I agree with your entire post.
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UC4 Game Director Justin Richmond Leaves ND (And famousmortimer leaves GAF #1393)
- Thread starter DarkLordMalik
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I agree with your entire post.
not_so_special
Banned
is ridiculous,almost all the entire american gaming press was in the "sony will do too" and now they "knew"? yeah..sure
I'm not saying people didn't really believe it would happen, I'm saying they were wrong to believe it, and the hashtag campaign didn't change Sony's stance.
Even now, people like Jeff and Patrick act like it was a last minute switch, and they're wrong, maybe they're misinformed, maybe they're embarrassed that they said this was going to happen and were so blatantly wrong, I don't know, but I don't think it matters.
The whole thing seemed to be based on the premise that MS wouldn't try to fuck their audience unless it was forced on them by publisher pressure, and that was kind of a rational belief, but obviously not the case.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
I remember that. The problem was that people didn't believe it because it was one line from an interview with questionable wording. It didn't help that they stayed silent on the issue until the press conference where they revealed it.
I think a lot of the "Sony will do it too" sentiment came from how people thought the drm was a publisher move seeing as they'd been complaining about second hand sales for so long. In reality it was just MS making a stupid move which backfired massively when everyone found out they were the only ones behind it.
PS4 having DRM would be something known by game developers/publishers right? No dev or pub ever talked about PS4 having any kind of DRM while Xbone talk was dominated by it. IIRC Edge's leaks only mentioned Microsoft implementing it.
Thread title seems spiteful, I dont agree with Mort posting stuff like that but he has issued an apology and we just put it in the title of the thread that hes gone? Only my 4th or 5th post on here and I suspect this is ban bait but /shrug
On topic ive only owned a PS2 so I hope this doesnt effect UC4 too much as im really looking forward to it. Bought the last of us and played it at a friends house lol.
On topic ive only owned a PS2 so I hope this doesnt effect UC4 too much as im really looking forward to it. Bought the last of us and played it at a friends house lol.
EDGE said this even after E3:
"Several development sources have told us that they expect game publishers to implement similar DRM policies across Xbox One and PS4, despite what has unfolded at E3 this week.
Our contacts described Sony’s conference announcements as a PR play, and revealed that its decision to go DRM-free was made at the very last minute."
"Ultimately, the developers we spoke to understand the need to protect the revenues made on their work, and expect to see broadly similar DRM restrictions across both PS4 and Xbox One – in one instance, it was suggested that these measures were essential for the console business to survive."
http://www.edge-online.com/news/e3-...ar-policies-across-both-consoles-say-sources/
Haunted
Member
boom goes the dynamite
Mort speculated and stepped on a landmine of personal issues. As one person with insider knowledge has to leave the site, another will come around in the future. There's a need for information past that which companies are willing to give to us publically (yet care has to be taken to not let that info stray into personal territory).
Mort speculated and stepped on a landmine of personal issues. As one person with insider knowledge has to leave the site, another will come around in the future. There's a need for information past that which companies are willing to give to us publically (yet care has to be taken to not let that info stray into personal territory).
oconnomiyaki
Member
What? Emerging markets are too important to Sony to consider online-only. I can see Microsoft being arrogant about it in its "'Murrica!" approach, but I'm willing to bet my left nut Sony only considered it for as long as they realised some countries still have data caps and ADSL connections.
We give Dodd too much credit, and that's exactly what fuelled his ego.
FranXico
Member
The funny thing of the whole "Sony Too" story is that the offline Blu-Ray DRM patent was probably intended for movies and not games.
Certain things are not public knowledge in the dev team and most of the time no one really cares (since they just need to do their job). There will be however, several key people in each team obviously with the knowledge since they will need to filter that out to the key members who need to know (if they need to implement anything).
They stayed silent about it because we made a big deal about it, and in the process themselves (most likely intentionally) stirred the pot up even more. It helped create an eventual narrative to be made at single biggest press and consumer event in the industry. One where Sony is our knight in shining armor, and microsoft is the devil himself come to reign hellfire and brimstone onto "our consumer rights!"
Sony would have been fucking stupid not to capitalize on it once the shit hit the fan with that Adam Oarth guy, and MS acting like a bunch of pompous assholes at E3 only made it easier for sony to shove MS' feet down MS' throat.
Oh I dunno. They openly said that they would not have DRM in an interview, I also seem to remember yosp answering as such to some twitter posts.
Practically everyone in the gamez journalizm industry were going full Sony Too (You never go full Sony Too). Looking at #PS4nodrm, do you think it would have been a better idea to just say "Oh hey guys. No there's no DRM", or would they just let the movement build up, culminating in a E3 reveal to absolutely destroy the competition? It was totally PR, and yet it was also a move they've planned out all along.
Also, please remember before we had official specs reveal, every single source had it wrong. EA was saying how it was some weak ass shit, people were going 2gb or 4 gb ram. Nobody had any idea what the machine's specs actually were. I think Sony pretty much had everyone except their first party studios fooled right up until E3. I do not think for a second anybody who claimed Sony Too had any hard sources.
You're linking an article from post-E3 which isn't what I was talking about. That article itself is amusing. "Despite what Sony said to millions of people we still expect them to fuck you over".
Have a look at the initial PS4 and Xbox 720 leaks from January 2013.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Gotta link to that? On mobile so hard to find.
You said this:
"PS4 having DRM would be something known by game developers/publishers right? No dev or pub ever talked about PS4 having any kind of DRM while Xbone talk was dominated by it."
I link an EDGE article that alleges that game developers told them PS4 will have the same DRM as Xbone.
I think that is relevant.
Anyway, it's relevant to my point that the PS4NoDRM campaign was motivated by concerned players and not everything that was associated with famousmortimer is automatically garbage and lies and deceit.
The enthusiast gamer need to except that we're in the middle of an industry shift right now. For decades the video game industry has been controlled by the publishers. Digital distribution and the popularity of smaller titles at lower pricing has built a pathway by which the key creative people in the industry can move out on their own and see greater rewards for the same risks that have always been there with going independent.
The power in this industry is swinging back to creative, and as a result talented people will not remain locked in with the major publishers (1st or 3rd party) if they aren't getting to do what they want.
I'd argue that of all the major publishers Sony has really been one of the first to recognize this. They aren't looking to lock someone in to their hardware, be that as a first party developer or as a contractually obligated exclusive. But the end result of that will be a lot of turnover.
Col Rodgers already explained why he left. It's unfortunate for him that he clearly still enjoyed the AAA genre and working for Sony, but for personal reasons couldn't make it work.
Amy Hennig and Justin Richmond left for what sound like creative differences with the direction Sony (and therefore the majority of Naughty Dog) have chosen to take the studio. This isn't a negative towards them or Sony, it's a positive attribute of the industry. The fact that highly talented people like them can actually opt to go do something they find more creatively appealing versus being stuck somewhere they aren't being stimulated is a positive.
Does anyone really want to see Amy Hennig spend the rest of her career writing Uncharted? The same woman who crafted Soul Reaver out of the original Legacy of Kain lore being tied to the popcorn flick equivalent of video games? Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Uncharted here, but it's just a waste of her talents. None of us would want to see Joss Whedon do nothing but Avengers sequels from here until eternity, or Chris Nolan only making Batman movies. Those are good films, but I'd rather roll the dice on getting another Firefly or Memento/The Prestige respectively.
The cornerstone of what has made Sony's first parties so good in the last several years hasn't changed, and that's a willingness to let the creative staff create. Sometimes that leads to projects going off the rails a la The Last Guardian and the cancelled Stig Asmussen project. Sometimes you can put them back on track (like SCEJA has been trying to do with The Last Guardian) and sometimes a few reboots still aren't enough and you've got to know when to fold 'em.
I would describe Sony's last several years as being a large number of solid games with a few gems sprinkled in. That isn't a sustainable ecosystem in today's AAA market, and that is why it's becoming clear that Sony is looking to consolidate their project roster around the talent who have produced their proven sellers.
For example, lets consider Sony Santa Monica's production over this last generation. They collaborated on about two dozen games over the life of the PS3 and only developed two internally. So now that Sony has a system that doesn't require nearly as much technical hand holding and are offering a far more open indie platform what sense does it make to maintain that same staff? SSM needs to be retooled. It was built for an era where Sony needed to go out of their way to seed all these smaller projects to compete with MS' Xbox Live Arcade offerings despite MS having the easier system to work on.
Now SSM needs to be a studio that can produce major AAA exclusives not named God of War. They've gone to that well one time too many already. They need to reshape their focus away from being the shepherds of other smaller studio projects and instead be a Naughty Dog/Sucker Punch type themselves.
Same with the recent layoffs at SCEE. There has been real need to scale back there for a while now. Cambridge is being fully integrated into Guerrilla Games. Of course there will be redundancy there. SCEE London doesn't need to spend nearly as much work showing people how to make the PS4 even work as they did the PS3, so of course there is excesses there that can be culled. Evolution added a lot of staff from the closure of Liverpool and the like a few years ago, obviously there was going to be some shake out from that unless Evolution grew into a two team studio, which Sony is clearly unwilling to fund until they have a more proven track record of success.
The studios that are growing are the ones who have consistently delivered multi-million sellers. Naughty Dog put out four of the best selling games of the last generation. What other studio has that prolific? People hate on Guerrilla Games but they delivered three multi-million selling titles on the PS3 and a PS4 launch title that has also sold quite well. That is what Sony is paying attention to here. Meeting deadlines matters.
The power in this industry is swinging back to creative, and as a result talented people will not remain locked in with the major publishers (1st or 3rd party) if they aren't getting to do what they want.
I'd argue that of all the major publishers Sony has really been one of the first to recognize this. They aren't looking to lock someone in to their hardware, be that as a first party developer or as a contractually obligated exclusive. But the end result of that will be a lot of turnover.
Col Rodgers already explained why he left. It's unfortunate for him that he clearly still enjoyed the AAA genre and working for Sony, but for personal reasons couldn't make it work.
Amy Hennig and Justin Richmond left for what sound like creative differences with the direction Sony (and therefore the majority of Naughty Dog) have chosen to take the studio. This isn't a negative towards them or Sony, it's a positive attribute of the industry. The fact that highly talented people like them can actually opt to go do something they find more creatively appealing versus being stuck somewhere they aren't being stimulated is a positive.
Does anyone really want to see Amy Hennig spend the rest of her career writing Uncharted? The same woman who crafted Soul Reaver out of the original Legacy of Kain lore being tied to the popcorn flick equivalent of video games? Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Uncharted here, but it's just a waste of her talents. None of us would want to see Joss Whedon do nothing but Avengers sequels from here until eternity, or Chris Nolan only making Batman movies. Those are good films, but I'd rather roll the dice on getting another Firefly or Memento/The Prestige respectively.
The cornerstone of what has made Sony's first parties so good in the last several years hasn't changed, and that's a willingness to let the creative staff create. Sometimes that leads to projects going off the rails a la The Last Guardian and the cancelled Stig Asmussen project. Sometimes you can put them back on track (like SCEJA has been trying to do with The Last Guardian) and sometimes a few reboots still aren't enough and you've got to know when to fold 'em.
I would describe Sony's last several years as being a large number of solid games with a few gems sprinkled in. That isn't a sustainable ecosystem in today's AAA market, and that is why it's becoming clear that Sony is looking to consolidate their project roster around the talent who have produced their proven sellers.
For example, lets consider Sony Santa Monica's production over this last generation. They collaborated on about two dozen games over the life of the PS3 and only developed two internally. So now that Sony has a system that doesn't require nearly as much technical hand holding and are offering a far more open indie platform what sense does it make to maintain that same staff? SSM needs to be retooled. It was built for an era where Sony needed to go out of their way to seed all these smaller projects to compete with MS' Xbox Live Arcade offerings despite MS having the easier system to work on.
Now SSM needs to be a studio that can produce major AAA exclusives not named God of War. They've gone to that well one time too many already. They need to reshape their focus away from being the shepherds of other smaller studio projects and instead be a Naughty Dog/Sucker Punch type themselves.
Same with the recent layoffs at SCEE. There has been real need to scale back there for a while now. Cambridge is being fully integrated into Guerrilla Games. Of course there will be redundancy there. SCEE London doesn't need to spend nearly as much work showing people how to make the PS4 even work as they did the PS3, so of course there is excesses there that can be culled. Evolution added a lot of staff from the closure of Liverpool and the like a few years ago, obviously there was going to be some shake out from that unless Evolution grew into a two team studio, which Sony is clearly unwilling to fund until they have a more proven track record of success.
The studios that are growing are the ones who have consistently delivered multi-million sellers. Naughty Dog put out four of the best selling games of the last generation. What other studio has that prolific? People hate on Guerrilla Games but they delivered three multi-million selling titles on the PS3 and a PS4 launch title that has also sold quite well. That is what Sony is paying attention to here. Meeting deadlines matters.
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
Wow, I hope everything turns out ok Col.
I've only seen this thread now. Omg what happened?
I've only seen this thread now. Omg what happened?
ashecitism
Member
dollartaco
Member
Wasn't the DRM thing basically an original Sony Too! thing? I mean, I remember the picking over every little quote to show that Sony was indeed going with a DRM system for PS4 and that they were just remaining quiet so only MS took the flack. Wasn't that a prevalent theory around here? I also remember that a fair number of "Sony fanboys" didn't buy a word of it, presumably because they were naive to think that Sony wouldn't follow MS's lead.
Does it matter that the opposite was true?
Does it matter that the opposite was true?
ultratruman
Banned
Are you saying that Sony did at one point have a plan to impliment some form of DRM, just as they planned to have 4gb of GDDR5, but they'd decided well in advance of E3 that they weren't going to do that?
Adam Boyes on the E3 Bombcast said the outcry, even before the #PS4NODRM thing, basically just pushed the needle further towards what they were already thinking.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
That article is just so fishy though. If it was a last minute decision, then why did Shuhei Yoshida state that there was no DRM back in February? The only thing that seemed believable and actually came to fruition is third party publishers implementing their own DRM. Not many, but a few did (for whatever reason).
Not saying that Mort's concern for PS4 DRM was deceit. The entire forum was concerned this time last year. I just find it hard to believe a company, which has a strong presence globally, in markets that would not be able to support DRM policies, would plan on implementing such policies.
I'm also suspicious of EA's "unprecedented partnership" with Microsoft, handing them two online-only titles at launch window.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The fear came from "legitimate" journalists who insisted that DRM on PS4 was fait accompli. Even the "professional amateurs" like the CAGCast people insisted that Sony has to implement DRM and to just get used to having always online consoles.
Hindsight is easy now, but just look at all the articles being written. That's what spurred on the no DRM movement in the first place.
That's my only point. Not everything that famousmortimer was attached to is now shit just because of his recent fuck-up.
I read the last ten pages in one go and I felt strange to see all that he was done being negatively interpreted, just because of the very last thing that got him expelled.
The rallying of troops to show corporations that players were not cool with always-online DRM was definitely a positive, even though it might not have changed anything. At least it showed that players instead of enthusiast press weren't going to just take it and welcome everything that is thrown at them. That Sony used this for great PR is on Microsoft and the enthusiast press that played defense for publisher interest over their readership.
I'm not denying that, I was simply saying Sony was pretty clear from the post-PS4 reveal interviews. It was only those hairdressers that spurred the doubt, which caused the noDRM campaign.
The campaign is fine, it's not a cynical thing, but it was redundant.
EDIT: And that's nothing to do with Mort's involvement.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Oh I see, thanks man.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Druckmann dropping truth bombs on IGN and GAF. :/
The whole overreactions on these Sony moves has been pretty vile compared to the standard fare discussion I expected as these are good people who just happen to be moving on for reasons people here could never figure out. Case in point, post 1393. Some people need to really slow down and not assume things like "what's going on at Sony" or "Trouble there are Sony WWS".
Someone might leave just because they want a change of pace or the workplace is closer to their family. No one ever thinks of stuff like that but that's why some of us shuffle around so why should we not take the moves without inciting negative accusations? I would migrate to a new job or location if it paid more and was worth it to me and my family.
People come and go. I don't understand why some like to incite such negative conversation from things like this but post 1393 and Druckmann's post should at least put a rational guideline so people can be a little more sensitive and thoughtful next time they assume they know why people depart or leave for other companies.
ultratruman
Banned
Can't believe I just read through this entire thread. I'll miss famousmortimer, but I don't buy his explanation for one second. I'm pretty sure he made that tweet about "retiring" because he was pissed off. Just pure speculation on my part of course.
It's a shame that Col. Rodger had to come in here and defend himself against such ridiculous accusations, I hope his son gets well. It couldn't have been easy to leave behind EVO and the team like that. Can't wait to see what happens with his new studio.
It's a shame that Col. Rodger had to come in here and defend himself against such ridiculous accusations, I hope his son gets well. It couldn't have been easy to leave behind EVO and the team like that. Can't wait to see what happens with his new studio.
Well it's not like this thread hasn't gone places enough.
What are you talking about? Noone knew what Sony was going to do.
FamousMortimer i sa good and honest guy who made a mistake and apologized in the best and most sincere possible way.
Why some people here need to spit on the guy is pretty disgusting... Sure those people never made a mistake in their life.
Whipped Spartan
Member
If more people realized that this thread wouldn't have happened. In addition it's the end and start of a new generation. Teams always change coming into or out of generations. I sometimes think a lot of GAF and the internet is just too young to remember last Gen starting.
Being responsible adults most of these folks are most likely leaving at logical stop gaps and I between projects.
Problem is people love gossip so if fellow posters are willing to say they know more than us people will listen. People love the idea of knowing and speculating on what happens behind closed doors.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Those tweets were always a bit vague though. IIRC they were along the lines of supporting offline play which could mean anything. Original XBone drm technically supported offline play too as long as you checked in every hour or whatever it was. I agree that staying silent worked out for them really well. It gave them the winning card to play at the best possible time and completely overshadowed the online paywall reveal. I just meant that the silence didn't do anything to reassure people until the reveal which is why #ps4nodrm happened.
I'll admit I thought Sony were going to do something similar. I assumed that MS wouldn't be so dumb as to go it alone on something like this and it seemed like the kind of thing publishers would push hard for. Like you say, an assumption that the press was also backing up at the time. Turns out they really were that dumb and walked into one of the biggest gaming backfires of all time. I feel no shame in not predicting that level of self destructive incompetence.
Yeah, I agree with all of this.
OK, not picking on you, but as a general point there's a lot of naivety on this board about how corporations and businesses work.
There is every single likelihood that at some point in the development of the business plan the concept of always-online DRM was discussed. There may well have even been a framework or development groups attached to looking at how it might be implemented.
As this would have been an integrated part of the OS, I would imagine that this would have been something discussed very, very early on in the PS4's development (look at how much extra work MS had to do to unpick their DRM solution from the Xbone OS) and rejected at a similar point.
Businesses will gameplan many different scenarios, sometimes going beyond meetings to actually investing capital in developing them, only to decide at some point that it's not the way to go.
So yes, it probably was something discussed, but does that matter? They didn't do it, and that decision would have been made far in advance of the announcements and E3.
Exactly, people leave companies all the time. I'm not sure why it's become such a big deal recently. I'm guessing it's because a new console generation just started and emotions are high.
Sickboy007
Member
I think we can all agree at least that the no drm campaign and the subsequent outpour of negative press for microsoft had a hand in them changing their tune.
Whipped Spartan
Member
Just let it blow over. Fm stepped in it pretty bad. Makes people mad they trusted him maybe. I am sure there is other reasons too. Some not genuine but why question their anger.
No doubt that it was dicussed. Of course it would be. I'm sure they discuss everything, especially things that their direct competition are doing. Sony even has their own DRM patents.
Tread carefully
I just think FM is very conscious he fucked up...And don't see the point in bullying him even more.
He was a precious member of NeoGAF, and a good fella.... can't gaffers show some indulgence from time to time? Especially when the guy admitted his mistake and apologized?
But you're right: i should just let them express their feelings and move on...
I found their answers still suspiciously vague
Major Nelson could have given the same answers when asked about the xb1, because technically did they also allow used games to be played and resold
ultratruman
Banned
You're right, of course they'd think about it, I just meant to say that the decision as to whether or not Sony should implement DRM was perhaps made quite late into the console's development and this is where the journalists got their 'Sony Too' info from, same as they got their 4gb of GDDR5 info. I don't want to believe they were just pulling that stuff from their asses.
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