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Tim Dawson, former Sega programmer, recounts the creation of Golden Axed under crunch conditions (update: Sega responds, see threadmark)
- Thread starter Shard Shinjuku
- Start date
- News
Rough stuff indeed.
The whole team over at Witch Beam are hardworking, professional, passionate and generally a force for good.
Play Assault Android Cactus, it's incredible
www.assaultandroidcactus.com
The whole team over at Witch Beam are hardworking, professional, passionate and generally a force for good.
Play Assault Android Cactus, it's incredible
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Android Cactus is an arcade style twin stick shooter set in a vivid sci fi universe. Play on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 or Nintendo Switch!
www.assaultandroidcactus.com
OP
OP
Rough stuff indeed.
The whole team over at Witch Beam are hardworking, professional, passionate and generally a force for good.
Play Assault Android Cactus, it's incredible
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Android Cactus is an arcade style twin stick shooter set in a vivid sci fi universe. Play on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 or Nintendo Switch!
This is a correct and accurate statement.
yeah, I highly recommend people click on the thread to read his whole story. Pretty shitty.
Remember when the PS community didn't vote for Assault Android Cactus to be a PS+ game? :(
Wow that story of dumb bosses being unable to come up with ideas, communicate their wants, and just mismanage everyones time is universally familiar. At least the story only took place over the two weeks to make a prototype.
I've heard it a million times, but every single time that crunch happens in this industry is solely because of poor management that can't figure out what is needed. It's almost like you don't really need all these layers of management.
I've heard it a million times, but every single time that crunch happens in this industry is solely because of poor management that can't figure out what is needed. It's almost like you don't really need all these layers of management.
The lead designer that kept butting heads with them somehow being the one that lead to the project being ungreenlit was like the foregone conclusion.
It truly is.Play Assault Android Cactus, it's incredible
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Android Cactus is an arcade style twin stick shooter set in a vivid sci fi universe. Play on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 or Nintendo Switch!
As a programmer that has more than one occasion been blamed for mistakes made by managers, I can understand how he feels. Especially in this case where it is publicly advertised. Fucking morons.
I said it in the other Golden Axe thread but this morning's news about the prototype was some real bizzarro world shit to wake up to.
It's really Tim's story to tell so there's not much point sharing more anecdotes from my experience, but being the designer on this is something I'm still super proud and super bummed about at the same time.
We had a lot of absurd experiences at that place, things that don't make any sense if you assume the company wants to make money and or good video games, but this was a particularly messed up two-week period of time.
Oh, one really funny thing I'd like to point out is that Tim Dawson is actually an animator, he taught himself to program in Unity so that he could make prototypes and used those skills with me to make a prototype in our spare time to help Sega pitch for projects, so like what we were doing here was 100x as bizarre as it even sounds.
It's really Tim's story to tell so there's not much point sharing more anecdotes from my experience, but being the designer on this is something I'm still super proud and super bummed about at the same time.
We had a lot of absurd experiences at that place, things that don't make any sense if you assume the company wants to make money and or good video games, but this was a particularly messed up two-week period of time.
Oh, one really funny thing I'd like to point out is that Tim Dawson is actually an animator, he taught himself to program in Unity so that he could make prototypes and used those skills with me to make a prototype in our spare time to help Sega pitch for projects, so like what we were doing here was 100x as bizarre as it even sounds.
I get how he feel, but i have a totally different opinion, i think the marketing of this is on the wrong side a little.
But when i worked in a shitty video game company (for mobile games) we have that a lot and i felt worse when the stuff was canceled or not released after putting so many hours of your life into it, but i gues everyone feels differente on this situations, i would totally prefer the thing to be released.
Yeah I don't think Tim or I or any of the others who contributed to this feel that it's horrendous for it to be made public or anything, his frustration is clearly with the way in which this whole thing was handled, compounded greatly by the circumstances under which it was created.
Also, Tim's experience prior to this was working at Pandemic Australia, who had a very famous game cancellation after years of work.
We also had a ton of work at Sega that never saw the light of day.
It's a rough world out there.
I mean in the end, Tim's understanding that it's within Sega's right to do this because all his old work belongs to them. But it's more of a swift kick in the rear to say in the marketing that the original team gave them blessing to do it when that's clearly not the case and everyone so far has expressed shock that it's even out.
I was under the assumption that crunch happened at the tail end of development, before a game's release.
Was Sega going to have this small
team crunching through the entire development? Good grief!
Was Sega going to have this small
team crunching through the entire development? Good grief!
Where's the wow factor in this thread, OP??
In seriousness just in general knowing what it's like to have to answer to bad management and just the entire calling out of crunch in general, I'm glad he shared that story.
Also +1 on enjoying AAC!
In seriousness just in general knowing what it's like to have to answer to bad management and just the entire calling out of crunch in general, I'm glad he shared that story.
Also +1 on enjoying AAC!
You assumed incorrectly. Games crunch all of the time for deadlines, through vertical slices and gameplay demos shown off at E3 / conferences years before release.
If you're Naughty Dog or CDPR even, the final two years before release.
I'm a translator who works mainly on game localization. Recently, I was involved in a project that was a trainwreck from the start: the client imposed draconian limitations to our work, the source text was absolutely awful and the deadlines were crazy short. Some sentences were very hard to understand, most were clearly wrong and made no sense at all, and we somehow had to make sense of it and translate it. We asked many questions, the client would take 2-3 weeks to answer and the answers were frequently useless or made things even worse.
I had to work overtime for weeks. It affected my personal life and my health. The client ignored our complains during the localization process, but after the work was "done", they came back and complained (very aggressively) about the very issues we had asked them to solve. The end result was terrible and I promised myself I would never again work with that client. Now, if those guys release this ten years from now and make jokes about how bad the localization is... Yeah, I totally get how the dev feels about this.
I had to work overtime for weeks. It affected my personal life and my health. The client ignored our complains during the localization process, but after the work was "done", they came back and complained (very aggressively) about the very issues we had asked them to solve. The end result was terrible and I promised myself I would never again work with that client. Now, if those guys release this ten years from now and make jokes about how bad the localization is... Yeah, I totally get how the dev feels about this.
I seriously feel for anyone in this situation. I know the counter argument is that you are working for someone and as long as you got paid for your work you have nothing to complain about. But it's seriously rough seeing your work just thrown out.
Lol, ive crunched just to reach a 15 minute E3 demo on time. Then i crunched on that same project AGAIN because management wanted three weeks off for Christmas instead of 2. And of course, close to release crunch as well.
As much as I LOVE that a company is putting out prototypes and behind-the-scenes looks at their gaming library (like an official Nintendo leak almost) it's depressing to see the sad reality attached to these shuttered projects and the inept management that somehow continuously manage to pervade them.
I hope there's a Sonic prototype or two in the archives they're willing to release...
I hope there's a Sonic prototype or two in the archives they're willing to release...
Thanks for the additional perspective, fascinating (but depressing) stuff.
Yeah I get you. I was just triggered by his Twitter thread.
OP
OP
I am wondering how much of this story behind Golden Axed was known by Sega's current marketing staff?
SEGA responds
There are those projects where I would feel vindicated if somehow the prototype was released to the public. Because I feel the company was dumb to not go through with the project. These protos were usually really tight because they were for unsure project, so the team really made sure it was as clean as possible in order to get through the process. I don't know where the project was at in these devs' mind, but it doesn't matter considering the shitty way Sega released it and treated them after they did.
Imagine, pouring hours upon hours on a project that gets canned because there's "no value in it in the current market" (that's always what they say), and then years later they release it with a mocking title, disrespecting you, your team, and the work you've done. I'd be seething mad as well. Especially if some marketing moron made fun of it by calling it janky, buggy and an artifact of its time.
Imagine, pouring hours upon hours on a project that gets canned because there's "no value in it in the current market" (that's always what they say), and then years later they release it with a mocking title, disrespecting you, your team, and the work you've done. I'd be seething mad as well. Especially if some marketing moron made fun of it by calling it janky, buggy and an artifact of its time.
A lot of managers I know unfortunately belong to a very peculiar breed of person: one that takes pride in supposedly not needing to be familiar with the fine details of a task in order to make important decisions about it.
This is often accompanied by a very high degree of confidence and rigidity in their own vision, despite basing it on an admittedly superficial understanding of the situation, to the point where concerns and points of view from more qualified individuals are often perceived as something akin to political squabbling - an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of having to deal with people - rather than critical input.
This is often accompanied by a very high degree of confidence and rigidity in their own vision, despite basing it on an admittedly superficial understanding of the situation, to the point where concerns and points of view from more qualified individuals are often perceived as something akin to political squabbling - an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of having to deal with people - rather than critical input.
As soon as this was unveiled and the PR specifically referenced the studio had shuttered, I knew there was probably at least one skeleton in the closet. It's like they knew this would dredge up shit but somehow thought this would still be a PR win.
I'll give Sega the benefit of the doubt and assume the people involved in getting this released were probably unaware of the conditions involved in making it. Still, definitely a bit strange to say they reached out to former dev team members yet none of them seemed to know it was happening.
Poor management in software development is a widespread plague that has infected the entire industry. And it's not entirely a new phenomenon. Just go back and look at the backstory on Pac-Man or ET for the Atari.
"So here's where we're at with the game."
"it's great! Ship it!"
"But it's not done yet and we need more time."
"Ship. It."
So many things are the way they are in our industry because management doesn't always want to give projects the resources they need to get done properly.
"So here's where we're at with the game."
"it's great! Ship it!"
"But it's not done yet and we need more time."
"Ship. It."
So many things are the way they are in our industry because management doesn't always want to give projects the resources they need to get done properly.
I saw a comment somewhere else mentioning the letter "D" is called "Demo".
It's basically "Golden Axe Demo", or shortened to "Golden AxeD".
Software development is the only business I know of where the management more often than not has no clue what it means to write software. It would be the same as a head chef of a restaurant never having cooked a single meal in their life. And it percolates all the way to the top. I have had a CTO who used to be stand up a comedian, Directors of Engineering who used to be a football player.
I have worked with over 20 companies in my career and only three of those stand out as knowing what the fuck they were doing, the rest was just joke material.
But they all got those fancy MBA's though, they love the gantt charts and of course you have to be a black belt six sigma. The movie the office just touches on the surface of how ridiculous a lot of tech companies are.
I have worked with over 20 companies in my career and only three of those stand out as knowing what the fuck they were doing, the rest was just joke material.
But they all got those fancy MBA's though, they love the gantt charts and of course you have to be a black belt six sigma. The movie the office just touches on the surface of how ridiculous a lot of tech companies are.
I'm pleasantly surprised by this apology, I hope they continue to release unfinished content with a more respectful and transparent attitude.
There's literally nothing to suggest that, it even says it's "tongue in cheek" in the Steam description
Sega have done an absolute awful job with this. Really shitty for the original devs who worked tirelessly on it, especially if they weren't going to be credited at all.
Maybe they thought the PR win from old Golden Axe fans would outweigh any hypothetical backlash from former devs?
Guess it didn't play out how they thought.
That's terrible :( I hope you'll never have to endure anything similar again.
Rough stuff indeed.
The whole team over at Witch Beam are hardworking, professional, passionate and generally a force for good.
Play Assault Android Cactus, it's incredible
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Android Cactus is an arcade style twin stick shooter set in a vivid sci fi universe. Play on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 or Nintendo Switch!
im gonna vouch, on game and people
idk if the person ever made it to this forum but back on gaf they gave me a copy when I was super down and out in life. I couldn't play it cause my fingers were still numbed but when I got to play a lil bit it was good.
if that person did make it here and still works for them, thanks.
I often think Sega doesn't actually like video games or even money for that matter. Sega real endgame is people suffering, in particular, my suffering. They get a kick out of peoples disappointment. They are like IT, the Stephen King's monster, they feed on human suffering.
Shocked they actually responded, so good on them for not ignoring this. I hope they take the experiences of these devs to heart when managing current/future projects.
Now if we could just get our hands on the original Shenmue 1 Saturn build...
