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UC4 Game Director Justin Richmond Leaves ND (And famousmortimer leaves GAF #1393)

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striferser

Huge Nickleback Fan
So that's what the title of "The Last of Us" is about.

After all we've been through...

On a serious note, this is really really worrying. I mean, what the fuck happening at Naughty dog!? Chance are, they see some hole in Sony ship (after all that lay off, who doesn't!?), and they decide to abandon ship before it's trully sink...just speculatio
 
Nope, nothing to see here guys, standard turnover. Not a trend.

It... pretty much is standard turnover, though? Sony was fortunate enough to have some pretty productive studios and, at least for a while, desperate enough to avoid rocking any boats. Now they're retrenching their development for a new, tougher generation, which means shuffling some deckchairs at underperforming studios and good opportunities for people to get poached at high-performing ones.

It's kind of weird to see all this talent go to Riot Games.

It's weird to see developers go to the company that makes the biggest game on the earth?

Should have said 2nd party-ish... The point is Sony should not be messing with with Naughty Dog staff unless there's a huge budget hole within Naughty Dog. And even then it would not be personalities...

Naughty Dog is a fully-owned subsidiary. They probably make day-to-day HR decisions internally but Sony certainly can (and assuredly does) have higher-level people who review their overall staffing and sometimes make drastic changes to it.
 
How is that tinfoil hat? It's just as valid as any other assumption. I personally don't agree with it though.

Maybe Sony is pushing for a TLOU sequel and people aren't happy. Anything could be happening

You're right, it is valid, I don't have an issue with it, I was just pinpointing his comment of calling the other side of the fence "fanboy BS" that's all.
 
With Uncharted 4 likely done I don't really see the issue. People tire of doing the same thing over and over and like to switch things up. Doesn't sound like anything more than he needed a change of scenery

Also working with the same people for years can be a pain after a while
 
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on GAF who liked Uncharted 3. :(

Yeah, this is going to sound nasty, but I feel people who liked Uncharted 3, totally don't understand why Uncharted 2 was special.

It's consistently less cohesive, less well paced, less well characterised - I'd even say worse written.
 

Sendou

Member
With Uncharted 4 likely done I don't really see the issue. People tire of doing the same thing over and over and like to switch things up. Doesn't sound like anything more than he needed a change of scenery

Also working with the same people for years can be a pain after a while

What you mean like the game is finished? No
 

Alex

Member
I liked Uncharted 2 better but I never felt there was any particularly big change of quality going to 3. Just felt like more of the same, to me.

Don't really care if I never get to play another, though. I've really had my fill of the ol' mindless cinematic hallway game and this guy picked what was likely a very exciting career move so good for him.
 
I wonder what is happening at Sony. I think Yoshida or someone high up is making changes and requests based on financial restructuring that is affecting everyone at WWS. That is the only explanation I can think of of why so many people are being laid off, top dogs are leaving and projects are getting cancelled.

I hope Sony knows what they are doing...

I believe insiders have already confirmed Yoshida is not involved, and any layoffs and restructurings are coming directly from the studio heads themselves.
 
Well Riot has the most successful game on earth and is making multiple unannounced projects, so a multiplayer minded guy heading there doesn't seem ridiculous.

That said Sony is obviously making large ass changes internally.

Yep i don't see how people can think Riot is a step down from ND then again some don't care about F2P games.
Still it don't change the fact they have biggest game in the world right now .
Sony seem to be cleaning house but i think ND it's self having some internal mix ups .
 
There is definitely something going on at sony WWS, i think that it's more budget related than anything else. Sony simply can not operate like they uses to back at the day, so they have to cut a lot of the jobs including important ones.
 
There is nothing rash about believing it as an option. I was fine with it, but this has been happening on a weekly basis, and this is coming from a company that doesn't fire workers as much as the bigger teams unless you compare them to Nintendo. I just find it absolutely shocking that people seem to be putting it off as the usual.


Because other than when the 2 studios were shut down by Shu (which some of their workers still went to WWS), this is the biggest in terms of big name players/scale of people leaving/being fired at WWS? Do you seriously have to ask?...

You're entitled to your opinion, some don't agree doesn't make what they say fanboy BS though, that was my point, nothing more.
 
Connecting dots where they don't need to be connected.



Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They shitcanned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered stig a spot on barlog's project - he didn't want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? Shitty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.


Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She's happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig's, gets an offer he can't refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn't falling.


Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is shit and won't sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again - this isn't new. This happens a lot.


The director of Driveclub doesn't deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.



Wouldn't you replace him? Wouldn't you shitcan stig's project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.


And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don't need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.


And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else - something Sony simply could not offer him. Shit happens.


It's the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. Shit happens.
 

UrbanRats

Member
ibgZeVHwkvjx0q.jpg
 

Capella

Member
i bet naughty dog asked their higher ups to lay people off, and the higher ups refused, so they took a stand left themselves.

similar to what happened with ed catmull at lucasArts
You do know Amy and Justin do not have any control over that right? I'm pretty sure Ed Catmull, at the time, was in the position to manage employees.
 
Even 2014 release date seems like a distant dream right now. It could easily have 1 year+ work left to be done.

Well maybe he feels like there's nothing more he can add to it. That or he's sick of working on it

I can't seem him leaving just like that though with so much work left to be done
 

coolasj19

Why are you reading my tag instead of the title of my post?
Hehe.

Now I'm more annoyed than anything else. Does anyone else at Sony have an announcement to make? You might as well do it now. Let's get all the drama out of the way in March and get back to being information deprived about games I want to play. Really, I want to know what's up with Uncharted 4. This news either means the game is nearly done, or the game is nowhere near done.
 

entremet

Member
People leave companies, people. This is nothing new and happens in many industries. It doesn't mean ND is in trouble or anything.
 

Yawnier

Banned
Connecting dots where they don't need to be connected.

Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They shitcanned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered stig a spot on barlog's project - he didn't want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

What the fuck Stig.
 
We sure Riot just didn't drive up with a Brinks truck to his house? They seem to be in the business of poaching developers with the insane amount of cash they have.

I kind of doubt money was the only factor here (it's actually pretty hard to poach happy employees away with money, especially since their bosses will usually give them a raise in response) but Riot assuredly pays much, much better than ND for a position of similar responsibility.

Riot Games innovative? Now I have seen it all.

Riot have done more to popularize a new genre and to push forward the bounds of what's possible in mass community management than any company in a decade.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Connecting dots where they don't need to be connected.



Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They shitcanned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered stig a spot on barlog's project - he didn't want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? Shitty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.


Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She's happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig's, gets an offer he can't refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn't falling.


Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is shit and won't sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again - this isn't new. This happens a lot.


The director of Driveclub doesn't deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.



Wouldn't you replace him? Wouldn't you shitcan stig's project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.


And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don't need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.


And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else - something Sony simply could not offer him. Shit happens.


It's the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. Shit happens.

cambridge is working on another vita game?

Stig's game cost a hundred million dollars? I can't imagine how.


Depends on the number of people working on the project. 100 people at 100k for 4 years? Definitely possible, but that does seem a little high.
 

Vire

Member
Stig's game cost a hundred million dollars? I can't imagine how.

That seems like a pretty huge stretch. Yes it had a long development time ~4 years behind the scenes, but only 80 people were working on it and no marketing was spent on it. I'm not sure where famousmortimer is getting that number.
 

Sendou

Member
Stig wasted $100 million on a project that was never even completed and was abandoned at an early stage (I guess?)... Alrighty then. Good luck Sony with all this.
 

LastNac

Member
Connecting dots where they don't need to be connected.



Stig and his team spent almost 100 million dollars on a game that failed every QA test that took. The game sucked. They shitcanned the game and a lot of the people involved. They offered stig a spot on barlog's project - he didn't want to go from game director to something lesser so he quit.

This makes sense, right? Shitty game, money wasted, people fired, head guy leaves out of ego? I mean that all makes sense.


Amy Hennig has creative differences about the direction that UC4 should go in. Egos swell, she leaves. She's happy, she will make another studio much better when she gets there. Justin Richmond, an ally of Hennig's, gets an offer he can't refuse from Riot. He leaves.

These things happen. Naughty Dog is going to be fine. UC4 will still be awesome. Riot will be better with the pickup of Richmond and whoever gets Hennig will be better off. The sky isn't falling.


Guerilla Cambridge is working on a vita game that is shit and won't sell. They slim down as they retool for another project.

Again - this isn't new. This happens a lot.


The director of Driveclub doesn't deliver the game on time. Given more time the game still needs work. He is replaced.



Wouldn't you replace him? Wouldn't you shitcan stig's project that cost them almost 100 mil and had nothing of value to show for it? In fact they should have done it two years ago. The fact they let it go this far is a testament to how much they believed in him after GoW 3.


And all of this is happening before the fiscal year ends. Is sony trimming fat? Of course. Sony corporation is not in a great spot. So they are tightening up a bit. But a lot of people are connecting dots that don't need to be connected. Hennig/Richmond is about creative differences and ego. Stig is about wasted money and time. Col Rogers (driveclub) is about failing to deliver. Taken on their own they all make sense. Combine them together and you get glenn beck with a chalkboard.


And Jack Tretton was about money and inability to move up. He will make more money and have more power somewhere else - something Sony simply could not offer him. Shit happens.


It's the same with the xbox department guys. People move around. People leave for other companies. Shit happens.

But who's design is it going to favor, though? That is what I am worried about.
 

Sacrimoni

Banned
It's important to note, that even before this recent exodus of talent and tound of layoffs sony are not what they were during the ps3 era

Team ico is all but kaput, insomniac are working with microsoft, zipper dead, sony liverpool dead, big huge games, incognito, superbot etc

Ninja theory is making cellphone games (i believe), united front are making watch dogs etc

This is worrying stuff
 
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