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

D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
scytheavatar said:
They saved Duke Nukem Forever because they were big fans of the franchise and didn't want to see the years of effort put into the game go to waste. The game was 90% completed by the time they rescued it IIRC, and the game ended up being profitable so it wasn't that bad of an investment.

As for Aliens most people here seem to think that Gearbox took Sega for a ride and used money on the game to develop Borderlands 2 instead. The damage Gearbox took to their reputation over Aliens is probably made up by the success of Borderlands 2, so I doubt Gearbox minds much as long as Sega doesn't sue their ass off.
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Also, don't forget that Randy (and no doubt some other Gearbox members) actually worked on Duke 3D back in the day. They were more than mere fans.
 
Evolved1

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Gearbox has been mediocre, at best, this entire gen. Hell's Highway was an embarrassment. Boredomlands was sleight of hand. They found a decent art style, admittedly last second, and had a very empty loot mechanic to distract you from focusing on how fucking awful everything else about the game was. Then the Duke, which made the throwing shit joke meta. Now A:CM.

They are exposed.
 
G

GitarooMan

Member
I think Gearbox can be good but there is a lot of inconsistency in their development. I still think Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is the best game they have ever done, and a truly great game. They have never been able to match that although Borderlands is a very good series.
 
T

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Riposte said:
They made the terrible mistake of not including a loot system to hide how boring the game is.
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Dammmmmn.

But even if they included that, the loot would be terrible and show how bad the loot system AND game is though!
 
B

bequietdrive

Member
Ryuuga said:
Wasn't even aware this game came out until I saw that patch note mural in the other thread. Also weren't they hyping up the Wii-U version extensively only to have it delayed? Is this the beta?
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Still no news on the Wii U version, definitely a chance they're fixing it up. I wouldn't expect a lot though if the core game is as bad as people as saying, I'd love to be proved wrong though.
 
D

Dance Inferno

Unconfirmed Member
Riposte said:
They made the terrible mistake of not including a loot system to hide how boring the game is.
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iJkMzfUAGF42l.gif
 
P

Patryn

Member
LTWheels said:
Gearbox has lost any goodwill they had made on the Boarderland franchise. Their next title will be a tough sell.
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This whole thing will be forgotten about in about a week when the PS4 news comes out.

It's just generating a lot of noise right now because there's nothing else to talk about.

And, yes, I do think it's shitty. But I expect little to no impact on Borderlands, especially because we're probably still another 2 years away from Borderlands 3 (Borderworlds?), by which time this will all be all but forgotten.

My one hope is that this fiasco will lead to Sega giving the Aliens RPG another look.
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
Nirolak said:
This makes the incredible claim that a notable amount of people are going to buy Aliens: Colonial Marines.
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A notable amount of people have already bought Aliens: Colonial Marines. You don't get to the top of the Steam's Best Sellers list for nothing, y'know.

But certainly, that's two crap games out of their last three for Gearbox, I suspect that any future non-Borderlands game from them will be a tough sell.
 
E

El_Six

Neo Member
Meh...I got it and so far it's enjoyable...worth the $60, probably not but I am liking it so far I mean I think I probably have played worse games out there but hey whatever.
 
T

tmarques

Member
scytheavatar said:
Duke Nukem Forever (...) ended up being profitable so it wasn't that bad of an investment.
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Really? Wasn't the game being sold for 5 bucks a few weeks after release? Unless of course they bought it for peanuts.

In fact, I'd love to know how much money this game lost since its inception. Must hold some kind of record.
 
J

Johnny M

Member
More fresh rumors in this story. A supposed employee, has opened a thread in reddit about this mess.

First off, due to me breaking NDA, I can't provide any proof that I'm not just talking out of my ass. But I figure you'd be interested in hearing what I have to say regardless. I've been on the project for around a year and a half, so some of the following are things I've heard from more senior guys.

Pecan (the internal codename for ACM) has a pretty long history. SEGA, GBX and 20th Century FOX came to an agreement to produce an Aliens game around 6 years ago, after which SEGA almost immediately announced it, long before Pecan had even started production. The game has been in active development in the past, only to be shelved in favor of another project (Borderlands, Duke, etc), and each time it was resumed it would undergo a major content overhaul.

SEGA, naturally, wasn't super pleased about the delays, but GBX got away with it for a long time and the contract between SEGA and GBX kept getting augmented to push the projected release further and further back. The last time it was resumed, GBX outsourced a good portion of the game to outside companies. Initially, the plan was for TimeGate to take the majority of campaign, GBX would take MP, Demiurge and Nerve would handle DLC and various other focused tasks. This decision was made mostly so that most of the developers at GBX could continue working on Borderlands 2, while a small group of LDs, coders and designers dealt with Pecan.

Somehow the schedules for Pecan and Borderlands 2 managed to line up and GBX realized that there was no fucking way they could cert and ship two titles at the same time. Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind, even as Pecan's Beta deadline got closer and closer. In April or May (can't remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension.

About 5 of those 9 months went to shipping BL2. In that time, TimeGate managed to scrap together 85% of the campaign, but once Borderlands 2 shipped and GBX turned its attention to Pecan, it became pretty apparent that what had been made was in a pretty horrid state. Campaign didn't make much sense, the boss fights weren't implemented, PS3 was way over memory, etcetcetc. GBX was pretty unhappy with TG's work, and some of Campaign maps were just completely redesigned from scratch. There were some last minute feature requests, most notably female marines, and the general consensus among GBX devs was that there was no way this game was going to be good by ship. There just wasn't enough time.

Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn't an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping. Features that were planned were oversimplified, or shoved in (a good example of this are challenges, which are in an incredibly illogical order). Issues that didn't cause 100% blockers were generally ignored, with the exception of absolutely horrible problems. This isn't because GBX didn't care, mind you. At a certain point, they couldn't risk changing ANYTHING that might cause them to fail certification or break some other system. And so, the product you see is what you get.

Beyond gameplay, the story has been raised as an issue several times. I can't really comment without feeling bad beyond saying that the script was approved by 20th Century FOX, and that the rush to throw a playable product together came at the cost of the story. Campaign does a pretty bad job of explaining a lot of the questions raised at the start of the game, and so hopefully there will be DLC to flesh that out a bit better.
I'll answer some questions, but I have to run soon, so it may take a while for responses.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/18ewf4/a_lot_of_you_are_rightfully_upset_at_the_final/
 
S

sflufan

Banned
While I have no idea about the terms of the contract between Gearbox and Sega, I have to wonder if Gearbox failed to exercise a standard of due care in its performance of the contract and therefore can be held held liable for monetary damages by Sega.
 
S

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
Riposte said:
They made the terrible mistake of not including a loot system to hide how boring the game is.
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Seems about right!

GBX has shown nothing but incompetence in this case. You delayed the game how many times to make way for your own projects, outsource it but don't keep track, and then decide to try and pass blame on to others. Fuck em, because they sure had no problem fucking over fans and Sega.
 
F

Fine Ham Abounds

Member
Riposte said:
They made the terrible mistake of not including a loot system to hide how boring the game is.
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Actually the fucking nails-on-a-chalkboard voice of the toaster on wheels is the only thing that kept me awake as long as I managed, so I'd vote that for this game they should have just had Bill Paxton yelling unfunny jokes at max volume into a can of beans every 30 seconds.
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
This isn't because GBX didn't care, mind you.
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Uh, outsourcing the game and shipping a knowingly shoddy product with your name on it seems an awful lot like not caring.

It may not be the sole reason, but it's not totally removed, either.
 
R

Rated-Rsuperstar

Member
In April or May (can't remember which), Pecan was supposed to hit beta, but GBX instead came to an agreement with SEGA that they would push the release date back one more time, buying GBX around 9 mos extension. About 5 of those 9 months went to shipping BL2
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So they get the extention and proceed to spend half the time working on another publishers game. This whole situation just sounds shady.
 
B

Black Door

Banned
Borderlands 1 was a fluke and mostly blew up because it released at the right time. Nothing else they've made since then shows that these guys are AAA developers
 
C

CosmicQueso

Member
sflufan said:
While I have no idea about the terms of the contract between Gearbox and Sega, I have to wonder if Gearbox failed to exercise a standard of due care in its performance of the contract and therefore can be held held liable for monetary damages by Sega.
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Now this... this would be the most interesting development out of this whole development. These comments would certainly be jockeying for position for just this type of dispute. Nice catch.
 
Stitch

Stitch

Gold Member
Fine Ham Abounds said:
Actually the fucking nails-on-a-chalkboard voice of the toaster on wheels is the only thing that kept me awake as long as I managed, so I'd vote that for this game they should have just had Bill Paxton yelling unfunny jokes at max volume into a can of beans every 30 seconds.
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"Look at me! I'm dancing. I'm dancing!"

Haha, so funny...
 
A

Aquamarine

Member
Johnny M said:
More fresh rumors in this story. A supposed employee, has opened a thread in reddit about this mess.



http://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comments/18ewf4/a_lot_of_you_are_rightfully_upset_at_the_final/
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Additionally, campaign (which was being developed by TimeGate) was extremely far behind,
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GBX was pretty unhappy with TG's work,
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And yet here we are, having SEGA confirm that Gearbox worked on the single-player (w/ TimeGate supporting).

I can't take a developer seriously when he keeps trying to deflect blame for the incredibly shitty campaign. The onus here for the campaign's shitty quality is 100% on Gearbox.




Considering that SEGA was pretty close to taking legal action against GBX, asking for an extension wasn't an option, and so Pecan crash-landed through certification and shipping.
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Good for you, SEGA.
 
B

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
I love how the way devs talk about games like these does a 180º as soon as the public gets their hands on it.

Riposte said:
They made the terrible mistake of not including a loot system to hide how boring the game is.
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Nailed it.
 
B

Bedlam

Member
Aquamarine said:
And yet here we are, having SEGA confirm that Gearbox worked on the single-player (w/ TimeGate supporting).
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Two thoughts:

1. Of course SEGA would insist that the game was mainly made by Gearbox, even if that's bending the truth. It's a selling point for them.

2. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out SEGA doesn't know the whole picture. Right now they're probably thinking about investigating if resources paid for by them really went into the production of A:CM.
 
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