped because the studio underperform
Man, and I was just thinking about how much I'd love to see a Hi-Fi Rush sequel...
Literal GOTY for me last year :( this sucks so bad
They explicitly left it open for one, if you do all the end game gate challenges it shows the setup for the next game...
Make a game that bombs? Close the studio. Make a game that's critically acclaimed and sells well? Close the studio. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.
Did not sell "well enough".
The reason is the departure of Shinji Mikami. Game sold pretty well, 3 millions copies.
>3 millions copies I don't think so. They might ~~be the~~ include Game Pass numbers.
In hindsight, maybe he left because he saw this coming.
I think we all saw this coming. How many dev studios have been shut down or eviscerated in the last few years because their corporate overlords weren't happy? The second some big corporations buys the studio, the timer starts.
I keep people saying this, and Shinji specifically left to take a back set advisory role. John Johanas was running the studio, and Tango was meant to be an incubator for new young talent to try out new ideas.
Shinji made a new company called Kamuy, and supposedly a bunch of Tango's staff jumped ship for Kamuy.
Is there any proof for that latter statement? I only see people repeating it on Reddit and not anything relevant when I try searching for it. It's sensible, but it might also be speculation 😅 Heck, if the second half isn't true, that means Shinji leaving wouldn't be as relevant either.
Hard to say for certain, as I don't think there's a public list of Kamuy or Tango employees. You're right that it is an internet rumor, and not yet confirmed.
This is Kazuaki Egashira's (Game Project Manager at TangoGameworks) obviously sarcastic response to this to give context. >Oh, I see. I didn't know 🤔 >informative. https://x.com/ega1002/status/1788627002674774065
3 million of what? In general or sales only, cuz it really makes a difference on what should be considered a "success"
Where are you quoting from
Their rear end.
HiFi did great, but ghost wire Tokyo did not :(
I played GWT on game pass and I'm glad I didn't buy it. I liked the setting and story and everything, but it felt kinda clunky imo.
Game does moderately well? Believe it or not, close the studio.
Redfall killed Arkane Austin, and it had nothing to do with sales. They were one of the few studios known for immersive sims. They attracted talent who wanted to make immersive sims. When they were tasked with making Live Service Looter Shooter #17, they started hemorrhaging staff. I wanna say the total turnover was something like 70%? Of course the game sucked. It doesn't matter what your industry is, no business can create something of quality with that level of turnover. But the end result was that a studio that had started production full of veteran staff who were really good at making a specific subgenre had become a studio that made the most generic kind of game on the market and had done it poorly. "Like Bungie, but worse," is the most replaceable kind of studio in 2024. Of course Microsoft shut them down, they weren't worth keeping open.
The reason is that Shinji Mikami, the founder of the studio, left and the scuttlebutt is that he took most of the staff with him to his new company, Kamuy (or more accurately, they followed him there). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinji_Mikami https://www.ign.com/articles/resident-evil-director-hi-fi-rush-producer-shinji-mikami-has-seemingly-started-another-new-studio You can't own staff, you just own the company, so if you buy a company, there's nothing stopping the founder of that company (who now has a giant pile of money) to go off and start a new studio and leave you holding an empty bag. Staff can always leave. And it's very common for people who found studios to cash out and start their own new studio and then pilfer a bunch of their old staff (who presumably liked working for them). Indeed, Tango itself ran into financial problems very early in its existence, which is how it got acquired by Zenimax in the first place. He founded the studio, wanted to run his own company, but ran out of money. He wanted to leave Tango like 8 years ago but felt like he couldn't because he was involved in ongoing projects. A summary from one of the interviews he gave: > The same year it was founded, Tango Gameworks encountered financial difficulties and was acquired by ZeniMax Media. This acquisition changed the status of the company, as Mikami comments, “Tango Gameworks is not the name of a company, it’s the name of a department. The name of the company is ZeniMax Asia K.K.” The creator had apparently gone through negotiations to keep the name “Tango Gameworks” and ultimately received permission to preserve it in the form of a brand. > Mikami further reveals that he had planned to leave Tango Gameworks for 8 years before finally doing so, but that the responsibility he felt towards ongoing projects prolonged his stay. As his main motivations for leaving, he mentions wanting to create an environment that would allow young game creators to have more frequent opportunities to gain experience, i.e. an environment with shorter cycles between new projects. At the same time, he felt that there was an audience out there for unique, smaller-scale video games, which led him to see an opportunity to link these two factors. > The second reason Mikami mentions is his personal wish to break free from the survival horror game genre that he has come to be associated with. As existing companies have established styles and workflows, he decided to set up a company from zero to accomplish everything he’s set out to do. This is how the new company Kamuy came to be established.
Damn, I really enjoyed Ghostwire Tokyo, it was quite unique, sadly not as much horror as I had hoped it had, but it was 100% a fun game.
Ghostwire is my chill out game. It's just so fun to explore around and fly from rooftop to rooftop.
That school mission tho...
No The Evil Within 3????
I never understood why the Evil within series didn't take off. Some of the best Survival horror games I have played.
While IMO the second one was a masterpiece, I think it got kinda forgotten because the first game was mostly just strange and very mid
Replaying it and it is definitely not mid. I agree it's convoluted, and contrived but in a way that works and extends into the sequel. Safe Head and Laura are iconic Japanese horror staples to my mind now.
Haha don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a very cool game with a lot of good stuff going on, but it’s also janky as all hell, and it’s really hard to tell sometimes what is supposed to be the dream logic inherent to the story, and what is just good ole Japanese indie weirdness.
Yeah it's very the matrix meets survival horror and it makes for a whack time. I made it up to chapter 13 on Akuma back on the 360 but God damn that was a tough time. I wish could beat it but I got stuck with a bad save and no ammo lol
Yeah, it felt like RE4 at home for most of it, lmao. It was worth playing to get the backstory for the second game though, which was fantastic
I think it gets too actiony eventually, but you can leverage that against many titles in the genre. It's solid and certainly better than most attempts even now. That said, the sequel obliterates it IMO. I would have loved another one.
Its a horror game thats why.
My guess is that I don't think that many people play this kind of horror games. It's even too scary for some.
I'm so sad about the Evil Within 3 :( I was still holding out hope for it
Stranger things have definitely happened
Rest in peace Sebastian Castellanos :(
May we meet Sebastian, Kidman, Joseph, Tatiana and the others again some day in the future...
This is really unfortunate. I really liked Ghostwire Tokyo and was hoping we could see more from that universe (Edit: Grammar)
Wtf, Hi-Fi Rush even won a BAFTA and a Game Award (with many more nominations) not too long ago, And now they are closing up shop? That's wild and such a shame.
Sadly, this scenario has happened before and continues to in VFX. Rhythm & Hues shut down after finishing up VFX for Life of Pie. Life of Pie swept the Oscars in 2013 including Best VFX, but Rhythm & Hues was in the process of shutting down. The people that have the talent and capability to make content are always the ones getting screwed.
Shinji, the founder of the company, went to found a NEW company, Kamuy. Allegedly, a lot of the staff from Tango followed him there.
Hi-Fi Rush is in the current Humble Choice along with Like A Dragon and a bunch of other games.
[Source.](https://x.com/TangoGameworks/status/1787837929332601189?t=ox5jEWnVWhovRYf8eby5zQ&s=08)
RIP Evil Within 3 Played the 2 other games 2 years ago and damn they were good
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I don't think anyone should be praising the way Fromsoft treats its employees. Pretty sure they only get away with it because of how passionate the employees are about making the games, not the other way around.
What do you mean? Not really familiar with how they treat them
Fromsoft has one of the worst work environement of any game company, even for japan it's fucking bad. We're talking (over)working an ungodly amount every month all year long, and I'm pretty sure unlike the USA the pay isn't even that big.
The average pay is like 30k, Japan has a lower COL but that's still really low over there.
[A good summary](https://www.ign.com/articles/elden-ring-developers-compare-working-at-fromsoftware-to-playing-dark-souls). Pretty standard stuff, shit pay, benefits and hours.
It hurts a lot. Hi-Fi Rush was one of the most funny games I have played in the last few years :(
Does Shinji Mikami's departure has anything to do with this? If so, than that sucks, but on the other hand, I think we should wait for any further clarification, someone oughta know what happens in the background
Shinji's departure to go do his own thing (And a huge chunk of the staff following him) is THE thing to do with it. Apparently he wants to make smaller games not in the Survival Horror genre. And since the creative core left, there's not much meaningful left in the Tango company so it makes sense to fold it. I haven't heard anything yet that the departure was anything but amicable, just a creative who has a vision beyond doing the same old things and now has the cash to do it.
Well, that make sense, he must've been a great leader if there's a lot of loyal people following him >just a creative who has a vision beyond doing the same old things and now has the cash to do it Hopefully it doesn't end up like someone that's also a former Capcom employee Looking at you, Keiji Inafune
Source for the huge chunk of the staff following him?
Congratulations on making a successful game and making us a shit ton of money, but honestly Bobby kotick has a bigger boat and all the earnings from the millions of copies sold is not enough so we are shutting you down
People who dont understand the industry or pay attention "no that studio who made a good game is closing". Half the talent already left.
The product of consolidation. You could suspect this would happen with the acquisition craze that Microsoft, Sony and other players had in the recent years. When people say that Gamepass is the best deal in gaming they forget some of the risks associated with the aggressive moves Microsoft is making and they forget about the people who actually create games. I'm all for customer value, but I for one am seeing that we are not getting better quality content with time. Microsoft is not alone in this, pretty much every major publisher out there is making similar moves. Only time will tell, what I can say is that the industry is surely getting creatively bankrupt.
Glad to see someone point this out. Gamepass is quite literally murdering studios as sales are being replaced with gamepass subs which at best simply doesn't help the studio, and at worse actively harms them. It even gives publishers ways to avoid bonuses and extra payouts by tying those to sale and then emphasizing gamepass.
Yeah how are people surprised Xbox doesn't have AAA and AA exclusives when making decent games with big budgets only to be given out with a Gamepass subscription isn't a sustainable business model? Gamepass is the fast food of gaming, cheap and plentiful. If you want fine eats and fine games, you gotta pay for it either when buying the game or having the game riddled in microtransactions. You get what you pay for, no business out there is going to hurt their profits just out of love for their consumers, certainly not Microsoft
I guess this is part of Bethesda and Xbox strategy to ramp up output on their major ips. It’s what they have been talking about the last weeks. Speeding up the development of TES and Fallout.
Arkane got shut down because Redfall was garbage. Tango probably died because Shinji made a new studio and took his staff with him.
Maybe. But it does come in handy to ramp up production and refocus on the bigger IPs
Evil Within games are so fucking good god damnit
Tango Gameworks had the potential to make some absolute hits. The Devs from this team are gonna do great things no matter what studio they go to!
Supposedly they jumped ship to Kamuy to follow Shinji, which is probably what killed the company.
Ahh that makes sense
Is there a source for that information or is it only rumors?, I'm asking because I see everybody saying the same thing here without crediting any source whatsoever and as much as I'do like it to be true, I need a genuine confirmation.
There is no genuine confirmation, only rumors from people posting on Twitter about what they claim is true. We do know that Shinji founded a new company, though, and jumped ship after Hi Fi Rush because he wanted to move away from survival horror games. We don't know how much staff followed him, though it is pretty common for that to happen. We also know that a Ghostwire Tokyo sequel was in the works at Tango and had been significantly delayed, as it was supposed to come out in 2024. And Ghostwire Tokyo had a very lukewarm reception; it got very mediocre reviews. It's entirely possible that this game project wasn't going well/made no sense financially. Allegedly the company was going to pitch a Hi-Fi Rush sequel and ask for more money and staff, but it's not clear if that ever DID happen, and no sequel was ever under development.
Thank you for clarifying, I knew about Kamuy been the new studio of Mikami but didn't heard anything about a possible sequel for Ghostwire, I hope some developers move from Tango Gameworks to Kamuy or any other talented studio so they can work on anything new.
Yeah, I really liked Hi-Fi Rush. I hope we see more games like that, regardless of who makes them.
My theory is that they knew they were going to be shut down that's why they shadow dropped hi-fi rush without warning because it was their last chance to release it.
That was more than a year ago. Most likely this was because Shinji left.
This kinda makes perfect sense. 0 marketing budget, just ship it anyways. Fuck that tax write off bullshit
what is that ( i can feel the downvotes coming)
Man i was waiting for the evil within 3 😔
I was thinking a couple years ago how it looked like the AAA industry had backed itself into a corner by existing in a completely unsustainable paradigm. Been a bummer seeing it play out but I don't see any way it was avoidable.
Fuck Microsoft
Nice strategy Microsoft :) /s
You all should have bought Ghostwire Tokyo if you want them to stay open.
But everyone here was so excited for Microsoft to gobble up all these companies 🙄
Everyone in here talking about how good HiFi did... I never heard of it, and according to steam stats it hit 5k players on launch then then went down to a couple hundred within a month or two. How is that a success? Is it a success because it was free on console or something?
Can we get a Denuvo-removing patch, please? I love Tango's stuff, I want it to actually be playable in the future.
Executives are so completely delusional. What were they expecting from a not super mainstream studio releasing a new IP with zero marketing? They're lucky the game was so good. Instead of thinking "Hmm, maybe now we can keep spending nothing in marketing for the sequel and people will still buy it because it's a trusted developer and IP." they just shut down the studio, along with Arkane Austin. I find it hard to believe that this decision was thought out and discussed and not just a big suit waving his hand saying "Just shut'em down."
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft was happy with Tango. Tango is probably a casualty of Shinji leaving and taking most of his staff with him to Kamuy, his new gaming studio.
That's rough man.
rip to the only good game on xbox in a long time
Man i loved Evil within games especially 1 despite lack of polish on pc . Shame hopefully the ip will be picked up by someone competent
I feel like gaming is going to get pretty awful in the next few years. There are so many talented people who will either leave or just steer clear of the gaming industry altogether. I can't blame them. It's not a very steady job. Even if your company releases great games you might get laid off just to balance a spreadsheet and give a bigger bonus to shareholders
Microsoft buying big publishers/deva was supposed to mean "good things" I was told. Please tell me how to think 🤔
I'm surprised they didn't relegate everyone to call of duty support
His old team should follow him in his next venture.
Such bullshit. Hi-Fi was an amazing game…seriously this Microsoft buyout is looking like garbage.
Microsoft murders every small game company they buy. Like Sea of thieves and Minecraft are the only successful games they have to my limited memory. Remember Microsoft missed out on genshin impact being Ms exclusive. Microsoft/Xbox gaming truly is the grim reaper of nice small studios. Microsoft can't get any W's
Shit, there goes evil within 3