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Former Gearbox dev: "We only did MP-portion of Aliens!". SEGA: "NOPE"

Riposte

Member
Of course, it's the Obsidian Alien RPG they had to cancel :/

This was also one of the four games/franchises they wanted to focus on and thus was safe from the restructuring (which canceled Bayonetta 2). Sega got hurt bad out of this.
 

faridmon

Member
Always knew Gearbox was up to no good. Glad that I have never invested in any of their Boderlands games, although, I did enjoy BiA games on the Original Xbox.
 

RobotHaus

Unconfirmed Member
Do we know that SEGA was aware of all this?

A good publisher should be aware of what they are funding and how the process of the game is going. This is partially SEGAs fault for not monitoring it well enough. That or Gearbox is miraculous at giving fake progress reports and builds. I can't help but feel sorry for SEGA, but first hand experience is one of the best ways to learn how to run something.
 

Zarx

Member
Do we know that SEGA was aware of all this?

Are you implying SEGA just said "OK here's a bunch of money we will see you in a few years" ? Surely they had producers keeping an eye on the project, if they didn't than that is just bad management. They still have a US department.
 

Scum

Junior Member
Are you implying SEGA just said "OK here's a bunch of money we will see you in a few years" ? Surely they had producers keeping an eye on the project, if they didn't than that is just bad management. They still have a US department.

Gearbox probably did a fucking good job of convincing Sega. Sega then left them to it without realising that Gearbox were really up to no good. Then again, maybe Sega & Gearbox are both in it together...
 

TaroYamada

Member
A good publisher should be aware of what they are funding and how the process of the game is going. This is partially SEGAs fault for not monitoring it well enough. That or Gearbox is miraculous at giving fake progress reports and builds. I can't help but feel sorry for SEGA, but first hand experience is one of the best ways to learn how to run something.

Are you implying SEGA just said "OK here's a bunch of money we will see you in a few years" ? Surely they had producers keeping an eye on the project, if they didn't than that is just bad management. They still have a US department.

Silicon Knights managed to pull something like many are accusing GBX of with three major publishers: SEGA, Activision, Microsoft.

Do we know that SEGA was aware of all this?

Given some information I have I'm inclined to believe they weren't fully aware at least, I was once told by a QA tester for SEGA that "Aliens looks really pretty, little too much scripting for my tastes though." which sounds more like the demos than the actual game to me. This was a rather long time ago though.
 

charsace

Member
I wonder if Sega could sue them and get the borderlands ip.

Obsidian, some PG games and others were lost because of this money sink. I understand why though because a great Aliens game could have been huge.
 
A good publisher should be aware of what they are funding and how the process of the game is going. This is partially SEGAs fault for not monitoring it well enough. That or Gearbox is miraculous at giving fake progress reports and builds. I can't help but feel sorry for SEGA, but first hand experience is one of the best ways to learn how to run something.

Well we know SEGA got a bit frustrated and wanted it done; but do we know Gearbox let them in on their plans to outsource? That's all I'm asking. I don't know the facts obviously, the differing reports aren't helping. This smells like a case where Gearbox focused its efforts on the important stuff, and outsourced the unimportant shit to a company quietly.

Maybe I have the story wrong. And we have evidence that Gearbox did wonders with demoing the game. There's a thread on this very forum. Seeing how this has all panned out, I wouldn't be surprised if any sort of development updates were fluff. It's messy.
 

TaroYamada

Member
I wonder if Sega could sue them and get the borderlands ip.

I imagine if Gearbox is sued, and SEGA proves successful in court, they'd likely be forced to liquidate their assets.

Well we know SEGA got a bit frustrated and wanted it done; but do we know Gearbox let them in on their plans to outsource? That's all I'm asking. I don't know the facts obviously, the differing reports aren't helping. This smells like a case where Gearbox focused its efforts on the important stuff, and outsourced the unimportant shit to a company quietly.

Maybe I have the story wrong.

SEGA knew about the outsourcing, the question at hand is didn't they know the extent of what was outsourced. Did Gearbox outsource more than SEGA was led to believe?
 

RobotHaus

Unconfirmed Member
Silicon Knights managed to pull something like many are accusing GBX of with three major publishers: SEGA, Activision, Microsoft.

It seems like the only really recently successful titles they had were when they worked with Nintendo and Nintendo was constantly doing check ups. But I can't recall when SK worked with SEGA, at least recently.
 

Strike

Member
Wow, Gearbox really fucked up. Hopefully the details behind the games development gets out. I'd like to know what led to this.
 
I imagine if Gearbox is sued, and SEGA proves successful in court, they'd likely be forced to liquidate their assets.



SEGA knew about the outsourcing, the question at hand is didn't they know the extent of what was outsourced. Did Gearbox outsource more than SEGA was led to believe?

Thanks for clarifying that, I wasn't entirely sure. I'm inclined to speculate that SEGA was NOT informed of a fair amount; but that's just observational speculation on my part. All I know is this whole fiasco has left a bad taste in my mouth regarding Gearbox.
 

sflufan

Banned
The poster from Reddit this morning made this follow-up later on. He claims that Gearbox effectively had full control and oversight of Timegate:

http://www.reddit.com/user/throwawayresponder

Just to clarify, Everything Timegate did was under clear and explicit direction from Gearbox. Gearbox had creative control of everything that occurred at TG. In addition, Gearbox was responsible for firing some of the most talented people (and internationally recognized as such) TG had employed, all of which were snatched up immediately by competitors. It was Gearbox's shitty oversight of the project that led to the product you all now have before you. I wouldn't expect you to understand, considering you're probably some QA who has no idea what goes on outside of his department. But TG had absolutely no control of what was produced, they did exactly what they were asked to. You should be furious with Gearbox for assigning such shit quality creative directors to the project
 
Can anyone give me a good summary of this whole situation? Or the link with the best article, I'm really curious about this debacle.
 
So are you telling me we could've gotten Valkyria Chronicles 3 instead of this alien-atrocity!? Sega cancelled Bayonetta 2 for this as well?

Damn, that makes me cringe inside right now. :(

I was actually really excited about Aliens CM ever since I saw the cover story on GI. Can't believe this happened like this. So disappointed.
 
So are you telling me we could've gotten Valkyria Chronicles 3 instead of this alien-atrocity!? Sega cancelled Bayonetta 2 for this as well?

Damn, that makes me cringe inside right now. :(

I was actually really excited about Aliens CM ever since I saw the cover story on GI. Can't believe this happened like this. So disappointed.

Well according to this. We lost possibly obsidian rpg, bayonetta 2, and valkyria 3 for Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever!!!
 
Well according to this. We lost possibly obsidian rpg, bayonetta 2, and valkyria 3 for Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever!!!

The irony is that those games would've made more money and reviewed better.

At least there's some consolation with Bayonetta 2 saved by Nintendo and there's still a very slight chance that VC3 could be localized for a PSN release.

Pretty bummed about the Alien RPG. That could've been pretty cool and really dive deep into the Alien story.
 

TaroYamada

Member
Well according to this. We lost possibly obsidian rpg, bayonetta 2, and valkyria 3 for Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever!!!

According to what? I find it unlikely that if ACM hadn't happened that sega would be publishing Valk 3 over here, and Bayonetta 2. Maybe Obsidian's Alien title would have kept receiving funds.
 
I'm still in disbelief about how all of this turned out

Like, I REALLY wanted a fucking Aliens game, man!

*recalls found Alien Trilogy on PSX memories*

T__T
 
Well according to this. We lost possibly obsidian rpg, bayonetta 2, and valkyria 3 for Borderlands 2 and Duke Nukem Forever!!!

Sega didn't publish borderlands or duke nukem...

This thread is blowing my mind. Sega has just as much of a bad track record as gearbox, yet it's pretty much being ignored and their comment on the story isn't being questioned. Doesn't sounds like any of the parties here agree on anything, but gearbox and the former employee (who has no reason to lie for them at this point) are riffing on the same kind of stuff.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Sega didn't publish borderlands or duke nukem...

He's saying that it's possible Sega had to make cuts elsewhere to continue justifying throwing money into the sinkhole that was the heavily protracted development of Colonial Marines, all the while Gearbox seemingly skirted its own duties to focus on other projects.
 

Effect

Member
Sega didn't publish borderlands or duke nukem...

This thread is blowing my mind. Sega has just as much of a bad track record as gearbox, yet it's pretty much being ignored and their comment on the story isn't being questioned. Doesn't sounds like any of the parties here agree on anything, but gearbox and the former employee (who has no reason to lie for them at this point) are riffing on the same kind of stuff.

No but they kept funding Aliens because they felt the pay off was going to be worth it. Money that could have in theory gone toward those other games over the years. Games that we know were canceled and games that never got sequels. Money that likely didn't go into developing Aliens but could have been used by Gearbox to further develop both DNF and the Borderlands series. Meaning Gearbox was using funding from Sega for their games yet not fulfilling their obligations to Sega.
 

gabbo

Member
Sega didn't publish borderlands or duke nukem...

This thread is blowing my mind. Sega has just as much of a bad track record as gearbox, yet it's pretty much being ignored and their comment on the story isn't being questioned. Doesn't sounds like any of the parties here agree on anything, but gearbox and the former employee (who has no reason to lie for them at this point) are riffing on the same kind of stuff.

If the RPS article is to be believes, Gearbox set aside dev duties on this title, a game they were making for Sega, in favour of finishing Duke and Borderlands 2.
I enjoyed DNF, and Borderlands 2 isn't a bad game, but this is a really wasted and missed opportunity for everyone involved.
 

twinturbo2

butthurt Heat fan
I'm predicting a breach-of-contract lawsuit soon.

Best case, Sega cancels the Aliens license, gives it back to Fox, gets the Ferrari license back, and gets to making a new OutRun game.

I hope...
 
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