I’m saving my own hate to see if the game actually turns out bad, complete with the Troika curse. Paradox hasn’t pissed away it’s goodwill yet with me.
Riiight, I guess we don’t need the “game designers” then. Might as well have the CFO design the game!
It seems like an appropriate time to revisit how the game was announced by Paradox:
About all we know for a fact is that he clearly displeased someone above him in the hierarchy, and based on my experience with corporations, he probably displeased someone more than one rung above him to get dismissed so casually.
My guess? Based on the timing of the delay announcement and the fairly immediately termination of two of the lead creatives, I feel like the tale as old as time is that some head honcho like the CFO finally sat down and played an internal build and it was an unmitigated disaster, and heads had to roll. The delay and these firings are almost certainly not coincidental.
It’s just a guess, though it’s the exact same thing I know has happened at several major studios.
The most concerning part of this news to me is that it means the game is not good. You don’t delay a game for a year+ and fire your lead creatives when your product is amazing.
I’m getting flashbacks to when Sony execs in no uncertain terms, hated Demon’s Souls. Hard pass…
Well there’s nothing about being an executive that makes you inherently better able to judge whether or not a game is good, that’s for sure. So maybe it doesn’t necessarily spell disaster. I’ve just got a pretty strong feeling that someone at corporate played it and was not happy.
But who knows, maybe the guys who got fired sublet out their offices during the month break to some guys who set up a meth lab and got caught. I kind of hope it’s that now, having typed it.
In Demon’s Souls case the dislike was unanimous among all people in the decision making process, and the game was already finished. It was one big negative circlejerk.
Though I don’t know anything about the Demon Soul’s story it doesn’t really surprise me. Convincing people that something new is going to be successful can be very difficult.
A lot of new things are met with resistance because corporate culture leans towards playing it safe and repeating things you had success with in the past rather than experimenting wildly. About the only exception used to be the movie industry, but Disney has almost monopolized it at this point and they are as corporate as you can get.
I’d like to think that Bloodlines 2 will end up being some genre-defining experience that some executive just didn’t get, but you have to admit the possibility exists that it’s just a mess.
You need both. A great game that can’t get made because it’s economically unviable might as well not exist. A game that is nothing more than a cash grab is not something we want to play. Game publishing is a business, whether or not you as a developer want to think about it otherwise. The best developers are those that can work within the realistic parameters of the market to make good games that also make money.
We definitely need one, and the other is objectively optional. Extraneous even.
A ‘great game’ that is economically unviable…sounds like pure business gibberish. (that should be ignored)
Maybe it’s because they all played the poison level.
I doubt that, because it has to be ‘unlocked’ through some progression. I’ve talked to these people…they never got that far. (not in their wildest dreams)
I suppose I could have done something, but it is probably better this way.
Yeah that’s hilarious. They use Mitsoda as literally their number 1 marketing prop (and for good reason, mind) and then unceremoniously fire him without explanation to him or the fans…
I wonder if they just won’t do any dev commentary, or if someone else will step-in for that, or if they maybe recorded it already (which I doubt).
Knowing Paradox, they’ll either drop that part without remorse, or put someone else in place, heralding that someone as the true heir of the franchise’s spirit.
They might even cancel the game altogether, though (very) unlikely.
Ok, if you say so. But if the game is great, and it’s never made available, because it would cost money, not make money, for someone to publish it (and this includes self-publishing), how are you ever going to play it?
I mean, sure, people do develop games, or make movies, or write books, or paint pictures, or whatever, just because they love to. At a certain level though you can’t put the resources into something without getting a return. If you’re happy with an endless stream of low budget labors of love, fine, but if you want games that actually look and play like you want them to, those games will have to have an economic rationale behind them.
The best way to sustain creative design over time is to have a revenue stream to fund that creativity. Usually, that stream comes from selling the things you create.
Why are we now speaking towards a hypothetical “great game”…arugh.
Fuck that fake game!
I know money is involved. My point is fuck the suits because they are idiots when it comes to actually creating the actual game! They are not the game-makers.
The danger is when the suits dictate the game-making!
That’s it.
I mean everything in this thread is hypothetical right now. No one has any idea why he was so abruptly fired after being so prominently marketed as the 'face" of the game. Maybe it was the suits got overly involved and made a bad decision. Maybe the game was looking to be an unmitigated disaster and needed a change in direction. We don’t know.
I vaguely remember Microsoft being the bad guys with regards to Chris Roberts and his studio. He resurfaces years later with Star Citizen, free of interference from those stupid suits. $300+ million later, look where that game is.
Chris Roberts is still the good guy depending on who you ask :D
I don’t think anyone is arguing against that, in a general sense. My argument is only with those who seem to think that you can neatly compartmentalize creative and business aspects of game development. Up to a point, sure, but eventually if it isn’t creatively good, it isn’t good, and if it isn’t sellable, it isn’t good, either.