[The Verge] Blizzard President Mike Ybarra Is Departing Microsoft, Unannounced Survival Game Has Been Cancelled

vmk · Jan 25, 2024

So that's why Mike was rolling crocodile tears at last year's Blizzcon. He knew his head was on a silver plate.

And this "overlapping" bs they put in the statement, lol. They had to save money for Bobby's big prize,
and the people who actually work got severed.

I hope the people who got fired, especially the survival team, gets on their feet asap.

Bardeh · Jan 25, 2024

Just when a survival game is setting the gaming world alight, MS cancels a Blizzard survival game? I know these things take time and the decision was made a while ago probably, but it's a weird look!

elenarie · Jan 25, 2024

jschreier said:
Odyssey was many years away from being done. More soon

I'm not on the team and don't know anything, but just want to echo that people should not fall for sunk cost fallacy.

The money and time you've spent are gone, you are not getting those back. It is what remains and how much it would cost to ship a project that is the important metric when deciding these things.

Civilstrife · Jan 25, 2024

I was really looking forward to their survival game.

Sad day for devs and game players. But mostly for the devs :(

meenseen84 · Jan 25, 2024

The only plausible reason for canceling the game is that it was of poor quality. Such games need continuous maintenance and it might be more economical to cancel them than to keep investing in them. Really should have canceled Redfall or given it a couple more years.

Cort · Jan 25, 2024

Even if the reports of Ybarra getting the boot are true, this company is a fucking nightmare and whoever takes up the leadership position has some serious thinking about the future of the company. J Allen Brack decimated the studio's projects, Ybarra decimated morale, they'll need a leader that can focus on fixing both.

NDA-Man · Jan 25, 2024

Bardeh said:
Just when a survival game is setting the gaming world alight, MS cancels a Blizzard survival game? I know these things take time and the decision was made a while ago probably, but it's a weird look!

But like... will survival be the it thing in 2026 (if the few more years is true)? Will Palworld or another survival game have become so entrenched that newcomers can't gain a foothold?

Drachen · Jan 25, 2024

I really liked the concept art for the survival game, bummed we won't get it now :\

Mr.Deadshot · Jan 25, 2024

Blizzard is long gone ... I made my peace with that fact.

pants · Jan 25, 2024

Unannounced Survival Game (getting cancelled) feels like the title to a book explaining the trials and tribulations of game development in the 2020s

JahIthBer · Jan 25, 2024

NDA-Man said:
But like... will survival be the it thing in 2026 (if the few more years is true)? Will Palworld or another survival game have become so entrenched that newcomers can't gain a foothold?

I suspect some AAA studio will take over the genre before then. BR's were a thing on PC for a while before PUBG really exploded and caught the industries attention. This seems like a repeat of history.

Torpedo Vegas · Jan 25, 2024

I was just saying to my brother after playing Palworld and Enshrouded this week. That I couldn't wait to see what Blizzard did with their game.

Magneto · Jan 25, 2024

Gavalanche said:
Wait... Jez Corden said the game was like 90% complete and would be announced soon? what the hell happened?

Maybe it's time for Corden to be a banned source

maabus1999 · Jan 25, 2024

Have to wait for that Odyssey article but feels like Blizzard may have a similar problem as Bungie where costs per title were becoming unsustainable. Blizzards output has definitely been questionable to many of its fans as well.

Dust · Jan 25, 2024

Wasn't there bad blood between MS and Ybarra?

Flame Champion · Jan 25, 2024

That's gotta be a huge blow. This survival game was supposed to be their next big title.

JAY_HORROR · Jan 25, 2024

View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750620667660100066%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

maabus1999 · Jan 25, 2024

JAY_HORROR said:
View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750620667660100066%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

Maybe a new thread for this.

beebop · Jan 25, 2024

They chose a proprietary mobile engine? What were they smoking at Blizzard?

maabus1999 · Jan 25, 2024

beebop said:
They chose a proprietary mobile engine? What were they smoking at Blizzard?

Yeah reading this points to Blizzard management basically put this team at risk, Even though they tried to paint the opposite picture to staff.

bsigg · Jan 25, 2024

Create and test in UE and then try and make that work in another proprietary engine that couldn't support it sounds like hell.

beebop · Jan 25, 2024

bsigg said:
Create and test in UE and then try and make that work in another proprietary engine that couldn't support it sounds like hell.

Sounds like Halo Infinite. Although that was the tools not so much the engine.

Plinkerton · Jan 25, 2024

Sounds like a very similar story (also broken by Jason) to when EA had BioWare making ME Andromeda using Frostbite.

SchrodingersDog · Jan 25, 2024

beebop said:
They chose a proprietary mobile engine? What were they smoking at Blizzard?

I'm no game developer, but their concern was that unreal engine couldn't handle vast worlds with up to.. 100 concurrent players? Wha?

Am I totally misjudging unreal or would this be entirely and probably without too much trouble possible? Given there's full on MMORPGs using unreal out and/or in development

Cort · Jan 25, 2024

JAY_HORROR said:
View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750620667660100066%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

Odyssey was originally prototyped on the popular Unreal Engine, from Epic Games Inc., but Blizzard executives decided to switch, in part, because it wouldn't support their ambitions for vast maps supporting up to 100 players at once.

I couldn't possibly think of an extremely popular multiplayer game that runs on Unreal, has a vast map, and supports 100 players

Antrax · Jan 25, 2024

Casa said:
Wasn't Ybarra basically jumping for joy on Twitter when the acquisition went through? Dude seemed legit excited for that deal to go through and seemingly couldn't wait to be there.

Shepherding a company to a massive acquisition is huge for job prospects. He can pick a lot of companies now to work for

Crushed · Jan 25, 2024

JAY_HORROR said:
View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750620667660100066%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

Odyssey was originally prototyped on the popular Unreal Engine, from Epic Games Inc., but Blizzard executives decided to switch, in part, because it wouldn't support their ambitions for vast maps supporting up to 100 players at once.

oh my god

Like, I get it. For its earliest years, UE4 was actually not very good at large scale games with large player counts.

Uh, but then in 2017 and 2018, it quickly got a lot better at those aspects, because of two particular games causing the engine to be heavily updated to be more suited for that style of game. That is an incredible missed call on Blizzard's part.

Allietraa · Jan 25, 2024

SchrodingersDog said:
I'm no game developer, but their concern was that unreal engine couldn't handle vast worlds with up to.. 100 concurrent players? Wha?

Am I totally misjudging unreal or would this be entirely and probably without too much trouble possible? Given there's full on MMORPGs using unreal out and/or in development

I'm not a dev either but I remember UE being a bit of a mess for Battle Royals back in the early days of PUBG/Fortnite(which would have been 2017-2018). Wouldn't surprise me if it wasnt really suitable(at that point) for a 100 person survival game either

beebop · Jan 25, 2024

Cort said:
I couldn't possibly think of an extremely popular multiplayer game that runs on Unreal, has a vast map, and supports 100 players

Nope, not one. Drawing a blank.

Give me two weeks and I might have worked something out.

Flame Champion · Jan 25, 2024

JAY_HORROR said:
View: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1750620667660100066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750620667660100066%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

Wow. The regular developers suffer and are now jobless because of a very bad call by the higher-ups. Mike Ybarra's comments make so much sense now.

What a fucking disaster holy shit

Flame Champion · Jan 25, 2024

Allietraa said:
I'm not a dev either but I remember UE being a bit of a mess for Battle Royals back in the early days of PUBG/Fortnite(which would have been 2017-2018). Wouldn't surprise me if it wasnt really suitable(at that point) for a 100 person survival game either

As others have said the engine was quickly massively expanded to support such things, and from the article itself it sounds like the devs themselves had been wanting to switch back to UE but weren't allowed to. It's been a long time since 2017. They clearly had the time to switch back to an upgraded Unreal Engine, but the higher-ups wanted to use the shitty internal engine instead.

L11ghtman · Jan 25, 2024

Starfield was a rude reminder that the IP and studio name is less important than the talent building the product(s). Sad to see Mike go, no doubt taking a lot of talented leadership with him wherever he lands.

Moebius · Jan 25, 2024

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Whoever lead development on Diablo 2 Ressurected needs to be running Blizzard. The game looks better than Diablo 3. It's amazing. It's the best game Blizzard has put out in over a decade.

Maple · Jan 25, 2024

Moebius said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Whoever lead development on Diablo 2 Ressurected needs to be running Blizzard. The game looks better than Diablo 3. It's amazing. It's the best game Blizzard has put out in over a decade.

Vicarious Visions largely helped with that remake. They were dissolved into Blizzard and at this point have been split up among various Warcraft/Diablo/Overwatch teams.

And the people who actually created and designed Diablo 2 have long left Blizzard.

Moebius · Jan 25, 2024

Maple said:
Vicarious Visions largely helped with that remake. They were dissolved into Blizzard and at this point have been split up among various Warcraft/Diablo/Overwatch teams.

And the people who actually created and designed Diablo 2 have long left Blizzard.

That is a travesty. So much talent misused and not appreciated. A Diablo 2 Ressurected quality remake of WarCraft 3 would have reinvigorated the RTS genre. Vicarious Visions should be running Blizzard in my opinion....but it seems like they are now gone.

Toumari · Jan 26, 2024

The privileged twat doesn't seem to care what just went down at Blizzard as he's off to travel the world. No mention of the layoffs.

The top comment on his post (this person previously worked at Blizzard for 8 years):

VeePs · Jan 26, 2024

Flame Champion said:
Mike Ybarra's comments make so much sense now.

Which comments?

L11ghtman said:
Sad to see Mike go, no doubt taking a lot of talented leadership with him wherever he lands.

"Sad to see Mike go"

Man, what the fuck has Ybarra ever done to garner any respect in this forum? Dude is a piece of shit. He lowered morale at blizzard. He made insulting statements. He defended/approved getting rid of WFH which led to a further talent exodus at Blizzard. It was directly under him that Overwatch 2 became what it is. The community absolutely disliked this guy.

Super · Jan 26, 2024

Toumari said:
The privileged twat doesn't seem to care what just went down at Blizzard as he's off to travel the world. No mention of the layoffs.

The top comment on his post (this person previously worked at Blizzard for 8 years):

Unbelievable post from Mike Ybarra."Travel the world" and "hyper-growth opportunities".

Henrar · Jan 26, 2024

Toumari said:
The privileged twat doesn't seem to care what just went down at Blizzard as he's off to travel the world. No mention of the layoffs.

The top comment on his post (this person previously worked at Blizzard for 8 years):

JFC

GulfCoastZilla · Jan 26, 2024

we know good people got let go
But did all the sexual predators, harassers, deep rooted toxic assholes from Activision/Blizzard got let go as well? Was there even an attempt to START with them? Because if they are still slithering around while others had their lives ruined is extremely fucked up.

asd202 · Jan 26, 2024

GulfCoastZilla said:
we know good people got let go
But did all the sexual predators, harassers, deep rooted toxic assholes from Activision/Blizzard got let go as well? Was there even an attempt to START with them? Because if they are still slithering around while others had their lives ruined is extremely fucked up.

I think the biggest offenders were already out some time ago.

Super said:
Unbelievable post from Mike Ybarra."Travel the world" and "hyper-growth opportunities".

This dude sounds like narcissist.

Tsunami561 · Jan 26, 2024

Good riddance to ybarra

GulfCoastZilla · Jan 26, 2024

GulfCoastZilla said:
we know good people got let go
But did all the sexual predators, harassers, deep rooted toxic assholes from Activision/Blizzard got let go as well? Was there even an attempt to START with them? Because if they are still slithering around while others had their lives ruined is extremely fucked up.

Edit oops wrong thread

Kill3r7 · Jan 26, 2024

Super said:
Unbelievable post from Mike Ybarra."Travel the world" and "hyper-growth opportunities".

It's on LinkedIn. He is selling himself to his next employer. Great post by Kristin though providing some balance to the story.

Dave. · Jan 26, 2024

Toumari said:
The privileged twat doesn't seem to care what just went down at Blizzard as he's off to travel the world. No mention of the layoffs.

The top comment on his post (this person previously worked at Blizzard for 8 years):

Yikes Mbarra living up to the moniker alright

elenarie · Jan 26, 2024

Kill3r7 said:
It's on LinkedIn. He is selling himself to his next employer. Great post by Kristin though providing some balance to the story.

LinkedIn, the most self congratulatory egotistic bullshit "social" media out there.

Minthara · Jan 26, 2024

VeePs said:
Which comments?

"Sad to see Mike go"

Man, what the fuck has Ybarra ever done to garner any respect in this forum? Dude is a piece of shit. He lowered morale at blizzard. He made insulting statements. He defended/approved getting rid of WFH which led to a further talent exodus at Blizzard. It was directly under him that Overwatch 2 became what it is. The community absolutely disliked this guy.

Don't forget his idolation of Elon Musk and how he gave a signal boost to some bigoted Xbox aligned social media people who should never be signal boosted, such as Dealer Gaming.

GulfCoastZilla said:
we know good people got let go
But did all the sexual predators, harassers, deep rooted toxic assholes from Activision/Blizzard got let go as well? Was there even an attempt to START with them? Because if they are still slithering around while others had their lives ruined is extremely fucked up.

asd202 said:
I think the biggest offenders were already out some time ago.

This dude sounds like narcissist.

Some are still slithering around. It's not like Microsoft has the greatest track record of ousting abusers either.

Katbobo · Jan 26, 2024

L11ghtman said:
Starfield was a rude reminder that the IP and studio name is less important than the talent building the product(s).

This feels like a weird conclusion to draw from it.

By all accounts the survival game was good, the talent working on it did really well, and it was ultimately the engine and executives that led to this end result.

Bethesda has incredibly low turnover for a studio and a lot of the same people who worked on the old Bethesda games are still there, but it just didn't come together and they've struggled to modernize their games.

Neither case seems like a situation where the studio losing talent led to the result.

arimanius · Jan 26, 2024

I feel horrible for the 1900 employees who lost their jobs. I hope they land on their feet quickly.

For Ybarra who IMO seems like a horrible boss and piece of shit, I have no sympathy. He'll more than likely fall up.

For Blizzard as a company, a shake-up was probably needed. Blizzard games haven't been good in a while and I would love for them to right the ship.

bitcloudrzr · Jan 26, 2024

elenarie said:
I'm not on the team and don't know anything, but just want to echo that people should not fall for sunk cost fallacy.

The money and time you've spent are gone, you are not getting those back. It is what remains and how much it would cost to ship a project that is the important metric when deciding these things.

[The Verge] Blizzard President Mike Ybarra Is Departing Microsoft, Unannounced Survival Game Has Been Cancelled

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