Insane how weird they have been with TW:WH3. Also insane how quickly they erode their goodwill with the community. Really hoping they either pump up the content pipeline or bring the price more in line with their efforts.
Insane how weird they have been with TW:WH3. Also insane how quickly they erode their goodwill with the community. Really hoping they either pump up the content pipeline or bring the price more in line with their efforts.
Relic is still under SOE.
I think the only groups under SOA are Atlus USA (localization) and Sonic Pillar (production).
The latest DLC for Total War Warhammer 3 had significantly worse sales than the previous ones (and caused the community to be up in arms against CA).
The preorders for Pharaoh are also probably terrible, there is zero hype for the game.
I guess it sold well? Also, most probably is not the most expensive game to make, I think the series is fine.
At least based on previews I've seen, Hyenas looked like a flawed game to begin with, where it seemed like every match would have been mostly about teams competing about which team gets to camp the exit.
Well maybe don't set a game in bronze age collapse and not include half the civilizations that were affected by the crisis. The scope of the game is so limited while the price has increased.
Relic Entertainment is located in Canada but it is a subsidiary of Sega of Europe. CoH3 bombed but AoE4 is doing well.
Somehow I have in my mind some kind of "affinity" between Hyenas and the Haven Studios game.
Shit. Hope it's at least not a ton of people and that the people who are laid off land on their feet and find work fast.
I don't know for sure but I would guess that wages and office rental costs in Europe are more expensive than in some other studios. PArticularly if they have any support work done in SE Asia.
So if you are looking at cost/hour basis, you make more savings shaving down your European work forces.
Nah, this is horseshit because obviously the people working on a multiplayer FPS aren't the same people who would be working on other, more typical, CA games. One does not necessarily preclude the work done on another.
Best of luck that as few people as possible there lose their jobs.
Edit: Also, yeah, it's weird this thing was basically almost ready to go out wide and they cut it off at the 11th hour. Bummer!
Someone at Sega decided they can sell "Saga" game as full version.
Everyone's been giving SE shit, but Sega might be even more mismanaged. Their non-videogame business is not doing so good either.
What the actual fuck. They just had a pretty big presence for Hyenas at gamescom and held a beta. I thought it was quite decent and felt polished enough to go live soon, if only as some Early Access title or whatever.
But to completely cancel the game? What? Does that really make sense financially? I get that they would have to commit to keeping it alive at least for a few months, but the initial sales would at least recoup some of the costs, even if it didn't sell much, no?
But to completely cancel the game? What? Does that really make sense financially? I get that they would have to commit to keeping it alive at least for a few months, but the initial sales would at least recoup some of the costs, even if it didn't sell much, no?
Damn you don't see this often, a game getting canned so close to, or at least felt close, to full release. Wonder what prompted them to cancel it. Like what metrics did they see that made this game not a viable option to continue.
This, honestly. Hero shooters are old news now, and having a quirky cast isn't really a selling point (as many hero shooters not called Overwatch have painfully discovered).
And they also had several underperformers. CoH3 was considered by many a step back from 2 (at least the full version of 2), Humankind's culture jump mechanic was almost universally disliked, and I genuinely don't understand why they would treat their biggest cash cow (the Total War brand) the way they did.
Sega's recent success is, at least by "perception" on gaming communities, mostly based on Atlus efforts.
Even Sonic Frontiers, a game that sold very well, received mixed reviews and is - to my opinion - some kind of half (2/3?) baked experience which pales in comparison to any recent Mario game.
Even Sonic Frontiers, a game that sold very well, received mixed reviews and is - to my opinion - some kind of half (2/3?) baked experience which pales in comparison to any recent Mario game.
Certain jobs are not compatible between a shooter and a strategy game, but others, such as bug fixing, definitely are.
I think Two Point and Sports Interactive are safe. They're more consistent sim devs with lower budgets and dedicated audiences. Likewise Hardlight's probably fine with their Apple Arcade deals.
The ones to worry about are CA, Relic and Amplitude imo.
Creative Assembly are one of the greatest Real Time / Grand Strategy developers in the history of the industry. There are better Real Time Strategy developers, there are better Grand Strategy developers, but there is no studio out there that combines the two like Creative Assembly did and does.
Having them work on a "hero-based, multiplayer extraction shooter" was a mistake from day zero, and it's baffling it took until almost release for the plug to be pulled.
Such a waste of talent.
Having them work on a "hero-based, multiplayer extraction shooter" was a mistake from day zero, and it's baffling it took until almost release for the plug to be pulled.
Such a waste of talent.
Those Gamepass deals are making more and more sense. (And they get to grow their IPs on Xbox too)
On Reddit they reminded me that when HYENAS was announced they said in an interview "we are going to do for the hero shooter what we did for survival horror."
They were right, in a way.
It's weird to suggest that CA is so good at one thing that it's weird and bad that they even try to branch out when they made one of the best first-person horror games of all time in Alien fucking Isolation.
And even if they hadn't let studios *try something*, Christ.
And even if they hadn't let studios *try something*, Christ.
Is this a 'Batgirl' situation where they can write off the costs of development as long as they don't release it?
Actually, pretty much all roles are transferable (there's not many people who only work on a single genre of games in their career). It's just if you've got an entire team's worth of people, you can't just fold them into an existing project and expect it to speed up development (quite the opposite in fact). Though the grim reality is that even if Sega had confidence in the game and Hyenas did release, there would likely be mass layoffs anyway, as studios only need a fraction of the headcount when one project scales down and the next is in pre-production.
Actually, pretty much all roles are transferable (there's not many people who only work on a single genre of games in their career). It's just if you've got an entire team's worth of people, you can't just fold them into an existing project and expect it to speed up development (quite the opposite in fact). Though the grim reality is that even if Sega had confidence in the game and Hyenas did release, there would likely be mass layoffs anyway, as studios only need a fraction of the headcount when one project scales down and the next is in pre-production.
They were not reliable sources, and Alien: Isolation was considered a failure by SEGA, but anything is possible.
Who in their right mind would buy into a game that is at deaths door right from launch?
Aw man, super sorry to read that. Hope you manage to hit the ground running.
Feel extremely bad for CA and SEGA Europe in general. This is a major blow, probably the most significant cancellation in SEGA's entire history. I assume the recent hints that the game's pay model might change did not end up working out. Sometimes it is just impossible to turn a paid game into a f2p model.
Hopefully much of what is here can be utilized into some other game eventually.
Comparing mainline Mario to basically any game is a bad idea, Sonic Frontiers is an extremely successful game that genuinely has the fanbase excited for the future of the franchise in a way I have not seen since the Dreamcast days. The game currently sits at an unusually high Steam review percentage. Above several recent Atlus releases, too.
Hopefully much of what is here can be utilized into some other game eventually.
I am so terribly sorry dude, always loved to hear your insight. Best of luck in your future.
Atlus really, really is not as big as people are thinking here. Despite this unfortunate situation Creative Assembly is SEGA's biggest studio and will continue to be even if they have to go through massive layoffs.
Comparing mainline Mario to basically any game is a bad idea, Sonic Frontiers is an extremely successful game that genuinely has the fanbase excited for the future of the franchise in a way I have not seen since the Dreamcast days. The game currently sits at an unusually high Steam review percentage. Above several recent Atlus releases, too.
The remnants of the Alien: Isolation/Halo Wars 2 team - aka the console team at CA - went on to work on Hyenas, that team never had anything to do with the TW strategy games.