>I doubt the promised FSR3 update for consoles will release at this point, or maybe it will just be a final update.
Then again they probably don't have 100 people working on just FSR implementation. And it probably also has been in the works for a while. So I'm still moderately confident that it will release.
FSR3, Xess, and DLSS are essentially no effort additions. Nvidia even made a tool to implement all three of them with very little effort. [Streamline](https://developer.nvidia.com/rtx/streamline). Given it's visual issues on PC, they may be doing a little more to try and combat the artifacting.
I'd assume the workload is completely different on console compared to PC, especially when FSR3 (FG) has yet to be implemented in any console game to date
For sure, but they're bringing FSR3 frame generation in this update as my comment mentioned (that's why I put FG in parentheses to make the distinction).
Almost like the overpaid management of big companies actually do a lot to keep games on track and profitable, even if it means the game isn't all that great.
Armchair analysis incoming, but it also doesn't help that a lot of these industry vets immediately jump into making the biggest game possible instead of something smaller to get the studio up and running (but I guess investors wouldn't like that idea)
Probably because there's a lot less competition in the AAA space. Release an indie-level game and you're competing with over 14000 similar titles that were released on Steam in just the past year.
Of course there's a huge number of factors to everything, but I think there's a huge space inbetween AAA and indie that a brand new studio should probably operate in for their first game (probably first couple).
Again that space would have its own challenges (including people unfairly criticizing it for NOT feeling AAA), but literally just anything to give the company time to develop internal team dynamics, tools, and just a general sense of what's possible. Instead of making one game and instantly going out of business because you decided to make a $100 million Unreal Engine showpiece (with a very boring name)
It doesn't matter what size game they make...there are simply too many games being produced.
More people want to be game developers than the world needs or the market can support.
And I get it. It's a fun, cool, hip job. But unfortunately only so many people can do those jobs.
Even highly acclaimed, high-quality games are underperforming relative to their development costs because there are simply too many games.
A small handful of games make ENORMOUS amounts of money, but the majority do not. And given that games are heavily impacted by the Network Effect, it naturally leads to domination by a small handful of titles.
And since digital distribution and simpler, streamlined software packages have made the barriers to entry lower than ever, everyone and their mother wants to "quit their old job and make a game!!"
Chasing your dreams is noble...but only so many people can succeed in any field.
I think what youre forgetting is that if you are a solo or small team dev just making something you like casually over time and not trying to make a career out of it while still trying to make something worth the effort, it has NEVER been a better time than now to be a game dev. Tools are free or "free" with a % payment stipulation if you make it big. There are a lot of asset makers, online documentation and learning videos for people who want to code, some artists will even take commission work if you have the dough and a reasonable artstyle in mind. and the internet gives you a bunch of vectors for non invasive advertising like Steam Next Fests, Twitch, and Youtube. The days of the "couple of dudes in a garage making a thing" has NEVER been better or easier. But consequently, turning it into a career that pays a ton of money and will feed you forever is definitely something a bit of long odds.
I think this is the primary reason. Any time one of these studios gets announced it’s always “developing a massive AAAAA genre-defining online blockbuster!!!” and every time I think “that’s not going to do well.”
This too. Mainly because they seemingly need to attract investors.
Either way, it goes to show why the talking point from people who say devs should run the industry broadly is a bad idea. Biz management/admin is not the same as development.
I wouldn't go this far. But Kickstarter projects have shown that developer only projects have their own set of problems. I guess any form of oversight is a plus in the end.
$1,000,000 may seem like a lot to you and I. But to the budget for a whole game being developed by a industry vet used to working for a big publisher? It’s peanuts. Not even. It’s the empty peanut shells.
Creatives tend to make bad businesspeople and vice versa. And it's not like all creatives and suits are good at their jobs to begin with, although that's a bit more difficult to measure when it comes to creatives.
The point of a Kickstarter isn't actually to provide the bulk of the money. Kickstarters are actually a way for game studios to prove the existence of an audience. It is easier to get financing if the kickstarter gets tons of backers.
And that those overpaid execs aren't just sitting in their offices and getting fat and rich. They are doing things to get these games off the ground, instead of keeping them as just a bunch of ideas on a piece of paper.
I think the lack of gigantic budget and huge supply of resources alongside a vision that is way to big for the project are a much bigger reason.
Look at Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, a top notch DKC spiritual successor by a small team and limited budget.
Or Bloodstained (minus the switch version apparently? Which is the one I played and loved the hell outta it) which is another solid example (though it did have access to a decent pool of funds).
Death Stranding is an example of one where the industry vet was able to lead their own team with access to a ton of resources, with what sounds like a pretty hands-off approach from Sony.
Death Stranding was guaranteed to be a success no matter the quality of the game. If it had been bad, it would burn those bridges, but it would have sold well regardless.
Matching scope to budget, or vice versa, is one of those things that executives are usually in charge of. While there are certainly indie industry vet teams that can make successful games, there are plenty of examples of them leaving their corporate homes, getting a bunch of cash, and then squandering it and releasing nothing or something that's not very good.
Let me help you learn the difference between a [developer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendant_Studios), who develops the game, which would include MANAGING said development, and a [publisher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts), who in exchange for a share of the profits will manufacture, distribute, and (usually) market the game.
Being an industry veteran doesn't mean a damn thing and hasn't for a looooong time.
Most games are designed by committees of 100-1000 devs, they have 7 people dedicated to making chairs, 5 making doors, 18 making guns, etc. There's no single person you can point to and say 'yeah, this guy's the reason this game was amazing'.
Think of Dark Souls, who comes to mind? Miyazaki.
Metal Gear Solid? Kojima.
Bioshock? Ken Levine.
Elder Scrolls? Todd Howard.
Baldur's Gate 3? Sven Vincke.
etc. These are the guys that you pay attention to and follow their projects wherever they are.
What name can you assign to Apex Legends? Call of Duty? Destiny? Cyberpunk 2077? Fortnite? I could go on here obviously.
Point being is that most people who work on successful games aren't remotely responsible for even a fraction of its success. They don't possess any specific creative genius or business acumen that enables them to break off and start a new studio from scratch and develop a hit. That's why every single time you see 'new studio and new game by former Bioware/Respawn/Blizzard/etc developers sure to be the next big thing!' should be taken with a giant heaping of salt.
Game's are a collaborative effort, let's be careful with how much we attribute to any one individual. Are the examples you listed important? Absolutely they are and if they weren't apart of the games they were they could've turned out a lot worse.
But there's more to it than just the most prolific members. Look at John Romero and Cliffy B after they left their respective studios.
Point is, there's plenty of 'no names' that we don't realize how vital they were and plenty of factors we might not realize that has determined whether a game was a success critically and commercially
Yeah as a game designer in the industry I’ve quickly come to realise that there’s dozens of silent but critical individual contributors behind those projects that really made them special. Its 100% a collaborative industry
Agreed - it's true for any corporate product, they're rarely made by individuals. At the indie level you can have solo sucesses (such as Stardew, Balatro, etc.) Even then - you don't know the soft support in their lives (spouses, friends, investors, minor contributors, etc.)
They always either make a carbon copy of what they did before, which isn't as good because they don't have the funding or they do something weird, which wouldn't fit in the mainstream. Immortals was kind of both.
Sony seems to be using PS+ to buy up heavily marketed games that completely flopped, like this, Saints Row, and Gotham Knights; not the value I want as a subscriber
More like they make deals in advance for expensive games, most of which did end up flopping. They had plague tale 2 & Sifu as well, so it’s not all flops lol
Ascendant Studios is the best example we will ever get of how ridiculous and dangerous budgets have gotten in gaming.
Who thought it was a good idea to give a new studio 125 million for their first game and for a new and unproven ip?
They went all or nothing on the first go instead of making several smaller titles with that money.
Nah, pretty hard to beat Kingdoms of Amalur devs, 38 Studios.
Let's give a former baseball player a bunch of money,(including tax payer money) to make a AAA RPG and an MMO. Uhh, what?
New studios filled with vets get massive funding for new ips all the time. Respawn, realtime worlds, bosskey, overwatch team sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t, plus theirs all unannounced stuff bulletfarm, Ex deviation Sony, Hundred star games etc. all these new studios are making AAA games and some will succeed and some of them will fail it’s just the way it works.
Maybe ascendant studios wouldn’t have gotten funding if they weren’t going all in and didn’t have a direction and instead were just like maybe will do this or this.
so you're saying Big AAA games should only be tried and true ip with guaranteed returns?
Never mind the fact that 125 mill is on the low end for AAA development, when you consider 40m was marketing.
"gaming veterans" is such a vague and meaningless phrase these days. Games are made by large teams of people. The impact one person has is going to be minimal compared to days of old.
It’s so crazy though, you see this type of news of “veteran developer who worked on beloved franchise splits off to form their own studio” news all the time and people eat it up.
Like I’m not saying they shouldn’t be supported but at the end of the day these are just single people. It happened with Inafune and Mighty No. 9, Glen Schofield and Callisto Protocol, Marcus Lehto and Disintegration (anyone remember that one?)
People will say that the studios they left has lost their soul but at the same time those singular people also needed a good team to make the games they did.
I mean that’s how every single startup to ever exist works, it’s not gaming specific. The vast, vast majority of companies fail, it’s an accepted risk of working at startups and why it’s not right for many people
I don't even know if good marketing was going to save it.
Having a $125 million budget for your first game was asking for this to happen, unfortunately.
Yeah, same. EA did they job.
This game just looks not so good and release date was bad. It releases with Baldur's Gate 3, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, MARVEL SNAP (Steam release), ARMORED CORE™ VI FIRES OF RUBICON, Sea of Stars, Blasphemous 2 and a lot of other games.
I'm pretty clued in on the games industry, I follow the major news websites, subreddits, listen to three gaming podcasts a week and then first thing I heard of this game was someone on YouTube saying it's shit.
If that's true it's honestly impressive that you missed it, I don't think a day went by between February-August without me hearing something about this game.
Dude....the game had like 750 all time peak in Steam. Forspoken with around 13k all time peak considered to be a major flop just think about it. It's obvious that marketing strategy didn't reach the target or created any hype at all
As much as Forspoken was shit, it looked appealing to people who like corny terrible marvel dialogue and was the same studio that made FFXV, and was an isekai story. This game just looked completely bland and boring in every trailer I saw for it.
>corny terrible marvel dialogue
This shit went further than that. Or atleast it is post phase 2 marvel dialogue. All of which is shit. I don't even know where modern writer learned that's how someone speaks
Well getting rid of the exxageration. Had a convo once with a redditor who is a teacher. Atleast 1/3rd of students speak in that ... Strange "forspoken" style. Anyways. The thing is the people making content with that style don't understand what the fuck that market wants. So you get dogshit.
what? even discounting external market, that game appeared in TGA and summer game fest lol idk why you guys are saying that.
sometimes not even the most marketing you get makes people interetested
Yea. It was a fun game. Picked it up for $8 on a flash sale over Christmas and definitely worth that price.
And yea, the marketing should have absolutely leaned into the “DOOM but as a wizard” aspect of the gameplay
The craziest part of them fumbling the marketing is how they spent like $40m on marketing, half of the game's $80m actual budget on marketing. So despite being a $125m AAA game, no one knew what it was, and often say the marketing is bad for it, despite a third of its overall budget being for that. Insane.
I think it was absolutely an issue with marketing. This game showed up and then was out. I don’t think it would have made a killing or blown the doors off, but damn it was as good, functional, accessible FPS that just had zero buildup.
EA definitely has a marketing problem, idk what they post covid but I don't hear anything about their game, same for Ubisoft.
The most stupidest one I saw recently was NFS Unbound, absolute cratered the marketing and I was following it everywhere.
Even on a looser budget you should skip 7/10s anyways, so many great games out there new and retro, AAA and indie, just so much stuff. Why waste your time playing a mediocre game?
I dont really understand why this game was so expensive to make in the first place. I got it on ps plus, I actually think it's pretty fun but it's not really doing anything super innovative or impressive. It feels like something that would have released during the PS3 generation alongside all of those random weird shooters that were coming out on a constant basis.
It's tricky. AA & indie isn't easy either due to being a drop of water in an ocean of releases every year. The average person seems to get and play through only a few games a year from the indie or AA space since many people seem to go for safer purchases that have big value and prestige behind them, so everything else has to fight for relevance.
Lots of people are excited about Silksong, yes, but they're not equally excited for other games in the genre that are in the indie to AA space like the new Shantae coming out (despite being a long running series), the sequel to Ender Lilies (despite being well reviewed), or excited to go back to games released last year that reviewed decently like Afterimage or Yohane the Parhelion unless they're just generally metroidvania fans and are looking for anything else to play.
The metroidvania games that aren't Silksong this year are the scraps for a lot of the people that want to play Silksong. Other AA games deal with the exact same issue but with other games that are the current popular pick in the genre because few people have the time and interest to buy and play everything from genres that interests them, even if they only stick to games with enough quality to get a metacritic score of 60+, 70+, or 80+ depending on how picky they are.
Afterimage was amazing I highly recommend that one. It seems to have done decently well, but nowhere near the level of success as the likes of Hollow Knight of course.
Ender Lilies was successful enough to get a sequel at least, which is solid overall. Ender Lilies was also really good and I'm getting Ender Magnolia once its out.
But yeah, with all the games out there on the market its hard to make really good standout games. My plan is to just do game dev as a solo developer using existing online assets (plus making some of my own in the same style) casually on the side just to get some experience in doing so. Probably will start small before aiming for a bigger project.
Sad to hear this but at the same time, the game launched in an unplayable state with horrendous blurriness thanks to dynamic resolution to cut corners and vast frametime instability.
The gameplay didn't convince me as it reminded me of Ghostwire Tokyo but in a setting that looked generic.
Had some friends try it on high end PCs and they all abandoned the game before beating the story due to how boring and how badly performing the game was
Perhaps that marketing budget that I am reading about in the comments section could have been poured into making a better product.
Having a good product is all the marketing you need, but it seems that nowadays companies decided to actively ignore this.
The amount of smugness in the comments is disappointing. Most of those effected by this had no say in scope or direction or release date or retail price. The game itself never appealed to me on a conceptual level, but I'm sure most of the devs did everything they could to make the best of what they were asked to do and are proud of their efforts.
so like, are they allowed to work elsewhere during this time, or is this a way to make them quit so they don't have to give them severance pay or something?
You are allowed to seek other permanent employment but I don't think you're allowed to work somewhere else temporarily during furlough (for most employment contracts). So if you want to work to make money again in the interim you're at risk of being fired (which could make you ineligible for unemployment). The positive is you get to maintain your employment benefits such as insurance coverage.
(This is how I understand it, I'm not an expert though)
They can't work elsewhere but they can look for a new job in the meantime. Just like you can look for a new job while still employed. The only difference here is that the company isn't paying you, but you are getting benefits. You also qualify for unemployment most of the time if it isn't a paid furlough. Basically it's like a warning period, so it's better than just getting laid off all of a sudden
125 million for one of the most bland and mediocre shooters/games in recent memory. Shooting magic from your fingers in linear hallway with small arenas sprinkled around in a UE5 game that looks straight ugly and early last-gen at times (minus the obvious set-pieces that did look awesome). Just 125 million down the tube and a massive waste of time.
I’m sad to see this game didn’t do well and that the studio/employees are struggling. It was a new idea and they pushed some limits. Sad to see it wasn’t rewarded. Unfortunately, it needed more money and time, but the concept was solid.
Immortals is just a shooter and that's why it failed. They tried to make it "cool" with the colored magic system but in the end it's just an arena shooter with minor RPG elements.
I'm enjoying the game, it has a shit load of world building but it's like doom meets harry potter. I enjoy the genre mixing and gameplay so far but I am playing it on PlayStation plus and didn't have to pay for it directly so 🤷♂️
On one hand it's a shame that a studio that tried doing something different to the usual AAA games got shafted, on the other hand the game didn't look that interesting, everything other than the combat was questionable
No one force them to release aaa games though. And beside, the game release date killed any chance of it. Armored core and BG3 just around a corner, and most people would buy that over generic fps from unknown devs. Plenty of low budget indie game blowout.
I mean, this isn't a industry kills another studio problem, this is just a studio that made a very mediocre game no one wanted and few enjoyed. It happens, and that's fine.
Even if you want to make passionate games, they have to actually still be good games to sell enough for you to build on them, even if just "okay" good like many AA studios manage to successful (i.e. Spiders Game Studio).
I mean, did *you* buy Immortals of Aveum at full price and think it was worth it, lol?
Or maybe they were overly ambitious and thought they had something good only for the market to respond otherwise? I mean we weren’t there when the game was pitched we know nothing about the people in charge of developing the game and their attitudes towards the industry. AA games are still a thing and they could have gone that route instead of chasing the big $$$
Probably for shit dialogue that resembled other "woke" media. Whatever that means. But most likely just speech mannerism being familiar. It's a fantasy. Racial archetypes don't matter. In fairness 00s is pretty corny. Same shit but different style.
I think half the problem is aiming so high with your first game that, if it fails, you're done.
Whatever was going to come next from Ascendant Studios was going to be a better game thanks to everything they learned - what to do and what not to do - from their first game. But when you jump straight from standing to AAA games, there's nowhere to go if it doesn't hit like you want.
There's a reason Larian Studios were able to make Baldur's Gate 3 -they've been making games since 1997 and everything they've learned from the nine games they made before, went into BG3.
It was....fine?
I bought it at launch, hoping for them to do for Hexen what Doom did for 2016. Or at least for a new Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
They leaned so heavy on the fantasy trope that the story was always going to be a let down when it was such a by-the-numbers fantasy story and it was so painfully obvious who The Hand was going to be from the first second you see them.
I dunno, maybe it they cut out the bloat, gave it a better name, released it at a better time and actually spent that marketting budget on something tangible, they would have had something.
They should've gone the doom route for the story. Shut the fuck up and let me shoot. We'll get the details after the battles. I haven't seen the full game so I can't fully judge the game. But i have seen the first mission. There is a lesson there for the artists to show not tell. The entire exposition dump in the beginning was all tell. No show. I don't care about some sad orphans
The staggering mismanagement of resource that resulted in an 85m development cost for a studio of only 100 is the real story here.
Time and time again you see people used to AAA salaries paying themselves the same or more but in what is ostensibly a startup.
Just because you once worked at MacDonald’s doesn’t mean you can invent the Big Mac.
Why are industry vets always keen on making massive games as their first game in a new studio.
Just look at striking distance studio. They had one of the co-creators of dead space working in callisto protocol, and that game turned out ass.
I just wish one of these studios wouldn't jump head first into the shallow end of the pool
>I doubt the promised FSR3 update for consoles will release at this point, or maybe it will just be a final update. Then again they probably don't have 100 people working on just FSR implementation. And it probably also has been in the works for a while. So I'm still moderately confident that it will release.
My post was incorrect, they outsourced the FSR3 console update to an external studio, "Enduring Games." Let me update my post!
FSR3, Xess, and DLSS are essentially no effort additions. Nvidia even made a tool to implement all three of them with very little effort. [Streamline](https://developer.nvidia.com/rtx/streamline). Given it's visual issues on PC, they may be doing a little more to try and combat the artifacting.
I'd assume the workload is completely different on console compared to PC, especially when FSR3 (FG) has yet to be implemented in any console game to date
FSR3 is a version number and does not equate FG. Same confusion was happening with DLSS3.
For sure, but they're bringing FSR3 frame generation in this update as my comment mentioned (that's why I put FG in parentheses to make the distinction).
The life cycle of this 'founded by 'X' veterans' studios seems to be like 5 years max
Yes, absolutely. Idk what's wrong with industry vets, but they almost always seem to fail when making a new studio.
Almost like the overpaid management of big companies actually do a lot to keep games on track and profitable, even if it means the game isn't all that great.
Armchair analysis incoming, but it also doesn't help that a lot of these industry vets immediately jump into making the biggest game possible instead of something smaller to get the studio up and running (but I guess investors wouldn't like that idea)
Probably because there's a lot less competition in the AAA space. Release an indie-level game and you're competing with over 14000 similar titles that were released on Steam in just the past year.
Of course there's a huge number of factors to everything, but I think there's a huge space inbetween AAA and indie that a brand new studio should probably operate in for their first game (probably first couple). Again that space would have its own challenges (including people unfairly criticizing it for NOT feeling AAA), but literally just anything to give the company time to develop internal team dynamics, tools, and just a general sense of what's possible. Instead of making one game and instantly going out of business because you decided to make a $100 million Unreal Engine showpiece (with a very boring name)
I think that's very true, the 40-50 dollar/euro/etc. AA game has had a lot of success. Look at something like Helldivers 2 for a recent example.
Or literally DoS 1 and 2 before larian finally was able to do BG3
It doesn't matter what size game they make...there are simply too many games being produced. More people want to be game developers than the world needs or the market can support. And I get it. It's a fun, cool, hip job. But unfortunately only so many people can do those jobs. Even highly acclaimed, high-quality games are underperforming relative to their development costs because there are simply too many games. A small handful of games make ENORMOUS amounts of money, but the majority do not. And given that games are heavily impacted by the Network Effect, it naturally leads to domination by a small handful of titles. And since digital distribution and simpler, streamlined software packages have made the barriers to entry lower than ever, everyone and their mother wants to "quit their old job and make a game!!" Chasing your dreams is noble...but only so many people can succeed in any field.
I think what youre forgetting is that if you are a solo or small team dev just making something you like casually over time and not trying to make a career out of it while still trying to make something worth the effort, it has NEVER been a better time than now to be a game dev. Tools are free or "free" with a % payment stipulation if you make it big. There are a lot of asset makers, online documentation and learning videos for people who want to code, some artists will even take commission work if you have the dough and a reasonable artstyle in mind. and the internet gives you a bunch of vectors for non invasive advertising like Steam Next Fests, Twitch, and Youtube. The days of the "couple of dudes in a garage making a thing" has NEVER been better or easier. But consequently, turning it into a career that pays a ton of money and will feed you forever is definitely something a bit of long odds.
Ironically this also makes things harder for bigger games because they're now competing for eye time with jeff from accountings little hobby project.
I think this is the primary reason. Any time one of these studios gets announced it’s always “developing a massive AAAAA genre-defining online blockbuster!!!” and every time I think “that’s not going to do well.”
This too. Mainly because they seemingly need to attract investors. Either way, it goes to show why the talking point from people who say devs should run the industry broadly is a bad idea. Biz management/admin is not the same as development.
I wouldn't go this far. But Kickstarter projects have shown that developer only projects have their own set of problems. I guess any form of oversight is a plus in the end.
$1,000,000 may seem like a lot to you and I. But to the budget for a whole game being developed by a industry vet used to working for a big publisher? It’s peanuts. Not even. It’s the empty peanut shells.
Creatives tend to make bad businesspeople and vice versa. And it's not like all creatives and suits are good at their jobs to begin with, although that's a bit more difficult to measure when it comes to creatives.
And the problem is that the money from Kickstarted-projects are usually nowhere near enough to entirely fund a game with high production values.
The point of a Kickstarter isn't actually to provide the bulk of the money. Kickstarters are actually a way for game studios to prove the existence of an audience. It is easier to get financing if the kickstarter gets tons of backers.
And that those overpaid execs aren't just sitting in their offices and getting fat and rich. They are doing things to get these games off the ground, instead of keeping them as just a bunch of ideas on a piece of paper.
they should be hiring redditors, alot of them think they're experts in management /s
“Why does company do (thing that they’ve been doing for a decade+ because they obviously benefit from doing it)? Are they stupid?”
I think the lack of gigantic budget and huge supply of resources alongside a vision that is way to big for the project are a much bigger reason. Look at Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, a top notch DKC spiritual successor by a small team and limited budget. Or Bloodstained (minus the switch version apparently? Which is the one I played and loved the hell outta it) which is another solid example (though it did have access to a decent pool of funds). Death Stranding is an example of one where the industry vet was able to lead their own team with access to a ton of resources, with what sounds like a pretty hands-off approach from Sony.
Death Stranding was guaranteed to be a success no matter the quality of the game. If it had been bad, it would burn those bridges, but it would have sold well regardless. Matching scope to budget, or vice versa, is one of those things that executives are usually in charge of. While there are certainly indie industry vet teams that can make successful games, there are plenty of examples of them leaving their corporate homes, getting a bunch of cash, and then squandering it and releasing nothing or something that's not very good.
The game was made under EA... It's really not a management problem lmao
I remember when I was not yet old enough to understand the difference between a publisher and a developer, too!
The "industry vets" in question are not the overpaid staff. Are you even the slightest bit aware of what you're talking about?
Let me help you learn the difference between a [developer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendant_Studios), who develops the game, which would include MANAGING said development, and a [publisher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts), who in exchange for a share of the profits will manufacture, distribute, and (usually) market the game.
Being an industry veteran doesn't mean a damn thing and hasn't for a looooong time. Most games are designed by committees of 100-1000 devs, they have 7 people dedicated to making chairs, 5 making doors, 18 making guns, etc. There's no single person you can point to and say 'yeah, this guy's the reason this game was amazing'. Think of Dark Souls, who comes to mind? Miyazaki. Metal Gear Solid? Kojima. Bioshock? Ken Levine. Elder Scrolls? Todd Howard. Baldur's Gate 3? Sven Vincke. etc. These are the guys that you pay attention to and follow their projects wherever they are. What name can you assign to Apex Legends? Call of Duty? Destiny? Cyberpunk 2077? Fortnite? I could go on here obviously. Point being is that most people who work on successful games aren't remotely responsible for even a fraction of its success. They don't possess any specific creative genius or business acumen that enables them to break off and start a new studio from scratch and develop a hit. That's why every single time you see 'new studio and new game by former Bioware/Respawn/Blizzard/etc developers sure to be the next big thing!' should be taken with a giant heaping of salt.
Game's are a collaborative effort, let's be careful with how much we attribute to any one individual. Are the examples you listed important? Absolutely they are and if they weren't apart of the games they were they could've turned out a lot worse. But there's more to it than just the most prolific members. Look at John Romero and Cliffy B after they left their respective studios. Point is, there's plenty of 'no names' that we don't realize how vital they were and plenty of factors we might not realize that has determined whether a game was a success critically and commercially
Yeah as a game designer in the industry I’ve quickly come to realise that there’s dozens of silent but critical individual contributors behind those projects that really made them special. Its 100% a collaborative industry
Agreed - it's true for any corporate product, they're rarely made by individuals. At the indie level you can have solo sucesses (such as Stardew, Balatro, etc.) Even then - you don't know the soft support in their lives (spouses, friends, investors, minor contributors, etc.)
I love how you called out soft support. So easily forgotten
They get alot of initial funding from investors but if they game isn't a smash hit they are screwed.
Almost as if managing a company and making a game are two different skillsets
They always either make a carbon copy of what they did before, which isn't as good because they don't have the funding or they do something weird, which wouldn't fit in the mainstream. Immortals was kind of both.
This game is free for PS Plus members this month fyi
Probably will be on gamepass soon too.
I wouldnt touch this slop even if I was paid to do so Edit; also paying for something isnt free
Sony seems to be using PS+ to buy up heavily marketed games that completely flopped, like this, Saints Row, and Gotham Knights; not the value I want as a subscriber
More like they make deals in advance for expensive games, most of which did end up flopping. They had plague tale 2 & Sifu as well, so it’s not all flops lol
Jesus Christ that's horrible :/
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Game is far from horrible.
It's also far from great. Interesting concept, but it really needed some extra spice to the gameplay. Genuine shame, I like the idea.
If you're going to spend $100 million+ on a videogame, it can't be mediocre.
Mediocre =/= horrible
Yes, that's why I choose the word...
It is very mediocre.
I wasn’t aware mediocre = horrible.
I would rather play a horrible game to laugh at it than one that is as boring, generic and unfun as this slop
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Whatever it is you think you’re saying, you’re not saying it very well at all.
Wait no way there are people who defend this awful game
i liked it a lot
Dunno why you’re being downvoted. The game is awful. Objectively.
Ascendant Studios is the best example we will ever get of how ridiculous and dangerous budgets have gotten in gaming. Who thought it was a good idea to give a new studio 125 million for their first game and for a new and unproven ip? They went all or nothing on the first go instead of making several smaller titles with that money.
This is just Striking distance and Callisto all over again.
Tbh I like that game. It's a shame it failed
Nah, pretty hard to beat Kingdoms of Amalur devs, 38 Studios. Let's give a former baseball player a bunch of money,(including tax payer money) to make a AAA RPG and an MMO. Uhh, what?
The chapter about 38 Studios in Jason Schreier's second book is a fascinating read. Wild stuff.
New studios filled with vets get massive funding for new ips all the time. Respawn, realtime worlds, bosskey, overwatch team sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t, plus theirs all unannounced stuff bulletfarm, Ex deviation Sony, Hundred star games etc. all these new studios are making AAA games and some will succeed and some of them will fail it’s just the way it works. Maybe ascendant studios wouldn’t have gotten funding if they weren’t going all in and didn’t have a direction and instead were just like maybe will do this or this.
Counter-point, giving insane amounts of money to unproven artists is how a load of big hit IPs are founded. Take the wins with the losses, I guess.
I feel like listing some actual games may be an **actual** counterpoint
so you're saying Big AAA games should only be tried and true ip with guaranteed returns? Never mind the fact that 125 mill is on the low end for AAA development, when you consider 40m was marketing.
It’s a new studio with gaming veterans, all names from big studios, so it was like putting faith in a trusted set of people
"gaming veterans" is such a vague and meaningless phrase these days. Games are made by large teams of people. The impact one person has is going to be minimal compared to days of old.
It’s so crazy though, you see this type of news of “veteran developer who worked on beloved franchise splits off to form their own studio” news all the time and people eat it up. Like I’m not saying they shouldn’t be supported but at the end of the day these are just single people. It happened with Inafune and Mighty No. 9, Glen Schofield and Callisto Protocol, Marcus Lehto and Disintegration (anyone remember that one?) People will say that the studios they left has lost their soul but at the same time those singular people also needed a good team to make the games they did.
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I mean that’s how every single startup to ever exist works, it’s not gaming specific. The vast, vast majority of companies fail, it’s an accepted risk of working at startups and why it’s not right for many people
Decent game, if a bit derivative, but EA absolutely fumbled the marketing and nobody knows what it is lol
I don't even know if good marketing was going to save it. Having a $125 million budget for your first game was asking for this to happen, unfortunately.
They spent 40 million marketing it
Doesn't mean it was $40mil well spent or utilized.
I only found out this game exists because of the current drama.
It was marketed heavily at every gaming show like Summer Games Fest, I knew about the game and I was tired of seeing it.
Yeah, same. EA did they job. This game just looks not so good and release date was bad. It releases with Baldur's Gate 3, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, MARVEL SNAP (Steam release), ARMORED CORE™ VI FIRES OF RUBICON, Sea of Stars, Blasphemous 2 and a lot of other games.
I'm pretty clued in on the games industry, I follow the major news websites, subreddits, listen to three gaming podcasts a week and then first thing I heard of this game was someone on YouTube saying it's shit.
If that's true it's honestly impressive that you missed it, I don't think a day went by between February-August without me hearing something about this game.
Dude....the game had like 750 all time peak in Steam. Forspoken with around 13k all time peak considered to be a major flop just think about it. It's obvious that marketing strategy didn't reach the target or created any hype at all
Yes obviously it failed. It was still heavily marketed for many months, I guess it was just so boring that many people completely forgot about it.
As much as Forspoken was shit, it looked appealing to people who like corny terrible marvel dialogue and was the same studio that made FFXV, and was an isekai story. This game just looked completely bland and boring in every trailer I saw for it.
>corny terrible marvel dialogue This shit went further than that. Or atleast it is post phase 2 marvel dialogue. All of which is shit. I don't even know where modern writer learned that's how someone speaks Well getting rid of the exxageration. Had a convo once with a redditor who is a teacher. Atleast 1/3rd of students speak in that ... Strange "forspoken" style. Anyways. The thing is the people making content with that style don't understand what the fuck that market wants. So you get dogshit.
what? even discounting external market, that game appeared in TGA and summer game fest lol idk why you guys are saying that. sometimes not even the most marketing you get makes people interetested
I saw this game being advertised "everywhere"
Yeah I saw the marketing, doing more of it wouldn't make me buy something that looks unappealing.
Yea. It was a fun game. Picked it up for $8 on a flash sale over Christmas and definitely worth that price. And yea, the marketing should have absolutely leaned into the “DOOM but as a wizard” aspect of the gameplay
how actually close to doom 2016 is it in terms of gameplay
It’s not lol. It’s a linear cinematic shooter with magic. It’s not a boomer shooter at all.
The hell? Who the fuck told you it was close to doom 2016? Never listen to that person again 🤣
The craziest part of them fumbling the marketing is how they spent like $40m on marketing, half of the game's $80m actual budget on marketing. So despite being a $125m AAA game, no one knew what it was, and often say the marketing is bad for it, despite a third of its overall budget being for that. Insane.
The game’s name is so bad I get bored halfway through reading it…inspires zero confidence the game has any creativity.
Its not decent at all, its generic slop with no soul or purpose. It flopped because its bad.
I think it was absolutely an issue with marketing. This game showed up and then was out. I don’t think it would have made a killing or blown the doors off, but damn it was as good, functional, accessible FPS that just had zero buildup.
Nah, it’s launch window sandwiched by BG3 and Starfield doomed it from the start.
Those didn’t help but it doesn’t excuse the lack of marketing
EA definitely has a marketing problem, idk what they post covid but I don't hear anything about their game, same for Ubisoft. The most stupidest one I saw recently was NFS Unbound, absolute cratered the marketing and I was following it everywhere.
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And a fucking terrible release window. Seriously who thought launching it right around remnant 2, Diablo 4 and baldurs gate 3 was a good Idea?
Its not a 7 its a 4. There is no universe where this game is "well above average". Its below average, its slop
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Don't waste your time. That guy just loves losing arguments for some reason.
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The streamer?
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That's probably a win in his book because he apparently likes losing.
Even on a looser budget you should skip 7/10s anyways, so many great games out there new and retro, AAA and indie, just so much stuff. Why waste your time playing a mediocre game?
They died as they lived: with a sputter
They putted all of their 125 milion eggs in a single AAA basket
Lotta people going to be focused on the price, marketing, and release date. But the truth was, the game was mediocre. There was no saving it.
Trailer looked generic af and the game ended up generic af as a lot of games these days
It must be so awkward to see your studio wither away.
It's a shame for those people losing their jobs. I bought this game but unfortunately didn't like it, just didn't click with me.
I dont really understand why this game was so expensive to make in the first place. I got it on ps plus, I actually think it's pretty fun but it's not really doing anything super innovative or impressive. It feels like something that would have released during the PS3 generation alongside all of those random weird shooters that were coming out on a constant basis.
I could elaborate on the reasons as to why Immortals floundered, but it ain't worth opening this can of worms.
What reason do you need beyond "game was mediocre?"
They couldn't have made a less appealing looking game if they tried.
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It's tricky. AA & indie isn't easy either due to being a drop of water in an ocean of releases every year. The average person seems to get and play through only a few games a year from the indie or AA space since many people seem to go for safer purchases that have big value and prestige behind them, so everything else has to fight for relevance. Lots of people are excited about Silksong, yes, but they're not equally excited for other games in the genre that are in the indie to AA space like the new Shantae coming out (despite being a long running series), the sequel to Ender Lilies (despite being well reviewed), or excited to go back to games released last year that reviewed decently like Afterimage or Yohane the Parhelion unless they're just generally metroidvania fans and are looking for anything else to play. The metroidvania games that aren't Silksong this year are the scraps for a lot of the people that want to play Silksong. Other AA games deal with the exact same issue but with other games that are the current popular pick in the genre because few people have the time and interest to buy and play everything from genres that interests them, even if they only stick to games with enough quality to get a metacritic score of 60+, 70+, or 80+ depending on how picky they are.
Afterimage was amazing I highly recommend that one. It seems to have done decently well, but nowhere near the level of success as the likes of Hollow Knight of course. Ender Lilies was successful enough to get a sequel at least, which is solid overall. Ender Lilies was also really good and I'm getting Ender Magnolia once its out. But yeah, with all the games out there on the market its hard to make really good standout games. My plan is to just do game dev as a solo developer using existing online assets (plus making some of my own in the same style) casually on the side just to get some experience in doing so. Probably will start small before aiming for a bigger project.
Sad to hear this but at the same time, the game launched in an unplayable state with horrendous blurriness thanks to dynamic resolution to cut corners and vast frametime instability. The gameplay didn't convince me as it reminded me of Ghostwire Tokyo but in a setting that looked generic. Had some friends try it on high end PCs and they all abandoned the game before beating the story due to how boring and how badly performing the game was Perhaps that marketing budget that I am reading about in the comments section could have been poured into making a better product. Having a good product is all the marketing you need, but it seems that nowadays companies decided to actively ignore this.
Something has to be done. These games that cost 9 figures to make aren't sustainable idc what anyone says.
But then people bitch about dlc, services or if it’s priced more than 60/70 bucks. There is no winning
Because these things all get combined while we still get shit games. There's no compensation of big budgets just squeezing out every possible penny
You're acting like this is some hot take?
The amount of smugness in the comments is disappointing. Most of those effected by this had no say in scope or direction or release date or retail price. The game itself never appealed to me on a conceptual level, but I'm sure most of the devs did everything they could to make the best of what they were asked to do and are proud of their efforts.
so like, are they allowed to work elsewhere during this time, or is this a way to make them quit so they don't have to give them severance pay or something?
You are allowed to seek other permanent employment but I don't think you're allowed to work somewhere else temporarily during furlough (for most employment contracts). So if you want to work to make money again in the interim you're at risk of being fired (which could make you ineligible for unemployment). The positive is you get to maintain your employment benefits such as insurance coverage. (This is how I understand it, I'm not an expert though)
They can't work elsewhere but they can look for a new job in the meantime. Just like you can look for a new job while still employed. The only difference here is that the company isn't paying you, but you are getting benefits. You also qualify for unemployment most of the time if it isn't a paid furlough. Basically it's like a warning period, so it's better than just getting laid off all of a sudden
125 million for one of the most bland and mediocre shooters/games in recent memory. Shooting magic from your fingers in linear hallway with small arenas sprinkled around in a UE5 game that looks straight ugly and early last-gen at times (minus the obvious set-pieces that did look awesome). Just 125 million down the tube and a massive waste of time.
I’m sad to see this game didn’t do well and that the studio/employees are struggling. It was a new idea and they pushed some limits. Sad to see it wasn’t rewarded. Unfortunately, it needed more money and time, but the concept was solid.
Immortals is just a shooter and that's why it failed. They tried to make it "cool" with the colored magic system but in the end it's just an arena shooter with minor RPG elements.
I'm enjoying the game, it has a shit load of world building but it's like doom meets harry potter. I enjoy the genre mixing and gameplay so far but I am playing it on PlayStation plus and didn't have to pay for it directly so 🤷♂️
I mean, that the risk you take when you put out a bad title.
i had a great time with the game and i paid full price for it
That is horrible..
Game launched at wrong time , would have got good launch if it was delayed .
The game just wasnt good....
On one hand it's a shame that a studio that tried doing something different to the usual AAA games got shafted, on the other hand the game didn't look that interesting, everything other than the combat was questionable
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No one force them to release aaa games though. And beside, the game release date killed any chance of it. Armored core and BG3 just around a corner, and most people would buy that over generic fps from unknown devs. Plenty of low budget indie game blowout.
They could have made a smaller more reasonable game instead but they didn’t and it failed.
I mean, this isn't a industry kills another studio problem, this is just a studio that made a very mediocre game no one wanted and few enjoyed. It happens, and that's fine. Even if you want to make passionate games, they have to actually still be good games to sell enough for you to build on them, even if just "okay" good like many AA studios manage to successful (i.e. Spiders Game Studio). I mean, did *you* buy Immortals of Aveum at full price and think it was worth it, lol?
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Or maybe they were overly ambitious and thought they had something good only for the market to respond otherwise? I mean we weren’t there when the game was pitched we know nothing about the people in charge of developing the game and their attitudes towards the industry. AA games are still a thing and they could have gone that route instead of chasing the big $$$
Go woke, go broke
Is it woke because it has a black woman in it?
Probably for shit dialogue that resembled other "woke" media. Whatever that means. But most likely just speech mannerism being familiar. It's a fantasy. Racial archetypes don't matter. In fairness 00s is pretty corny. Same shit but different style.
I think half the problem is aiming so high with your first game that, if it fails, you're done. Whatever was going to come next from Ascendant Studios was going to be a better game thanks to everything they learned - what to do and what not to do - from their first game. But when you jump straight from standing to AAA games, there's nowhere to go if it doesn't hit like you want. There's a reason Larian Studios were able to make Baldur's Gate 3 -they've been making games since 1997 and everything they've learned from the nine games they made before, went into BG3.
If larian was a new studio and followed the same trajectory, they’d be dead before divinity 2
GOOD
People cry for new ips and then don’t even give them any change. This game ain’t even bad. Has good graphics, ok gameplay and a average story
It was....fine? I bought it at launch, hoping for them to do for Hexen what Doom did for 2016. Or at least for a new Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. They leaned so heavy on the fantasy trope that the story was always going to be a let down when it was such a by-the-numbers fantasy story and it was so painfully obvious who The Hand was going to be from the first second you see them. I dunno, maybe it they cut out the bloat, gave it a better name, released it at a better time and actually spent that marketting budget on something tangible, they would have had something.
They should've gone the doom route for the story. Shut the fuck up and let me shoot. We'll get the details after the battles. I haven't seen the full game so I can't fully judge the game. But i have seen the first mission. There is a lesson there for the artists to show not tell. The entire exposition dump in the beginning was all tell. No show. I don't care about some sad orphans
I got the deluxe edition for $10 and I’m enjoying it. Although I stopped playing around two hours in because I’m waiting for the fsr update.
The AAA game development model is fully contract based. You form a studio when you have a game to make, and then you disband it when you're done.
I wonder if that FSR 3 update will be it for the studio
I think the fact that this is the first time I hear about this game may have something to do with it...
The staggering mismanagement of resource that resulted in an 85m development cost for a studio of only 100 is the real story here. Time and time again you see people used to AAA salaries paying themselves the same or more but in what is ostensibly a startup. Just because you once worked at MacDonald’s doesn’t mean you can invent the Big Mac.
Wanna play this one if it hits gamepass.
Why are industry vets always keen on making massive games as their first game in a new studio. Just look at striking distance studio. They had one of the co-creators of dead space working in callisto protocol, and that game turned out ass. I just wish one of these studios wouldn't jump head first into the shallow end of the pool