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@@axolotl1777 If you actually watched the video, it was established that Microsoft wasn't the reason the studio died. The studio was already in the process of dying, Microsoft only acquired them but didn't disturb or alter their operation in any way at all. The studio was killed by its own poor leadership.
If other people were as bad at their job as these game companies leaders are, they would be working in another industry. Why aren't these leaders held accountable?
@@crabbypatty10fefrefenot necessarily if they can find a way to sell it elsewhere or continue the trend of forcing in predatory addictive behaviour. I'm at the point I want government regulations and investigations for misleading advertising and gambling content at the least. I stopped buying games in the first six months years ago and I know I'm not the only one and yet there is no change so you're clearly making a false argument at this point never mind shifting the blame from at least half the equation.
I think the most heartbreaking part about this is the fact that 70% of Arkane's staff left as the game went on. That's a lot of talent to be leaving a studio. The same pattern has struck so many AAA studios that quite frankly, all the "magic" that happens is from those seasoned developers, are either leaving the industry or starting their own independant studio.
Experienced devs are burning out and leaving the gaming industry and it's unregulated 24/7 crunch for low pay management style for more livable jobs where they get better pay and time to spend with their families.
The idea that so-and-so developer's "magic" will kick in is the scariest part of all of this. That means that the upper management of the developing company believes that hard work is not the reason the game comes out in a good state it's just some magic that happens for reasons completely unknown and completely arbitrary. It's incredibly offensive to the people that work till 2:00 a.m. on a specific bug just to make sure the game ships with a little polish. It's the most insulting thing that they can say to the employees that actually make the game.
It's not just hard work, it's the talent of the developers. With those talented developers gone, no amount of hard work by mediocrities will produce a good game.
"Just some magic that happens for reasons completely unknown and completely arbitrary" sure seems to be Bethesda's response to Skyrim's success. They keep re-releasing it, because they can't seem to understand what made it successful.
Working as a game developer in this game that was originally single player. Late into development, boss comes into the office and demands we implement a stupid online leaderboard to inspire players to post their scores online. So, now we are implementing some online functionality for a single player casual game because our boss wanted a leaderboard because of reasons... Unfortunately it took time away from other important issues, like debugging and gameplay and balancing, you know things that actually could make a game fun.
To be fair, your boss is probably correct. Take a game like Hitman, completely single player. The leaderboards alone have inspired an entire speedrun community for the game. The most loyal fans are now the speed runners. Leaderboards should be optional to display though, because bad/casual players don’t want to see that they’re 800/900 on them.
Prey is such a good game and we need more immersive-sims. The fact that it underperformed means we got Redfall instead of a sequel and that’s pretty depressing.
Sadly a lot of people didn't play it because of the history behind the game having the name "Prey" and people were hating on it. Bethesda made Arkane use the name when they were gonna go with the name "Psychoshock" iirc
Except that the ''magic'' comes from passionate and competent devs doing it for the love of video games. And these companies drive them away with their shitty practices
@@PetrifyingGaze931 I get that some devs do it as a passion, but with the indie scene being so big, why not gather your own team instead of working for a shitty company? If all devs left shitty mega corporations to form their own smaller studios, the mega corps would die, killing off the bad microtransaction games, and indie games would flourish.
@@PikaLink91 you are right and a lot of dev are doing that move since around covid from what im seeing (im a dev myself). So we'll probably see a shift in the industry in the years to come if the indies keep doing good stuff and the big companies fucking things up for a quick buck
Personally I think games like Redfall or Gollum should go through the recall process like physical products do. Like if the end product is so fundamentally fucked, and everybody who made the thing secretly knows it's fucked long before release, they should be forced to pay a fine and to fully recall the product. Nobody deserves to get a single dime for how fucked their product is.
Mind you I wouldn't be like completely strict with what constitutes a "finished" product. Like some amount of bugs that do not heavily impact overall enjoyment of the product I'd be fine accepting. But if the thing just fundamentally doesn't work and isn't what was promised in the marketing material for the game, then recall.
Recall? I don’t think you understand why products get recalled. 😂 If Gollum was literally crashing consoles or starting fires then I can see where you’re coming from. It’s just an over promised product.
@@nousername2942 Would be hard to argue that in any congress or court that an entertainment product should have a set amount of standards. I agree 100% with you, a product that has that amount of game breaking bugs shouldnt be sellable, but they would argue that there is no real harm done. The only way I see it going would be in a false advertisement rule, but they could just dance around that.
@@benjamincarmona3703 Which is exactly why we need new legislation defining these things in the sense of a virtual product, especially in regards to ethics and monetization. Unfortunately, any major country's government is full of 60+ year olds who quite literally do not understand what they're even talking about when it comes to tech. If you ever watched the US congress questioning Mark Zuckerberg or the Tiktok founder, you'll understand how companies have such an easy time manipulating these laws. Because these dinosaurs have no understanding of even the basic fundamentals of the things they are legislating. Not sure how we can fix it before it's too late.
I'm a Freelance Game dev and I get hired by a lot of Business minded people to make a game and they release it on steam. Concepts that they offer sound good on paper and not so well in practice, imagine just reading about the game pitch and going, "This is gonna flop harder than Anthem". Some of the ideas are pretty good but the business minded people have no idea about game development and game design. They force me to use Marketplace assets and give me VERY little time to develop the actual game. I try my best to salvage it for fun as much as I can but the higher ups just remove most of my ideas for their own stupid shit. There was a time where I was making a FPS Multiplayer game for a guy who had NEVER played ANY FPS game before, let alone FPS Multiplayer game. Imagine my pain lol.
@@sam_making_games damn, that is just...sad, if i ever do some kind of game deving, story boarding or the like. Yea, I'm gonna try to steer clear of that.
At an early age I took interest in game development, then after realizing I'd have to do a lot of schooling and interships to make a foothold in the industry I kinda backed off to see what else I could get into that was easier. Now seeing all these games failing miserably and how a lot of these companies pretty much being coerced/forced into making shoehorned games for the sake of money grabbing, it kinda makes me never wanna consider game development as a job ever again. I can only imagine the stress and embarrassment it must have to make a game you thought was going to be one of your own design only to have the ideas you've had for said game to be gutted and skewed into a monstrosity you can't even recognize all for the sake of pleasing upper management. It's dreadful to know that you as a developer are making a game knowing that it wasn't what you had in mind and that it will pretty much be DOA on release because you know what gamers like a lot more than suits from higher up do.
Go indie man. Good luck finding the funds but at least you are free from " Yeah but where is the part where I make all the money? " from people who think C+ is a musical note and Java is a coffee type.
Game development is easier than ever and now with the indie scene you definitely don't need qualifications to get into the industry. The corporate side is a mess, don't bother applying to big companies as most of them hire through their HR department which is 90% females who have nothing to do with the actual day-to-day work of the company and are just there to make everyone miserable. I was born in the 1990s, I feel a decade too late, I self-taught programming in C/C++ and lately C#, but everything I do is very similar to how game developers operated and worked in the 1990s out of basements or small rental offices.
@@CrowMercury Good Luck in having money to survive until some game has a okay hit. On average a game on steam can make $10.000, but consider you take at least six month to one year to make (on luck and been very small game as solo dev) so you earn...$1.666 dollar per month (in six month) or $833 dollar per month (in one year), that if it's have a average hit, there is a lot of chance you earn like $ 100 for three year game development.
@@erreyakendo8290 While I agree with your numbers, every business has a risky side, some more than others, but roughly in similar proportions. I don't think people should get discourage, they just need to take it for what it is and manage themselves accordingly.
Eh, I just think it sucks. All games have a chance to be good. To see a game flop is saddening because there is often potential. A good developer, a good idea, passion behind a project, that can then be ruined by upper management or publishers. ...but there is schadenfreude in a way. Like, Microsoft and Bethesda released a sucky product and now they're having to do press statements and reassure the public that this is merely an outlier rather than a dying spurt of a failing design ethos.
it's bad news for all when a new ip fails like that. the only thing companies will learn from this is: don't try anything new, stick to the old ips and keep milking them. really a tragedy
When it comes to the failures of the games industry. How often do you hear it's the fault of bad programmers ? bad artists ? As good as never. It's consistently a management problem. Over and over, again and again. The workers receiving the least amount of pay consistently deliver and over deliver. While the one's with the highest amounts of pay and rewards structures consistently let everyone down. The way we work doesn't work.
Tbf, I think Destiny 2 and Battlefield 2049 are decent examples of a development team that doesn't have the skill to follow what they've made in the past because all their actually capable staff and writers moved on.
@@dickthehead1145 thats also on the management, though 😁. Having a mix of experienced and inexperienced staff is the norm - you need to get that experience somehow, after all. But the key is then having the right guidelines, supervision and technical leadership from the more experienced team members in place.
@Sebastian Amadeus van Brahms you're right, Although I think actually Anthem is actually a better example that I should've used. Developers spending 8+ years making concept art only to be told by EA "you know you need to make an actual game?" Will never not be funny to me, and it's one of the few times I don't think EA is to blame for how bad the gane is.
If it's the fault of bad developers, that's still the fault of bad management. Good management create the communication routes, incentive structures, team culture, hiring practices, and opportunity for learning that makes good development happen.
I work in software development... There is no such thing as development magic. Either you do your job or your entire thing collapse. And unlike a bridge, the flaws are harder to detect and fix... Specially when you are talking about the fact that you have an near infinite execution environment configuration... (hence why you have to work hard and plan correctly to ensure the thing works in the first place).
I know right. Nintendo Zelda: TOTK wasn't a perfect game either. Bugs , Glitches very slow frame rates down to 17 etc... Sony (Square) ForeSpoken was So bad the Company Got shutdown. And Now RedFall is not a great game, It has bugs , Glitches etc.. The concept is ok but it needs work. All of them do.
This could be a cautionary tale for what could happen to Sony Studios in the near future. All those single player driven studios suddenly having to work on GaaS, exact same thing could happen there.
I don’t even think it’s about learning anymore. I just think they don’t give a shit and just want money so they half ass everything in hopes it sells since time has taught us that there are people out there who buy literally everything
@@aceclover758 obviously but the Problem is people like that will allways exist. For every critical fan there are 2 casuals who dont care. Hope more people realize they are getting used.
I actually agree with @unknown and @Ace Clover simultaneously a little bit. Gaming has become such a big industry that investors and companies just wanna cash out, and gamers are also partially at fault. I highly doubt that dogshit like Redfall that are barely functional games make that much money, but look at shit like Diablo Immortal. Something like 95% probably hate that immoral shit, but the 5% idiots that fall for it and toss money in anyway make more money for the investors than the whole 100% with an ethical monetization scheme.
UA-camrs and streamers should band together and hold a worst of the year ceremony. There needs to be something where we can publicly shame them for these poorly executed games
How about we shame gamers for being dumb? Praising games like Cyberpunk that underdelivered in every way possible while shitting on games like Prey where they poured their hearts into it and yet it wasn't a success just because of the name. You dumb gamers deserve this terrible industry and don't even wonder when this industry will slowly die out in the next 10-20 years.
I was kinda hoping Yong that you were also going to talk about an employee at Blizzard who got fired because of an executive that got offended by a joke in WoW by a character that’s affiliated with a company that’s a parody on corporate greed which is called The Adventure Company.
It's called Venture Co. and it's been around for decades and was always intended to be a parody of extreme corporate greed and venture capitalism. Some manager saw the jokes and thought they were about Blizzard (they are, just not directly) and now the writer is still fired because they couldn't admit their mistake.
Again, more corporate mismanagement, bad choices, poor planning,and the lack of insight regarding their employees. Let's say I'm an automechanic that specialize in high end cars at a company with a good reputation. Now corporate wants to switch over to servicing trucks and busses while expecting us to maintain the same positive output with little to no hiccups. One, obviously I didn't get in this field to work on trucks and busses. Two, now I have to learn, probably on my own dime and time, on servicing these types of vehicles. Three, all of this kills my motivation to stay other than keeping a pay check until the new jobs I interviewed for hires me. See how that works?
The real tragedy here is that the higher ups of Zenimax & Arcane won't face any accountability; the devs will. If this game completely fails, their jobs are no longer safe, and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about layoffs in a few months time.
This pisses me off to no end. This is a big fat American problem: those that do the most work, the hardest work, the riskiest work get paid the least, have the worst benefits, and have no job security
This. When it's time to work hard is the Devs and when it's time to cut losses is the Devs. Sadly nowadays working for AAA means being a slave without thanks.
@@KABLAMMATS You clearly have no idea what it takes to be a game developer, nor the nuance of how different a live service is to a single player immersive sim. Save your vitriol for the executives.
When will these companies learn that great game design and consumer-friendly practices make up for a long term investment from gamers. Just look at L4D2 and how it keep on being an incredibly popular multiplayer game thanks to mod support.
@@coryyoung7544 The point at least holds up in regards to "great game design". L4D is filled with tiny details and little extra bits scattered left and right for nothing more than the love of the game they were making and a desire to make their game as enjoyable for players as possible. Not to mention everything artistic about the game's design being top of the line. Nowadays, you won't find nearly as much of that extra effort because everything is a money-printing production line, and players aren't people whose experiences you care about, they're walking wallets.
How much money is L4D2 making? The reason publishers push micro transactions and other live service stuff is because it can make them an obscene amount of money in a way that a traditional one time purchase game just can't match.
I work for one of those three biggest publishers for 16 years and can confirm this happens regularly. Sometimes it's so sad to see the potential wasted, millions burned for nothing and exodus of key veterans.
I just dont understand, why the managers and executives are just so resilient to criticism. Are they really THAT dense and egocentric, that they dont want to admit a project is a failure and pull the plug?
Feels like we've seen this story a thousand times already... Good development team, forced to make shitty cash grab game which ends up flopping big time. It makes no sense that execs haven't learned this by now. Truly it seems that a pre-requisite for being an executive in a video game company is to have a negative IQ.
That's what happens when you bring in corporate executives that don't understand the industry they are entering. The people making these decisions probably don't play video games at all. They don't understand anything past "these people know how to make video games". That's why Arkane made a co-op looter shooter, originally planned to be a service game. That's why another studio went from making point and click games to Gollum.
As a creative person myself, let me tell you one thing: there is magic to the thing you create, there really is. But it only manifests at the end, when everything comes together. Before the magic there's just a crap ton of work and dedication. That's how I see it, anyway. Sad for Arkane. Would have loved a sequel to the excellent Prey.
I am still baffled that people believe its the game devs ( programmers, artists, writers etc. ) who are the issue for the failure of such games, instead of higher-up / executive mismanagement and greed.
Its like that in every industry the common worker gets fucked while management gets to laugh it off and make fun of people losing their jobs. Only time management gets their due is when companies go completely under because the arrogance and ignorance becomes to much to maintain the company anymore.
Why wouldn't they take a stand if they "know" this gonna turn bad . It is all workers fault , whoever knew and choose to let it slide is responsible. Both Devs&Mgs
I mean in the case of things like game breaking bugs and glitches and such that's on the programmers, though whether it was due to time-constraints or general laziness depends on the situation.
@@kaizen_Adevs have no power and in Arkanes place they did take a stand and spoke out and also quit their jobs because of it and yet nothing changed because of management. Use your brain.
bruh seriously in school this type of disorganization on projects gets you guaranteed F's and could possibly cause you to repeat a grade, yet in the gaming industry the same thing will at worst get you a C- and you just move onto the next one.
@@DavidUtau you also don't make money by producing a game that barely functions on both a fundamental and technical level, vice versa you make people gain money by producing a product the consumer base wants.
@@MrToren01 false logic. You make a lot of money from preorders, order that are not-refundable, and people that just don't mind anymore. It's obvious that golum was built with the mindset of minimum viable product (well, it's obviously even less than that). So, even more margin for benefits. And the company that did it already received money from their country to make another game. They are not trying to make "good games", just to make it work for them in the end. Believe what you want.
What's the chance that the CEOs who made the call will be missing their bonuses because of their fuck-up? Somewhere around 0%. What's the chance that the staff will have their numbers cut (ie people losing jobs) over the CEOs fuck-up? Somewhere close to 100%.
"We invesitaged ourselves and found that many low-level ranking employees simply did not subscribe to our work culture, they have been removed to improve workflow and reduce friction in the officespace."
I take it when the head of xbox said that "sometimes it gets to a point it doesn't matter how much more you delay a game, it can't much better" or something like that, I take it Arkane really just didn't want to work on this game anymore, and I mean fair to them, it was a corporate mandate from Zenimax. So in order for Redfall to be a good game they would need to restart from scratch, or just release it and do something else. Wish they fixed the bugs though.
Ok, we’ve seen so many live service games fail because they were poorly managed by chasing trends. Surely these companies see this and will stop this madness right????.
Nope. Because all these higher ups think that their game will be the next Fortnite/Destiny/Overwatch. Sony for example is planning on making 12 live service games. All they need is just 1 out of that 12 to succeed, and they can recoup all losses from the other 11 and then gain a constant influx of money for years to come.
@@akmal94ibrahim Focus groups only care about whatever is popular and sucessful. And since Fortnite is a cash cow everyone wants to imitate it in order to stay relevant because it popularized live service
I think a co-op immersive sim could be really fun. You could push in loud while your friend sneaks in the back while all the enemies are distracted. It would require a lot of team work and communication that could be fun.
I really hope the video gaming community does something really nice to honour Jason Schreier's investigative journalism for when he decides to retire (or before that). Like a Lifetime Achievement Award. His in-depth investigations are the best.
Was there ever any real excitement for this game to begin with? I literally only heard about it around the time of its release and everyone had already agreed unanimously that it was terrible.
I feel bad for the developers. Arkane is immensely talented. Prey and Dishonored are two premier games of our time. I hope the devs get the support they deserve in the future
Unless they choose to offer refunds, Arkane is at least obligated to produce the DLC that they sold to players with the digital deluxe edition before the game even launched. It will be interesting to see whether all support is dropped once those obligations are fulfilled.
I'm sure we know the answer to that already. Makes me wish Mass Effect Andromeda launched with a season pass, would have meant EA and Bioware would have been forced to deliver on all the DLC that they ended up scrapping because of negative feedback. In Redfall's case I fully expect them to discontinue all support, minus maybe a few minor patches/bug fixes.
@@Shishomuru I expect bug fixes, the season pass content, and hopefully they deliver on those pre-launch comments of investigating offline play, but no way are we getting a No Man's Sky here. If they're gonna abandon the game, at least make it playable when the servers die. Still, if they abandon the game and try to pretend it never happened, I think Arkane Austin is sunk. Maybe it's time to just go back to having a single Arkane studio, since Deathloop was an absolute banger IMO even if it shook up the formula.
I can’t wait to know what sort of absolute development hell chaos led to the Gollum game. For it to be so nonfunctional even after so many delays is truly baffling.
I forgot Jason does exposés on games that crash & burn (e.g., Anthem), so this was a pleasant surprise. Except nothing in this piece was pleasant _or_ surprising. Most folks have probably moved on from this game by now, but I'm still stewing over it. It might be hard to imagine, but I was one of the few chumps who was actually excited for the game. Fat lotta good that did me.
This wasn't a surprise at all to me. I commented on a review video (I think it was Skill Up's) that I wouldn't be surprised if Jason Schreier does an exposé of the troubled development and that it is basically similar to that if Anthem's. Just seems to have all the similar symptoms. Single player story driven studio suddenly making a multiplayer game. The game having some sort of a half-baked looter shooter component is inherent in a directionless development. Empty open world with repetitive missions. Generic or bare-boned story that is clearly unfinished. The static imagery cutscene in Redfall is clearly a concept art that they end up having to use because they needed to push the game out and had no time to render a proper cutscene.
Even though prey underperformed, high scoring critically acclaimed games that people might wanna play but are hesitant to pay full price for are just what gamepass needs.
Yet another case where they worked out the monetization but forgot to make the game, so had to throw something together out of scraps at the last minute.
We can't keep giving the developers a pass either, yes the problem is delusional CEOs and executives and investors, but at what point does the low level programmer throw in the towel and tell them to fuck themselves for their unethical crap? Why is it that these developers are 'trapped' in these studios and we somehow have to defend their poor workplace choices?
I don't get why people considered redfall "high profile". Like, it looked neat but I am shocked so many people thought it was gonna be a killer app or system seller. Hell, I knew it was gonna be at best "okay" after how Back 4 Blood and then Darktide faired.
Honestly. It's only a matter of time. As the AA and the AAA games get worse, seems like indie games are getting better. Makes me nervous for Metroid Prime 4 😅
@@itol2201 I just hate it when they chase trends and go outside their expertise for an off chance to milk gamers for millions of dollars and years to come. I have no respect for any aaa great single player studio who takes that chance on multiplayer looter shooters. They waste 5-6 and even more years to make a pos multiplayer game that nobody will play on an off chance to milk them for micro transactions. It’s happened so many times now. Look at rocksteady, they made great superhero single player games and just look wtf they’re making now. Why should anybody go easy on them or respect them? Fuck em they don’t deserve a gram of respect. They made that game for one reason and one reason only. Not because of vision, art, passion or because fans would enjoy it. They made it to milk people for money through MT’s and that’s the only reason. Same with arcane making Redfall. Only made to milk people no other reason.
@@Zathren The problem is that 99% of indie games are boring and uninspired. We had RE4 Remake, Tears of the Kingdom, God of War, among others just recently come out and all were looking to be great games. AAA games are not getting worse its just that there are fewer of them so the bad ones stand out more.
I think the most impressive things about these high profile disasters from big publishers is how quickly Jason Schreier is able to put together an investigative report
This makes me sympathetic toward Arkane because of all this. Redfall HAD potential for people who got a sour taste regarding Borderlands 3 but as usual upper management couldn't find their own feet without landing on the floor using their face. Its tragic really, reminds me of Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. Actual potential but completely destroyed via use of the Kinect, the literal kiss of death to the franchise. I usually love looter shooters so for now I've put Redfall on my Steam wishlist but that is far as it will get until the game gets completely overhauled or if bad comes to worst, outright nuked. Otherwise its not worth the $70 price tag on it, not even $30 really until the game is VASTLY improved. As for Arkane's upper management I'll just quote what my uncle used to say, "good gamers are willing to wait. Bad gamers wait for no one and we all suffer due to their impatience with an inferior product."😝😝😝
I feel like Microsoft needs to review their hands-off approach to their studios. they often let them do whatever they want, and while that sounds better than being super controlling, it's clearly not working for them.
Yeah I think Playground games can be trusted but a lot of those Bethesda studio games are major hit n miss aside from ID and Tango. I think the Coalition need looking into as well because even though they are great from a technical aspect, they lack in the narrative direction and the multiplayer design is a bit questionable as it only favours pro players.
@@matthewmagnani2915 Well forcing them to make Kinect games was a horrible idea that ceo xbox had during that period was a complete dumbass who ruined xbox's image for about a decade over always online xbox one bs and everything.
Guess Arkane is getting the axe soon. We've seen this pattern numerous times before: studios is accuired by a big company, studio gets assigned a project it has no experience in, project fails, parent company shuts down studio because "we bought you because you were supposed to be good but you suck". Call me cynical but I have a bad suspicion where this is going.
I find it kinda bonkers that multiple companies refer to themselves as possessing some sort of "magic." I mean these people are presumably smart and know that David Copperfield really doesn't perform magic right?
Devs dont get into game dev to make bad games. We could make much more money doing something else. We do it because we love it. Managers make bad games.
NEVER expect a game to do what NMS did. NMS was only able to do it because they are privately owned. Publicly owned studios will never be allowed to do 1/4 of what NMS did, because it's just not good for the short term gains shareholders demand.
@@almalone3282 That's true, though that's only because it was the fastest way to money. They couldn't monetize the original 14 and making a whole new game was far more expensive and time consuming.
@@almalone3282 It worked for Final Fantasy XIV because they effectively nuked the 1.0 version and replaced it with a completely different, much better game. It's different from what happened with No Man's Sky, where Hello Games gradually rolled out new free content over the years for people who bought it at launch.
Milennials watched the fall of Bioware(and Ubisoft), Gen Z is watching Arkane fall from grace. I am not happy about this. I'm currently in school to eventually transition into joining a development studio and seeing the list of game releases have increasing development struggles is a sign that should not be ignored. I'd think that the mistakes of others would have these studios wise up but I continue to be perplexed after every sad launch.
@@christopherrowe7860 I bet if it comes out as $100 game, there will be "backlash" as in people complaining while taking out their wallet to buy it anyway xD
So true about joining companies to work on specific types of games. I landed what I thought was going to be a dream job, working on basically a multiplayer GTA-like game - before multiplayer GTA was really a thing. Except, in the two weeks leading up to me joining, they scapped that idea and changed the entire game to be basically a Counterstrike clone. I was so pissed.
You know what, ill be honest. Crank the difficulty all the way up, get a good buzz and a few friends and Redfall still isnt as bad as what C.O.D is now
"It's gonna get better in 2~3 years!" Bruh! By the time that kicked in, ppl have already moved on. Sure, you can say to me Fallout 76 is way better than before, but unless they pulled the "Edgerunners" situation, good luck convincing everyone else.
What really gets me is, when its to the detriment of a game Microsoft leadership cant help but interfere with development, and when its to the detriment of the project for them to let it be and they ignore the problems? Maybe this is why Microsoft is seemingly incapable of cultivating first party studios and instead have to spend billions to buy them out. And just to repeat the same mistakes? I hope someone wakes up and steps in to fix this kind mismanagement, otherwise I dont think people will be able to trust the xbox brand, sure you can play any game on gamepass, but wats the point if every game is a 5/10?
Losing 70% of their employees…. So there will never be a good Arkane game out of that location again. They literally lost their talent. They lost what made them special their team.
I am ultra wondering if this is what Rocksteady Studios has been going through for the past decade (or similar to it) with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Both are Multiplayer RNG Looter Shooters that were designed by Single Player oriented studios that were forced by their greedy parent companies to make these corporate, souless Live Service RNG Looter games; and both games have been delayed several times for supposed QA concerns.
4:09 Man, that reminds of the tragedy that was Anthem. The worst part is if EA/Bioware hadn't been so quick to abandon it, I feel like it could've gotten a lot better. The foundation was there, they just had to add to it... :/
The understaff was also probably the reason they didn't upgrade from the UE 4 engine too the UE 5 engine, which they wanted to do but as the producer said it would be too much work.
To be fair the people who were working on this game did have an idea of what they wanted this game to look like but didn't understand what it takes to get there for their game and yeah the result is what we have here.
I have a really bad feeling that Valve’s Steam is set to delist Redfall as another similar live service game by everyone’s favorite game publisher EA: Anthem.
What gets me is non of these developers that supposedly knew the game was doomed 2 years ago blew the whistle. Nobody blew the whistle for battlefront, for battlefield, for Fallout 76, for Cyberpunk, or for redfall… Whilst most of the blame lays with the higher ups I do wonder how when hundreds of developers know TWO YEARS before a game releases that it’s doomed, nobody says a word, not even anonymously.
I signed up to xbox game pass to play redfall for myself. I'm glad i just got the game pass and enjoyed a few hours playing it. After that to me the AI was dead and it felt like a game in beta like a early crowd funded game. It had potential. I don't see it getting out of the pit due to corporate greed. I didn't bother to try to finish it because it wasn't fun and felt like i was commiting to finishing a chore.
On the positive side maybe many of the devs who wanted to work on a single player experience akin to Prey will get snatched up by Edios for the next Deus Ex.
Honestly, two current industries are imploding under their own hubris/egomania - Hollywood and AAA Video Game Developer studios. The parallels are staggering. Creatives are being strangled in these industries to chase trends, dollars, The MESSAGE (courtesy of *The Critical Drinker*), and recognition albeit they don't actually want to put in the work. The last part of the previous sentence is so incredibly prevalent in these dystopic writing/storyboarding rooms it seems because the mistakes being repeatedly made showcase it.
Ah yes, forcing microtransactions. We saw what happened to Fallout 76 and they thought it was a good idea to repeat history. Starfield guys. Not excited whatsoever now about whatever shit it it will become.
Ngl, i wish arkane will just make a skyrim-like Their swords and magic combat in dishonored is superb I dont even care if its just your standard fantasy elves, dwarves and goblins setting
Seems about right. Leadership wanted oranges, so they asked the apple tree. Funnily enough this reminds me of when both BotW and Elden Ring were revealed. Some people were scared that the open world aspect was a red flag, that these studios were riding a bandwagon. Untile the games came out and it became clear they were natural evolutions of what they were already doing. Hell, BotW development philosophy was about a making a return to form to the original TLoZ.
I think Microsoft is making terrible decisions all around. Halo is barely alive and now they're practically forcing Arkane Studios to fix a broken game at its core. For that reason and many others I think Microsoft should stay away of any company until they pull themselves together with the quality studios they already own.
These managers need to remember that they can hire all the best staff in the world, but it's like hiring an amazing chef and giving him nothing but frozen food and a microwave. In order for staff to produce good work they need to be happy and need to care about the work they're doing (to a point). It's crazy how many people in high pay, leadership positions are just plain dumb.
You're aware that even Sony isn't exempt from bad or disappointing games, right? Balan Wonderworld, the fact that Life of Black Tiger and Flowers are Dead were advertised on Playstation, Forspoken being... Decent/Mediocre (with the studio being merged because Square Enix has too high expectations), The Order 1886 being a mess when it came to story, Knack... I don't doubt that Sony capable of good games, but i do admit that some of them really should have been in the oven more. Plus, that ignores the fact that Hi-Fi Rush went pretty well (and i would absolutely love to see it on Playstation as well). Yeah, the recent Xbox titles are a mess (Redfall being the prime example), but i don't get why ignoring when one game turns out good is the way. Besides, why do Microsoft and Sony even need Call of Duty to begin with? Sony especially, since they have the studios that made stuff like Killzone and Resistance. Like, why is Call of Duty even required to be owned in the first place?
@@bombtails Life of black tiger was probably blackmail threatening to reveal nudes or something, there is no reason a game that shit should have been on playstore lol.
i 100% agree, but do you have an opinion on what might be a solution to the rampant mismanagement in the gaming industry? Personally I think unionizing would create clear chains of command which would limit the input from the top to the developers, but I don't see that happening or being that simple, so I would love to hear more ideas and alternatives that might help everyone involved.
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- Chasing live service trends, lackluster direction, poor leadership, not enough manpower, and management ego. Sound familiar?
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Gollum really came in clutch for them 😂
Gollum isn’t a exclusive game and wasnt 1st party game that was backed and hyped up
The point he was making is it took the new worst recent game title
Good Guy Gollum
Who's they?
😂😂😂
Wait, 70% of the staff left??? If that's true, then that's really disturbing for Arkane's future of they lost most of their talent
"BuT mIcRoSoFt WiLl RuN aCtIvIsIoN bEtTeR!!!"
@@michaelp.3485 it was Nothing to do with microsoft u ass. They are guilty of being too hands off not the state of the game. Thats down to the devs.
Microsoft killed another studio yet again
No talent = Bad games.
@@axolotl1777 If you actually watched the video, it was established that Microsoft wasn't the reason the studio died. The studio was already in the process of dying, Microsoft only acquired them but didn't disturb or alter their operation in any way at all. The studio was killed by its own poor leadership.
If other people were as bad at their job as these game companies leaders are, they would be working in another industry. Why aren't these leaders held accountable?
Another question: Why gamers keep buying these games day 1? I always wait till I see reviews and real gameplay.
People keep buying the trash
Nobody who blindly pays for a game day 1 or pre orders has the right to complain. Stop giving people money for trash and it will get better
@@crabbypatty10fefrefenot necessarily if they can find a way to sell it elsewhere or continue the trend of forcing in predatory addictive behaviour. I'm at the point I want government regulations and investigations for misleading advertising and gambling content at the least. I stopped buying games in the first six months years ago and I know I'm not the only one and yet there is no change so you're clearly making a false argument at this point never mind shifting the blame from at least half the equation.
Because these CEOs or executives are from other industries whose only goal is money and "accountability" is just them moving on to another industry
I think the most heartbreaking part about this is the fact that 70% of Arkane's staff left as the game went on. That's a lot of talent to be leaving a studio. The same pattern has struck so many AAA studios that quite frankly, all the "magic" that happens is from those seasoned developers, are either leaving the industry or starting their own independant studio.
they should be sued... they intentionally sabotage the game
Experienced devs are burning out and leaving the gaming industry and it's unregulated 24/7 crunch for low pay management style for more livable jobs where they get better pay and time to spend with their families.
@@ericneo2 I mean you can just look at the development of Anthem for a microcosm of what the AAA game industry is like for developers.
@@charlymrivera7236 Wtf? Why are you putting the blame on the developers and not the executives pushing for this shit?
We probably never will get a game like prey from them...
The idea that so-and-so developer's "magic" will kick in is the scariest part of all of this. That means that the upper management of the developing company believes that hard work is not the reason the game comes out in a good state it's just some magic that happens for reasons completely unknown and completely arbitrary. It's incredibly offensive to the people that work till 2:00 a.m. on a specific bug just to make sure the game ships with a little polish. It's the most insulting thing that they can say to the employees that actually make the game.
the same kinds of people assume that people who are good at things are just…automatically talented, and didn’t spend years honing their skills
Thanks for calling this out in a better way than I would have.
People working 80 hour weeks for over a year as their health declines and their spouses file for divorce.. ta-da it's magic
It's not just hard work, it's the talent of the developers. With those talented developers gone, no amount of hard work by mediocrities will produce a good game.
"Just some magic that happens for reasons completely unknown and completely arbitrary" sure seems to be Bethesda's response to Skyrim's success. They keep re-releasing it, because they can't seem to understand what made it successful.
Working as a game developer in this game that was originally single player.
Late into development, boss comes into the office and demands we implement a stupid online leaderboard to inspire players to post their scores online.
So, now we are implementing some online functionality for a single player casual game because our boss wanted a leaderboard because of reasons...
Unfortunately it took time away from other important issues, like debugging and gameplay and balancing, you know things that actually could make a game fun.
What's interesting is that no one ever cares about that stuff
Have the boss even seen the scoring system? Without any good scoring system, leaderboards are moot.
@Weeb Nerd Gaming he doesn't even play video games. The reason he had a company was his parents' money.
To be fair, your boss is probably correct. Take a game like Hitman, completely single player. The leaderboards alone have inspired an entire speedrun community for the game. The most loyal fans are now the speed runners. Leaderboards should be optional to display though, because bad/casual players don’t want to see that they’re 800/900 on them.
@@MiiDev69 😂😂😂 bill gates did not walk into arkane studios and suggest a leaderboard Jesus.
Prey is such a good game and we need more immersive-sims. The fact that it underperformed means we got Redfall instead of a sequel and that’s pretty depressing.
Prey was also so poorly promoted. I didnt heard about this game 2 years after launch
@Feisar Seems to be a pattern with the best games. They're always sabotaged by the publishers
System shock remake baby
@@TrueGamer22887it's good but not as fun as Prey for me. It's really fun, but I'm just wishing I could be playing Prey 2 the whole time
Sadly a lot of people didn't play it because of the history behind the game having the name "Prey" and people were hating on it. Bethesda made Arkane use the name when they were gonna go with the name "Psychoshock" iirc
0:57 whoever the 14% of critics are that recommended this game should never be trusted by anyone.
Maybe it's the two leaders making multiple accounts to praise their shitty game. xD
They're basically paid reviews. Cheap Bastards sold their soul for a few bucks lol
They were "encouraged" by you-know-whos, probably
If I hear another company talk about how the 'magic' will fix everything, I'm gunna cast a damn spell
Here's a little magic trick. Sprinkle a little pixie dust on nostaglia and there goes your wallet
This comment made me LOL
Except that the ''magic'' comes from passionate and competent devs doing it for the love of video games. And these companies drive them away with their shitty practices
@@PetrifyingGaze931 I get that some devs do it as a passion, but with the indie scene being so big, why not gather your own team instead of working for a shitty company? If all devs left shitty mega corporations to form their own smaller studios, the mega corps would die, killing off the bad microtransaction games, and indie games would flourish.
@@PikaLink91 you are right and a lot of dev are doing that move since around covid from what im seeing (im a dev myself). So we'll probably see a shift in the industry in the years to come if the indies keep doing good stuff and the big companies fucking things up for a quick buck
Personally I think games like Redfall or Gollum should go through the recall process like physical products do. Like if the end product is so fundamentally fucked, and everybody who made the thing secretly knows it's fucked long before release, they should be forced to pay a fine and to fully recall the product.
Nobody deserves to get a single dime for how fucked their product is.
There needs to be standards regulated to define what is considered a finished product for a video game.
Mind you I wouldn't be like completely strict with what constitutes a "finished" product. Like some amount of bugs that do not heavily impact overall enjoyment of the product I'd be fine accepting. But if the thing just fundamentally doesn't work and isn't what was promised in the marketing material for the game, then recall.
Recall? I don’t think you understand why products get recalled. 😂
If Gollum was literally crashing consoles or starting fires then I can see where you’re coming from. It’s just an over promised product.
@@nousername2942 Would be hard to argue that in any congress or court that an entertainment product should have a set amount of standards. I agree 100% with you, a product that has that amount of game breaking bugs shouldnt be sellable, but they would argue that there is no real harm done. The only way I see it going would be in a false advertisement rule, but they could just dance around that.
@@benjamincarmona3703 Which is exactly why we need new legislation defining these things in the sense of a virtual product, especially in regards to ethics and monetization. Unfortunately, any major country's government is full of 60+ year olds who quite literally do not understand what they're even talking about when it comes to tech. If you ever watched the US congress questioning Mark Zuckerberg or the Tiktok founder, you'll understand how companies have such an easy time manipulating these laws. Because these dinosaurs have no understanding of even the basic fundamentals of the things they are legislating. Not sure how we can fix it before it's too late.
It must have been surreal to be a developer on this game. Knowing the train would wreck 2 years before it even left the station.
If I thought the ship was headed for that iceberg way beforehand, I would have untied a lifeboat, jumped in and abandoned right there and then!
@@CookyMonzta It can be a detriment to your career leaving a project half way, best to get it out then gtfo and not look back.
You'd be surprised how many games are developed precisely like that the whole way.
I'm a Freelance Game dev and I get hired by a lot of Business minded people to make a game and they release it on steam. Concepts that they offer sound good on paper and not so well in practice, imagine just reading about the game pitch and going, "This is gonna flop harder than Anthem". Some of the ideas are pretty good but the business minded people have no idea about game development and game design. They force me to use Marketplace assets and give me VERY little time to develop the actual game. I try my best to salvage it for fun as much as I can but the higher ups just remove most of my ideas for their own stupid shit. There was a time where I was making a FPS Multiplayer game for a guy who had NEVER played ANY FPS game before, let alone FPS Multiplayer game. Imagine my pain lol.
@@sam_making_games damn, that is just...sad, if i ever do some kind of game deving, story boarding or the like. Yea, I'm gonna try to steer clear of that.
At an early age I took interest in game development, then after realizing I'd have to do a lot of schooling and interships to make a foothold in the industry I kinda backed off to see what else I could get into that was easier. Now seeing all these games failing miserably and how a lot of these companies pretty much being coerced/forced into making shoehorned games for the sake of money grabbing, it kinda makes me never wanna consider game development as a job ever again. I can only imagine the stress and embarrassment it must have to make a game you thought was going to be one of your own design only to have the ideas you've had for said game to be gutted and skewed into a monstrosity you can't even recognize all for the sake of pleasing upper management. It's dreadful to know that you as a developer are making a game knowing that it wasn't what you had in mind and that it will pretty much be DOA on release because you know what gamers like a lot more than suits from higher up do.
I wanted to write and be a consultant... Besides not living in the US I grew up seeing this trainwreck unfolding and I quickly abandoned the idea.
Go indie man. Good luck finding the funds but at least you are free from " Yeah but where is the part where I make all the money? " from people who think C+ is a musical note and Java is a coffee type.
Game development is easier than ever and now with the indie scene you definitely don't need qualifications to get into the industry.
The corporate side is a mess, don't bother applying to big companies as most of them hire through their HR department which is 90% females who have nothing to do with the actual day-to-day work of the company and are just there to make everyone miserable.
I was born in the 1990s, I feel a decade too late, I self-taught programming in C/C++ and lately C#, but everything I do is very similar to how game developers operated and worked in the 1990s out of basements or small rental offices.
@@CrowMercury Good Luck in having money to survive until some game has a okay hit. On average a game on steam can make $10.000, but consider you take at least six month to one year to make (on luck and been very small game as solo dev) so you earn...$1.666 dollar per month (in six month) or $833 dollar per month (in one year), that if it's have a average hit, there is a lot of chance you earn like $ 100 for three year game development.
@@erreyakendo8290 While I agree with your numbers, every business has a risky side, some more than others, but roughly in similar proportions. I don't think people should get discourage, they just need to take it for what it is and manage themselves accordingly.
I hate when a game flops this hard... but man is it entertaining
Eh, I just think it sucks. All games have a chance to be good. To see a game flop is saddening because there is often potential. A good developer, a good idea, passion behind a project, that can then be ruined by upper management or publishers.
...but there is schadenfreude in a way. Like, Microsoft and Bethesda released a sucky product and now they're having to do press statements and reassure the public that this is merely an outlier rather than a dying spurt of a failing design ethos.
It would be great if they actually learned from these disasters
@@Smilephile You may as well be asking for the moon. The games industry rarely reflects. They only copy
it's bad news for all when a new ip fails like that. the only thing companies will learn from this is: don't try anything new, stick to the old ips and keep milking them. really a tragedy
@@tomaslozada9397 this "new IP" did nothing new tho.
When it comes to the failures of the games industry. How often do you hear it's the fault of bad programmers ? bad artists ? As good as never. It's consistently a management problem. Over and over, again and again. The workers receiving the least amount of pay consistently deliver and over deliver. While the one's with the highest amounts of pay and rewards structures consistently let everyone down. The way we work doesn't work.
Tbf, I think Destiny 2 and Battlefield 2049 are decent examples of a development team that doesn't have the skill to follow what they've made in the past because all their actually capable staff and writers moved on.
@@dickthehead1145 thats also on the management, though 😁. Having a mix of experienced and inexperienced staff is the norm - you need to get that experience somehow, after all. But the key is then having the right guidelines, supervision and technical leadership from the more experienced team members in place.
@Sebastian Amadeus van Brahms you're right,
Although I think actually Anthem is actually a better example that I should've used. Developers spending 8+ years making concept art only to be told by EA "you know you need to make an actual game?" Will never not be funny to me, and it's one of the few times I don't think EA is to blame for how bad the gane is.
If it's the fault of bad developers, that's still the fault of bad management.
Good management create the communication routes, incentive structures, team culture, hiring practices, and opportunity for learning that makes good development happen.
Go look up Dragon's Dogma cut content
Sometimes management isn't the problem, it's the devs
"Hold my ring" sounds like you pulled that straight from the game.
It's one of the DLC lines
Sounds like the name of an achievement
I work in software development...
There is no such thing as development magic. Either you do your job or your entire thing collapse. And unlike a bridge, the flaws are harder to detect and fix... Specially when you are talking about the fact that you have an near infinite execution environment configuration... (hence why you have to work hard and plan correctly to ensure the thing works in the first place).
It's amazing how most Japanese games plan for quality/bug fixes. Only the west seems to continue releasing games without testing it thoroughly
@@mac1bc Pokemon Scarlet and Violet would like to have a word or two.
@@ComingSoonEntertainment 😢😓😰😭
Crunch isn’t magic it’s failure of management
Anyone miss the days when games came out complete, fun and very little glitches…
If you're interested in a few indie games i recommend checking out;
Vampire Survivors
WH40K Boltgun
I know right. Nintendo Zelda: TOTK wasn't a perfect game either. Bugs , Glitches very slow frame rates down to 17 etc... Sony (Square) ForeSpoken was So bad the Company Got shutdown. And Now RedFall is not a great game, It has bugs , Glitches etc.. The concept is ok but it needs work. All of them do.
Maybe for triple A, but indie games have been killing it still. Pizza tower and 40k boltgun are just two examples of that.
Hifi Rush another Bethesda game is good as well.
you mean glitchless
when the game shipped without the need of patches.
This could be a cautionary tale for what could happen to Sony Studios in the near future. All those single player driven studios suddenly having to work on GaaS, exact same thing could happen there.
Already happening
Did they learn from EA?
@@SWOTHDRA how?
It's amazing how the game companies seem to never learn. Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?
I don’t even think it’s about learning anymore. I just think they don’t give a shit and just want money so they half ass everything in hopes it sells since time has taught us that there are people out there who buy literally everything
Speak for the gamers. They are just to blame
@@aceclover758 obviously but the Problem is people like that will allways exist. For every critical fan there are 2 casuals who dont care. Hope more people realize they are getting used.
Let's all laugh in the industry that never learn anything tee hee hee
I actually agree with @unknown and @Ace Clover simultaneously a little bit. Gaming has become such a big industry that investors and companies just wanna cash out, and gamers are also partially at fault. I highly doubt that dogshit like Redfall that are barely functional games make that much money, but look at shit like Diablo Immortal. Something like 95% probably hate that immoral shit, but the 5% idiots that fall for it and toss money in anyway make more money for the investors than the whole 100% with an ethical monetization scheme.
UA-camrs and streamers should band together and hold a worst of the year ceremony. There needs to be something where we can publicly shame them for these poorly executed games
Oh my god, the total inverse of the VGA's. That would be SO golden.
they do that for movies with the Raspberries ... and it still doesn't stop the industry from making crappy movies.
How about we shame gamers for being dumb? Praising games like Cyberpunk that underdelivered in every way possible while shitting on games like Prey where they poured their hearts into it and yet it wasn't a success just because of the name.
You dumb gamers deserve this terrible industry and don't even wonder when this industry will slowly die out in the next 10-20 years.
I was kinda hoping Yong that you were also going to talk about an employee at Blizzard who got fired because of an executive that got offended by a joke in WoW by a character that’s affiliated with a company that’s a parody on corporate greed which is called The Adventure Company.
We'll definitely be hearing more about it when Overwatch suddenly has a new character announcement...
@@blumoon131 Bellular already had a video on it. Before this video.
It seems like any problem they have can be shielded by announcing some rainbow flavored character.
It's called Venture Co. and it's been around for decades and was always intended to be a parody of extreme corporate greed and venture capitalism.
Some manager saw the jokes and thought they were about Blizzard (they are, just not directly) and now the writer is still fired because they couldn't admit their mistake.
The executive in question is none other than Bobby Kotick.
Again, more corporate mismanagement, bad choices, poor planning,and the lack of insight regarding their employees.
Let's say I'm an automechanic that specialize in high end cars at a company with a good reputation. Now corporate wants to switch over to servicing trucks and busses while expecting us to maintain the same positive output with little to no hiccups.
One, obviously I didn't get in this field to work on trucks and busses.
Two, now I have to learn, probably on my own dime and time, on servicing these types of vehicles.
Three, all of this kills my motivation to stay other than keeping a pay check until the new jobs I interviewed for hires me.
See how that works?
The real tragedy here is that the higher ups of Zenimax & Arcane won't face any accountability; the devs will. If this game completely fails, their jobs are no longer safe, and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about layoffs in a few months time.
Maybe next time they can do a better job? Dev or not, they're all incompetent. This is not the same arkane studio you know
Yep
This pisses me off to no end. This is a big fat American problem: those that do the most work, the hardest work, the riskiest work get paid the least, have the worst benefits, and have no job security
This. When it's time to work hard is the Devs and when it's time to cut losses is the Devs. Sadly nowadays working for AAA means being a slave without thanks.
@@KABLAMMATS You clearly have no idea what it takes to be a game developer, nor the nuance of how different a live service is to a single player immersive sim. Save your vitriol for the executives.
Yong: "There's no such thing as MAGIC"
Arkane: "Yer a wizard, developers"
When will these companies learn that great game design and consumer-friendly practices make up for a long term investment from gamers. Just look at L4D2 and how it keep on being an incredibly popular multiplayer game thanks to mod support.
Bad example, they stopped supporting L4D 1 and 2 almost immediately.
The sentiment is spot on though.
Look at Deep Rock Galactic
To them, L4D1 and 2 are utter failures because they aren't being monetized beyond initial purchase.
@@coryyoung7544 The point at least holds up in regards to "great game design". L4D is filled with tiny details and little extra bits scattered left and right for nothing more than the love of the game they were making and a desire to make their game as enjoyable for players as possible. Not to mention everything artistic about the game's design being top of the line.
Nowadays, you won't find nearly as much of that extra effort because everything is a money-printing production line, and players aren't people whose experiences you care about, they're walking wallets.
How much money is L4D2 making? The reason publishers push micro transactions and other live service stuff is because it can make them an obscene amount of money in a way that a traditional one time purchase game just can't match.
I work for one of those three biggest publishers for 16 years and can confirm this happens regularly. Sometimes it's so sad to see the potential wasted, millions burned for nothing and exodus of key veterans.
I just dont understand, why the managers and executives are just so resilient to criticism. Are they really THAT dense and egocentric, that they dont want to admit a project is a failure and pull the plug?
Feels like we've seen this story a thousand times already...
Good development team, forced to make shitty cash grab game which ends up flopping big time.
It makes no sense that execs haven't learned this by now. Truly it seems that a pre-requisite for being an executive in a video game company is to have a negative IQ.
That's what happens when you bring in corporate executives that don't understand the industry they are entering. The people making these decisions probably don't play video games at all. They don't understand anything past "these people know how to make video games". That's why Arkane made a co-op looter shooter, originally planned to be a service game. That's why another studio went from making point and click games to Gollum.
Fallout 76 rings a bell here
Cyberpunk 2077 too
As a creative person myself, let me tell you one thing: there is magic to the thing you create, there really is. But it only manifests at the end, when everything comes together. Before the magic there's just a crap ton of work and dedication. That's how I see it, anyway.
Sad for Arkane. Would have loved a sequel to the excellent Prey.
"That Arkane Magic"
"That CDPR Magic"
Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Don't forget the bioware magic
""""It Just Works (TM)""""
@@pjavillaMagicka ;)
I am still baffled that people believe its the game devs ( programmers, artists, writers etc. ) who are the issue for the failure of such games, instead of higher-up / executive mismanagement and greed.
Its like that in every industry the common worker gets fucked while management gets to laugh it off and make fun of people losing their jobs. Only time management gets their due is when companies go completely under because the arrogance and ignorance becomes to much to maintain the company anymore.
As for Gollum, I’m putting that one on the devs.
Why wouldn't they take a stand if they "know" this gonna turn bad .
It is all workers fault , whoever knew and choose to let it slide is responsible.
Both Devs&Mgs
I mean in the case of things like game breaking bugs and glitches and such that's on the programmers, though whether it was due to time-constraints or general laziness depends on the situation.
@@kaizen_Adevs have no power and in Arkanes place they did take a stand and spoke out and also quit their jobs because of it and yet nothing changed because of management. Use your brain.
bruh seriously in school this type of disorganization on projects gets you guaranteed F's and could possibly cause you to repeat a grade, yet in the gaming industry the same thing will at worst get you a C- and you just move onto the next one.
You don't make people gain money by your results in school.
This is why I'm glad I've been outta school for over 10 years. How I got out from that unforgiving prison without self-oofing, it's a mystery to me
@@DavidUtau you also don't make money by producing a game that barely functions on both a fundamental and technical level, vice versa you make people gain money by producing a product the consumer base wants.
Same thing that happened with my GameDev thesis. The reason why after graduation i pursued CyberSec rather than GameDev
@@MrToren01 false logic. You make a lot of money from preorders, order that are not-refundable, and people that just don't mind anymore. It's obvious that golum was built with the mindset of minimum viable product (well, it's obviously even less than that). So, even more margin for benefits. And the company that did it already received money from their country to make another game.
They are not trying to make "good games", just to make it work for them in the end. Believe what you want.
What's the chance that the CEOs who made the call will be missing their bonuses because of their fuck-up? Somewhere around 0%. What's the chance that the staff will have their numbers cut (ie people losing jobs) over the CEOs fuck-up? Somewhere close to 100%.
"We invesitaged ourselves and found that many low-level ranking employees simply did not subscribe to our work culture, they have been removed to improve workflow and reduce friction in the officespace."
I take it when the head of xbox said that "sometimes it gets to a point it doesn't matter how much more you delay a game, it can't much better" or something like that, I take it Arkane really just didn't want to work on this game anymore, and I mean fair to them, it was a corporate mandate from Zenimax. So in order for Redfall to be a good game they would need to restart from scratch, or just release it and do something else. Wish they fixed the bugs though.
Ok, we’ve seen so many live service games fail because they were poorly managed by chasing trends. Surely these companies see this and will stop this madness right????.
Nope. I wish. Too much money. Too many soulless executives sucking the life out gaming, like say a vampire would.
Nope. Because all these higher ups think that their game will be the next Fortnite/Destiny/Overwatch.
Sony for example is planning on making 12 live service games. All they need is just 1 out of that 12 to succeed, and they can recoup all losses from the other 11 and then gain a constant influx of money for years to come.
@@akmal94ibrahim Focus groups only care about whatever is popular and sucessful. And since Fortnite is a cash cow everyone wants to imitate it in order to stay relevant because it popularized live service
This what happens when you focus on money first instead of passion and making a good game. It’s been bound to fail from the beginning.
I think a co-op immersive sim could be really fun. You could push in loud while your friend sneaks in the back while all the enemies are distracted. It would require a lot of team work and communication that could be fun.
Sounds like Streets of Rogue kinda, even if it is a top down pixel game.
Multiplayer immersive sims is a genre that isn't explored much and would be cool to see more of.
Payday has notions of that.
"Hold my ring"😂
It could have been 'fondle my ring'........
Frightening to think in the worst game stakes that its still only June...
I got a feeling that Matt Mcmuscles will make a "What Happened" video on Redfall sometime soon.
Oh, it'll happen eventually.
He has plenty of material for "Wha Happun?" episodes and we're only halfway through the year.
I really hope the video gaming community does something really nice to honour Jason Schreier's investigative journalism for when he decides to retire (or before that). Like a Lifetime Achievement Award. His in-depth investigations are the best.
I am pretty sure Matt McMuscles will eventually make a what happened episode for Redfall.
Cant wait to see all the juicy details.
He has his work cut out for him this year.
Oh hey, I forgot about him. Found out about him earlier this year and binge-watched his "Wha Happun?" series.
Oh man that's gonna be a good episode
@@jigglynorris2559Gollum as well. That game had to have some development hell in there.
Kinda sad that he will probably never run out of material in this day and age.
Was there ever any real excitement for this game to begin with? I literally only heard about it around the time of its release and everyone had already agreed unanimously that it was terrible.
There was, mostly from Arkane fans. I was excited because I love Far Cry and loved Arkane's games.
Gamepass tried to hype it up pretty good.
Redfall is truly a revolutionary game, I look forward to what 2010 holds in store for us
The game does feel like those new games that came out in 2013 for the early Xbox one and ps4
Gee, I wonder what will come out ten years from now!
@@UlyssesK402 Something tells me that nothing good...
I feel bad for the developers. Arkane is immensely talented. Prey and Dishonored are two premier games of our time.
I hope the devs get the support they deserve in the future
Unless they choose to offer refunds, Arkane is at least obligated to produce the DLC that they sold to players with the digital deluxe edition before the game even launched. It will be interesting to see whether all support is dropped once those obligations are fulfilled.
I'm sure we know the answer to that already.
Makes me wish Mass Effect Andromeda launched with a season pass, would have meant EA and Bioware would have been forced to deliver on all the DLC that they ended up scrapping because of negative feedback.
In Redfall's case I fully expect them to discontinue all support, minus maybe a few minor patches/bug fixes.
@@Shishomuru I expect bug fixes, the season pass content, and hopefully they deliver on those pre-launch comments of investigating offline play, but no way are we getting a No Man's Sky here. If they're gonna abandon the game, at least make it playable when the servers die. Still, if they abandon the game and try to pretend it never happened, I think Arkane Austin is sunk. Maybe it's time to just go back to having a single Arkane studio, since Deathloop was an absolute banger IMO even if it shook up the formula.
@@desdemone1978 who cares if the game is playable offline...who cares if it dies nobody is playing it now definitely not going to in the future
@@samgoff5289 game preservation, of course, and I think the game has some admittedly nice environmental design
@@samgoff5289 A lot of people care, buddy. Namely people who care about singleplayer games(PS: There's a lot of 'em.)
I can’t wait to know what sort of absolute development hell chaos led to the Gollum game. For it to be so nonfunctional even after so many delays is truly baffling.
I forgot Jason does exposés on games that crash & burn (e.g., Anthem), so this was a pleasant surprise. Except nothing in this piece was pleasant _or_ surprising. Most folks have probably moved on from this game by now, but I'm still stewing over it. It might be hard to imagine, but I was one of the few chumps who was actually excited for the game. Fat lotta good that did me.
This wasn't a surprise at all to me. I commented on a review video (I think it was Skill Up's) that I wouldn't be surprised if Jason Schreier does an exposé of the troubled development and that it is basically similar to that if Anthem's. Just seems to have all the similar symptoms. Single player story driven studio suddenly making a multiplayer game. The game having some sort of a half-baked looter shooter component is inherent in a directionless development. Empty open world with repetitive missions. Generic or bare-boned story that is clearly unfinished. The static imagery cutscene in Redfall is clearly a concept art that they end up having to use because they needed to push the game out and had no time to render a proper cutscene.
Even though prey underperformed, high scoring critically acclaimed games that people might wanna play but are hesitant to pay full price for are just what gamepass needs.
Yet another case where they worked out the monetization but forgot to make the game, so had to throw something together out of scraps at the last minute.
We can't keep giving the developers a pass either, yes the problem is delusional CEOs and executives and investors, but at what point does the low level programmer throw in the towel and tell them to fuck themselves for their unethical crap? Why is it that these developers are 'trapped' in these studios and we somehow have to defend their poor workplace choices?
"Hey, hold my ring" has me in tears 🤣
I don't get why people considered redfall "high profile". Like, it looked neat but I am shocked so many people thought it was gonna be a killer app or system seller. Hell, I knew it was gonna be at best "okay" after how Back 4 Blood and then Darktide faired.
Every great studio eventually disappoints.
Yep, rocksteady is next with their garbage looter shooter.
I really wish people would stop riding studios so hard. I say that as a Capcom fan, no studio is perfect, and will drop a shitter.
Honestly. It's only a matter of time. As the AA and the AAA games get worse, seems like indie games are getting better. Makes me nervous for Metroid Prime 4 😅
@@itol2201 I just hate it when they chase trends and go outside their expertise for an off chance to milk gamers for millions of dollars and years to come. I have no respect for any aaa great single player studio who takes that chance on multiplayer looter shooters. They waste 5-6 and even more years to make a pos multiplayer game that nobody will play on an off chance to milk them for micro transactions. It’s happened so many times now. Look at rocksteady, they made great superhero single player games and just look wtf they’re making now. Why should anybody go easy on them or respect them? Fuck em they don’t deserve a gram of respect. They made that game for one reason and one reason only. Not because of vision, art, passion or because fans would enjoy it. They made it to milk people for money through MT’s and that’s the only reason. Same with arcane making Redfall. Only made to milk people no other reason.
@@Zathren The problem is that 99% of indie games are boring and uninspired. We had RE4 Remake, Tears of the Kingdom, God of War, among others just recently come out and all were looking to be great games. AAA games are not getting worse its just that there are fewer of them so the bad ones stand out more.
I think the most impressive things about these high profile disasters from big publishers is how quickly Jason Schreier is able to put together an investigative report
Gollum said “hold my precious”, son.
This makes me sympathetic toward Arkane because of all this. Redfall HAD potential for people who got a sour taste regarding Borderlands 3 but as usual upper management couldn't find their own feet without landing on the floor using their face. Its tragic really, reminds me of Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. Actual potential but completely destroyed via use of the Kinect, the literal kiss of death to the franchise. I usually love looter shooters so for now I've put Redfall on my Steam wishlist but that is far as it will get until the game gets completely overhauled or if bad comes to worst, outright nuked. Otherwise its not worth the $70 price tag on it, not even $30 really until the game is VASTLY improved.
As for Arkane's upper management I'll just quote what my uncle used to say, "good gamers are willing to wait. Bad gamers wait for no one and we all suffer due to their impatience with an inferior product."😝😝😝
I feel like Microsoft needs to review their hands-off approach to their studios. they often let them do whatever they want, and while that sounds better than being super controlling, it's clearly not working for them.
Yeah I think Playground games can be trusted but a lot of those Bethesda studio games are major hit n miss aside from ID and Tango. I think the Coalition need looking into as well because even though they are great from a technical aspect, they lack in the narrative direction and the multiplayer design is a bit questionable as it only favours pro players.
The reason they’ve been hands off for so long is quite simple: They don’t want a repeat of Rare. That said, there is such a thing as overcorrection.
@@matthewmagnani2915 Well forcing them to make Kinect games was a horrible idea that ceo xbox had during that period was a complete dumbass who ruined xbox's image for about a decade over always online xbox one bs and everything.
@@matthewmagnani2915 They were hands off even back in the Rare days. they let Rare to their own devices and we got what we got.
Guess Arkane is getting the axe soon. We've seen this pattern numerous times before: studios is accuired by a big company, studio gets assigned a project it has no experience in, project fails, parent company shuts down studio because "we bought you because you were supposed to be good but you suck". Call me cynical but I have a bad suspicion where this is going.
I find it kinda bonkers that multiple companies refer to themselves as possessing some sort of "magic." I mean these people are presumably smart and know that David Copperfield really doesn't perform magic right?
Devs dont get into game dev to make bad games. We could make much more money doing something else. We do it because we love it. Managers make bad games.
NEVER expect a game to do what NMS did. NMS was only able to do it because they are privately owned. Publicly owned studios will never be allowed to do 1/4 of what NMS did, because it's just not good for the short term gains shareholders demand.
Worked for final fantasy 14
@@almalone3282 That's true, though that's only because it was the fastest way to money. They couldn't monetize the original 14 and making a whole new game was far more expensive and time consuming.
@@almalone3282 It worked for Final Fantasy XIV because they effectively nuked the 1.0 version and replaced it with a completely different, much better game. It's different from what happened with No Man's Sky, where Hello Games gradually rolled out new free content over the years for people who bought it at launch.
This must be a new record for a Live Service death. This one was already a deadman walking before it even came out.
When are we getting a full room tour of all of that you got behind you?
Milennials watched the fall of Bioware(and Ubisoft), Gen Z is watching Arkane fall from grace. I am not happy about this. I'm currently in school to eventually transition into joining a development studio and seeing the list of game releases have increasing development struggles is a sign that should not be ignored. I'd think that the mistakes of others would have these studios wise up but I continue to be perplexed after every sad launch.
I mean... these companies keep doing this kind of thing because they know they always get away with it, and people still buy the game for 70$.
$70 today, $80 tomorrow, I'm waiting for GTAVI to come out with a $100 price tag just cause. Tell me Rockstar wouldn't get away with it!
@@christopherrowe7860 I bet if it comes out as $100 game, there will be "backlash" as in people complaining while taking out their wallet to buy it anyway xD
So true about joining companies to work on specific types of games. I landed what I thought was going to be a dream job, working on basically a multiplayer GTA-like game - before multiplayer GTA was really a thing. Except, in the two weeks leading up to me joining, they scapped that idea and changed the entire game to be basically a Counterstrike clone. I was so pissed.
The word "magic" is starting to lose its meaning in the game development world.
So to summarize, Redfall is basically Anthem 2: Electric Boogaloo lol
Gotta love the bioware exposé after the game comes out
Nowadays I’m more surprised when a game comes out working and complete
You know what, ill be honest. Crank the difficulty all the way up, get a good buzz and a few friends and Redfall still isnt as bad as what C.O.D is now
Now *that's* a take!
To quote the noble AVGN: that's like saying the shit I took last night was better than the shit I took the day before!
I feel like most games are better with buds and a buzz lol
Kinda like how Taco Bell is way better at 2am after some edibles and alcohol. You'll still be shitting it out later and feeling the burn.
"It's gonna get better in 2~3 years!"
Bruh! By the time that kicked in, ppl have already moved on. Sure, you can say to me Fallout 76 is way better than before, but unless they pulled the "Edgerunners" situation, good luck convincing everyone else.
What really gets me is, when its to the detriment of a game Microsoft leadership cant help but interfere with development, and when its to the detriment of the project for them to let it be and they ignore the problems?
Maybe this is why Microsoft is seemingly incapable of cultivating first party studios and instead have to spend billions to buy them out. And just to repeat the same mistakes?
I hope someone wakes up and steps in to fix this kind mismanagement, otherwise I dont think people will be able to trust the xbox brand, sure you can play any game on gamepass, but wats the point if every game is a 5/10?
Arkane Exec: No no no...I said ARCANE magic *puts on wizard hat*
So once again, executives screwed everything up.
Losing 70% of their employees….
So there will never be a good Arkane game out of that location again. They literally lost their talent.
They lost what made them special their team.
Forgot this game existed already
I am ultra wondering if this is what Rocksteady Studios has been going through for the past decade (or similar to it) with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Both are Multiplayer RNG Looter Shooters that were designed by Single Player oriented studios that were forced by their greedy parent companies to make these corporate, souless Live Service RNG Looter games; and both games have been delayed several times for supposed QA concerns.
Oh, I CANT WAIT to see how they messed up this game. This has been one of the craziest years of gaming! And this game was one of its biggest crashes….
4:09 Man, that reminds of the tragedy that was Anthem. The worst part is if EA/Bioware hadn't been so quick to abandon it, I feel like it could've gotten a lot better. The foundation was there, they just had to add to it... :/
The understaff was also probably the reason they didn't upgrade from the UE 4 engine too the UE 5 engine, which they wanted to do but as the producer said it would be too much work.
To be fair the people who were working on this game did have an idea of what they wanted this game to look like but didn't understand what it takes to get there for their game and yeah the result is what we have here.
I have a really bad feeling that Valve’s Steam is set to delist Redfall as another similar live service game by everyone’s favorite game publisher EA: Anthem.
What gets me is non of these developers that supposedly knew the game was doomed 2 years ago blew the whistle. Nobody blew the whistle for battlefront, for battlefield, for Fallout 76, for Cyberpunk, or for redfall… Whilst most of the blame lays with the higher ups I do wonder how when hundreds of developers know TWO YEARS before a game releases that it’s doomed, nobody says a word, not even anonymously.
Sometimes the best way to make a game is to let the developers COOK!
Or better yet, let it simmer on a low heat.
I signed up to xbox game pass to play redfall for myself. I'm glad i just got the game pass and enjoyed a few hours playing it. After that to me the AI was dead and it felt like a game in beta like a early crowd funded game. It had potential. I don't see it getting out of the pit due to corporate greed. I didn't bother to try to finish it because it wasn't fun and felt like i was commiting to finishing a chore.
Agree i love the concept, loot system looks terrible, IA is totally braindead, exploration was forgetable
On the positive side maybe many of the devs who wanted to work on a single player experience akin to Prey will get snatched up by Edios for the next Deus Ex.
Honestly, two current industries are imploding under their own hubris/egomania - Hollywood and AAA Video Game Developer studios. The parallels are staggering. Creatives are being strangled in these industries to chase trends, dollars, The MESSAGE (courtesy of *The Critical Drinker*), and recognition albeit they don't actually want to put in the work. The last part of the previous sentence is so incredibly prevalent in these dystopic writing/storyboarding rooms it seems because the mistakes being repeatedly made showcase it.
Ah yes, forcing microtransactions. We saw what happened to Fallout 76 and they thought it was a good idea to repeat history.
Starfield guys. Not excited whatsoever now about whatever shit it it will become.
Yep. I'm predicting that will be, at best, mediocre at launch. More likely it'll bomb, unfortunately.
I am frightened for Starfield and by extension The Elder Scrolls VI.
Ngl, i wish arkane will just make a skyrim-like
Their swords and magic combat in dishonored is superb
I dont even care if its just your standard fantasy elves, dwarves and goblins setting
Redfall is "Skyrim with Guns"
Seems about right. Leadership wanted oranges, so they asked the apple tree.
Funnily enough this reminds me of when both BotW and Elden Ring were revealed. Some people were scared that the open world aspect was a red flag, that these studios were riding a bandwagon. Untile the games came out and it became clear they were natural evolutions of what they were already doing. Hell, BotW development philosophy was about a making a return to form to the original TLoZ.
Prey and the dishonored series are some of the best games I ever played. It’s a shame that Arkane wasn’t able to focus on what they do best.
The "magic" in the studio was in those programmers and developers who quit. LMAO.
I think Microsoft is making terrible decisions all around. Halo is barely alive and now they're practically forcing Arkane Studios to fix a broken game at its core. For that reason and many others I think Microsoft should stay away of any company until they pull themselves together with the quality studios they already own.
These managers need to remember that they can hire all the best staff in the world, but it's like hiring an amazing chef and giving him nothing but frozen food and a microwave.
In order for staff to produce good work they need to be happy and need to care about the work they're doing (to a point). It's crazy how many people in high pay, leadership positions are just plain dumb.
Micrsoft whispering to it’s developers: make our games shitty
Microsoft to public: We need Call of Duty because we obviously can’t make good games
@@dib327 it was mostly a joke
This video clearly outlines how development on this game was a disaster from the beginning and Microsoft bought Bethesda officially only last year.
You're aware that even Sony isn't exempt from bad or disappointing games, right?
Balan Wonderworld, the fact that Life of Black Tiger and Flowers are Dead were advertised on Playstation, Forspoken being... Decent/Mediocre (with the studio being merged because Square Enix has too high expectations), The Order 1886 being a mess when it came to story, Knack... I don't doubt that Sony capable of good games, but i do admit that some of them really should have been in the oven more.
Plus, that ignores the fact that Hi-Fi Rush went pretty well (and i would absolutely love to see it on Playstation as well). Yeah, the recent Xbox titles are a mess (Redfall being the prime example), but i don't get why ignoring when one game turns out good is the way.
Besides, why do Microsoft and Sony even need Call of Duty to begin with? Sony especially, since they have the studios that made stuff like Killzone and Resistance. Like, why is Call of Duty even required to be owned in the first place?
@@bombtailsForspoken is a square enyx game coming to xbox soon, just fyi, but yeah, sony does release stinkers too.
@@bombtails Life of black tiger was probably blackmail threatening to reveal nudes or something, there is no reason a game that shit should have been on playstore lol.
Arkane: "Please cancel Redfall and let us work on Prey 2"
Microsoft: "no i don't think i will"
i 100% agree, but do you have an opinion on what might be a solution to the rampant mismanagement in the gaming industry?
Personally I think unionizing would create clear chains of command which would limit the input from the top to the developers, but I don't see that happening or being that simple, so I would love to hear more ideas and alternatives that might help everyone involved.
The phrase "wanted to make something more broadly appealing" is a death sentence. If you try to please everyone, you will please no one