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Blizzard Acquires Spellbreak Studio Proletariat
- Thread starter NeoRaider
- Start date
Spellbreak was a neat concept but they wasted it in an already heavily saturated market with BR mode.
Agreed. Me and my friends had fun with it at launch but seems it had the issue of not keeping many players active.
I tried to play it randomly a bit later on and was just stuck waiting for a match (Even though there should've been bots to autofill).
Regardless the team has talent so hopefully, they'll be able to do more than just WoW at Blizzard.
Too bad, by all accounts spellbreak had a ton of potential. Would have been cool to see them get another crack at their own game.
That said this should give them a lot more stability, so I hope the staff is happy working on WoW
That said this should give them a lot more stability, so I hope the staff is happy working on WoW
Because legally it's business as usual until the MS deal is completed.
They're still independently operating and small acquisitions like this dont need the same amount of oversight and regulation.
ABK was in the process of expanding their dev teams before the acquisition happened. So this probably won't be the last.
Devastated for the devs. I don't know what financial situation Proletariat was in, but going from working on your own IP to becoming a support dev on WoW will be one hell of a pill to swallow. There is also the idea that they are coming to help on Dragonflight, which is slated for release this year. This means the production is in full swing, and it's the last straight towards the release. So they are coming in at a time where everything is extremely critical, on a project they haven't worked on.
Really wishing the best for all the devs there, no matter what they end up choosing to do. Not a great position they are being put in.
Really wishing the best for all the devs there, no matter what they end up choosing to do. Not a great position they are being put in.
Interesting. I assume they'll just be integrated into Blizzard and the current company will be dissolved? Just a pure aquihire.
I believe it's already closed.
Proletariat has been working with Blizzard since May and will be fully integrated into Blizzard Entertainment over the coming months.
While I'm sure they're talented and capable, jumping at the last moment into a game nearing alpha does not inspire confidence.
How can you be devastated for the devs when Spellbreak wasn't a hit? lol
If the choice was closing down the studio or selling to Blizzard, the latter is by by far the better option.
Not really, they are being absorbed by Blizzard to produce World of Warcraft content faster.
Ooph...sucks they are going into the WoW meat grinder, would love to see that team do a non BR game in Spellbreak's style, doubt the MS acquisition will change anything but would be nice if they were able to get shifted to another project.
That being said, atleast this means those devs still have a job, imagine the alternative was to shutdown.
That being said, atleast this means those devs still have a job, imagine the alternative was to shutdown.
Activision really is a garbage company. I mean we all knew that, but I can't believe they're STILL swallowing studios whole and turning them into support batteries for their big games.
That's a problem across the whole industry.
It's way cheaper and fast to acquire a studio with 100 FTE than hiring one by one.
Oh, this is unexpected! The pending closure of Spellbreak is unfortunate but it's good that there's a future for this team. I had no idea they had a team of 100 people.
Love that this is the very first thing that comes to mind for some of y'all lol
That's the cost of AAA games in the year 2022.
People want more and faster content with high end production value? This is the price for it.
yup. This just saves a whole lot of time for everyone and avoids a bad case scenario of the company dissolving, everyone having to go their own ways and go job hunting (likely for a remote job, too, as I don't think a lot of Boston studios exist).
While I would typically agree, Sepllbreak and their previous games weren't exactly doing big numbers and that's a big team. Unless they had massive external support, this could have been a case of them closing up shop and people being out of a job entirely. Speculation on my part though, but Spellbreaks numbers the last year, at least according to Steam, have been pretty tiny.
I dunno. Square Enix isn't eating entire developers whole and turning them into support studios to make FFXIV's expansions come out. This seems to be a very specifically Activision kind of thing. It seems engrained into the Actiblizz corporate culture.
OP
OP
You really can't know this. I mean it's your opinion, but looks like all (around 100) devs agreed to go an work with Blizzard which for them was obviously better than not working at all.
But (succesful) expansions aren't improvised and have a proper roadmap and storyboards.
Yes because every FFXIV expansion is a banger. No need to change the pace at all
WoW in the other hand? Exactly..
where are you getting the idea that they are being brought in to improvise things lol
Not to mention it's a 100 FTE that already work together and know each other.
And what makes you think that its improvised? This is a massive expansion like every other MMO expansion. This isn't stand-up comedy mate
I got the complete opposite, that everything related to design and systems is already done and they'll be just tech support. Which is much worse for a studio, if you ask me.