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AMA with Aliens Colonial Marines tester [verified]

FINALBOSS

Banned
He is a grown man and took the risk, if he lost his job I don't feel sorry, but I'm thankful for the information and hope he doesn't get in any trouble.

Ya let's not feel sorry for whistleblowers who keep their respective industries honest and the public informed.

Now we know why people don't bother.
 

Portugeezer

Member
Ya let's not feel sorry for whistleblowers who keep their respective industries honest and the public informed.

Now we know why people don't bother.

They don't bother because I don't cry for them?

He wanted that verification, yet even now people still doubt him, and ultimately that is what could fuck him over.
 

Eppy Thatcher

God's had his chance.
I'm curious as i've seen a lot of anger come out of this towards Gearbox and some seriously disappointed sounding people in this and other forums over the failure of ACM and honestly... did anyone really think this was gonna be a decent game?

That HUUUUGE dev time, those not impressive screens, the jumping IP...

I mean yea, Alien and Aliens are badass... the property itself is interesting and cool but is there seriously that large of crowd for an CM game?

I have a hard time believing that most gamers today are going to give a shit about this failure. Find me a teenager who really LOVES the Aliens movie like some of us 80s kids do and i'd be amazed. It's a 20 year old property that hasn't seen a AAA stellar game come out of the license ever. Gearbox is Borderlands. If I were them I may have done the same thing considering that Borderlands 2 was a fucking major success and the best that ever could have come of a ACM game would be mediocre break even numbers by the book FPS.

Just because you throw the Xenomorphs in there doesn't make it special or great. In fact.. a Borderlands style Aliens game would get boring as hell... unless they untapped some amazing fountain of genius and processing power and gave us hundreds of aliens on screen at once while you and 20+ marines go ape shit with auto cannons and smart guns... it was never gonna do gangbusters.

I guess.. I'm simply just not surprised by this at all and i'm seeing a lot of shock and sadness in people that i never would have expected. Especially from a more dev/industry savvy community.
 

Cuburt

Member
We had little contact with gearbox. much less than we've ever had. Everything was through senior staff, the higher ups. we had strict rules about what we could post to them.

So if Gearbox was avoiding Sega and didn't even submit the game to them until mid-2012 for the first time, how is a Sega tester in the know about so much about development and internal stuff at Gearbox? Seems like much of his information is going to be hearsay even if he works there due to how far removed he'd be from much of the decisions and drama.
 

JdFoX187

Banned
I admit I was one of those who was initially really shocked and surprised -- excited even -- by the announcement that Gearbox was developing an Aliens game. But the more I thought about it, and the more the game drug on, I realized that it wasn't going to work out. Gearbox just wasn't the right developer for this franchise. They don't have atmosphere down worth a flying fuck. Someone like Visceral Games would be awesome for Aliens. Hell, Dead Space is pretty much an Alien game not named Alien.

This whole thing is absolutely terrible, and people need to be held accountable. I am more curious whether Gearbox was really stupid enough to use Sega's money on Borderlands. So far, we've just seen rumors and conjecture about it.
 

bangai-o

Banned
I'm curious as i've seen a lot of anger come out of this towards Gearbox and some seriously disappointed sounding people in this and other forums over the failure of ACM and honestly... did anyone really think this was gonna be a decent game?

That HUUUUGE dev time, those not impressive screens, the jumping IP...

I mean yea, Alien and Aliens are badass... the property itself is interesting and cool but is there seriously that large of crowd for an CM game?

I have a hard time believing that most gamers today are going to give a shit about this failure. Find me a teenager who really LOVES the Aliens movie like some of us 80s kids do and i'd be amazed. It's a 20 year old property that hasn't seen a AAA stellar game come out of the license ever. Gearbox is Borderlands. If I were them I may have done the same thing considering that Borderlands 2 was a fucking major success and the best that ever could have come of a ACM game would be mediocre break even numbers by the book FPS.

Just because you throw the Xenomorphs in there doesn't make it special or great. In fact.. a Borderlands style Aliens game would get boring as hell... unless they untapped some amazing fountain of genius and processing power and gave us hundreds of aliens on screen at once while you and 20+ marines go ape shit with auto cannons and smart guns... it was never gonna do gangbusters.

I guess.. I'm simply just not surprised by this at all and i'm seeing a lot of shock and sadness in people that i never would have expected. Especially from a more dev/industry savvy community.

Alien is worldwide icon. The xenomorph is is such a well known sci fi monster that stores sell Alien plushies. While AvP and the videogames have brought it to a joke of a series, it is still an important property. If Sega can get the right studio, time the release correctly, and especially with a new generation beginning, the series has huge potential that can outsell Gears of War or God of War.
i was never convinced this game was going to be great, because I never liked Borderlands. But, i certainly didnt think it would turn out as bad as it did.
 

markot

Banned
Im not blaming Sega, but if they did write a shit contract then... it is their fault >_<

I mean, I dont know, maybe they will sue, but I would assume if you wanted A to dev your game, youd put that in your contract, and not allow them to outsource it...

I do hope the contract was good and Sega does sue, but, I dont think Gearbox would be stupid enough to do anything that would get them sued... maybe.
 

lenovox1

Member
This makes sense. I had experience working with the game in the summer, capturing footage at Sega QA. Getting the footage was a mess, there was a lot to fix. A LOT of dodgy/missing animations, shoulder lights randomly turning off, characters always staring DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA (you can see how thats a pretty big issue), characters guns not syncing up with their current pose, limbs going crazy when guns were swapped, GUNS AND CHARACTER MODELS MISSING FROM THE BUILD THAT THE TRAILER WAS SPECIFICALLY ADVERTISING, etc etc.

Over the month or so the project ran, multiple times lists were sent to Gearbox to fix what really should have been basic stuff, and every time a new build came back the changes were minimal. I'm surprised the trailer came out as well as it did all things considered.

Saying all this, I also didn't think the game would turn out too bad. The gunplay felt solid and I really liked the lighting. It was also Summer so it seemed like there was enough time to get the game in a good place. I also thought the main menu was sick.

Thanks. The project was a mess from the start. *cue Pac-Man womp-womp-womp*
 

wondermega

Member
Sega's fault (well, producer at Sega's fault, but bad on that person's boss for letting him stick around). Also, NDA much?
 
Q

Queen of Hunting

Unconfirmed Member
maybe they did over the years, but they've been desperate for a hit and trsuted gearbox after seeing the borderlands success.

thats bullshit gearbox signed this in 06 they never released borderlands till 09.......
 
I read through the old GI article again and it looks like Gearbox was really excited about working on Aliens CM. This was before Borderlands success of course.

I remember thinking that Gearbox had a lot on their table with Aliens CM, Borderlands, then Duke Nukem, etc. I think I said to myself that there's no way they can work on all these games at the same time. I was worried one of them would suffer and remember thinking it'd be Aliens. I really hoped Aliens CM wouldn't turn out bad.

After the delays, sucks I was right.
 

scitek

Member
How would a tester know where Sega's money is going? Think it's just his speculation?

Well, if it's not just speculation on his part, then that means it's something he's heard working at Sega. Which could mean Sega thinks that's the case. Ruh roh?
 

Shiggy

Member
thats bullshit gearbox signed this in 06 they never released borderlands till 09.......

The game was cancelled in 2008 and then got on track in mid-2009. Not sure whether he really means that Sega signed with Gearbox because of Borderlands, maybe they just trusted them during post-2008 development and didn't care too much.
 

jabuseika

Member
Asked about the Demo footage gearbox showed.

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Gearbox is still using some of that footage to advertise the game.

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If true, how did Sega mess up this bad.
 

Eppy Thatcher

God's had his chance.
Alien is worldwide icon. The xenomorph is is such a well known sci fi monster that stores sell Alien plushies. While AvP and the videogames have brought it to a joke of a series, it is still an important property. If Sega can get the right studio, time the release correctly, and especially with a new generation beginning, the series has huge potential that can outsell Gears of War or God of War.
i was never convinced this game was going to be great, because I never liked Borderlands. But, i certainly didnt think it would turn out as bad as it did.

See it's thoughts like that "Outselling gears of War or God of War" (fyi iseewhatyoudid there gowgow) kind of baffle me. Since there has never been an aliens game or an AVP game that came anywhere near selling the way those two games have sold... what about the franchise itself screams potential gold to people?

At this point in time a large swath of the game playing public are simply too young to even really care about the Aliens property. Look at Prometheus. If there was a huge alien fanbase out there frothing for some action in their fav universe you would think that movie would have at least had a crazy good opening weekend instead of a somewhat ok 3 week run.

And like i said in my last post... if the next gen systems come along and a dev with some actual love for the series gets their hands on it and does something hugely different as far as the gameplay is concerned (huge numbers, giant fights, open world, dynamic Xenomorph infection spreading... imagine starting with one free alien in a huge colony and the faster you track down and exterminate them the more in control you keep the colony. Take too long or let too many get away with too many colonists/marines and all of a sudden your numbers quickly switch and you get swarmed) .... i mean fuck. That's off the top of my head and .. to me at least .. sounds infinitely more interesting than ANY aliens game that has ever come out.
 

Effect

Member
Sega seems to have a history of being a somewhat incompetent publisher. As much as I love Obsidian, Sega did sort of let them waffle through a lengthy part of the development phase when they had no idea what game they wanted to make. Most publishers probably would have pulled the plug at that point before sinking millions more into it.

Sega could have acted sooner or been more aware. True. However I do hope they are able to get some justice in regard to this. What happen here was completely wrong and I honestly would not understand all if they didn't sue Gearbox.

If they indeed used the money from Aliens for Borderlands Sega should go after ownership of the actual IP itself since they would have been funding it.
 

Grimhammer

Neo Member
I work with Engineers for multiple disciplines. Though not in gaming industry....I imagine office talk is same. I could tell you minute detail about projects including costs, scheduling and set backs. And in my early days I was a photocopy boy! Lol

Regardless of how true this story is....publishers I'd think wouldn't want anything to do with gearbox now. Risk too high.

And Sega should launch an investigation....though if gearbox did do what's being suggested - I imagine they have destroyed any paper trails.
 
I don't know if I believe that, but it would explain a lot.

If it is true (and we'll probably never know either way)... Gearbox shouldn't be making any more games, ever.
 
wow! Anyway you slice it that's some pretty damning evidence against Gearbox. Even if the guy loses his job he could have really hurt Gearbox's rep in the industry with this news.
 

wondermega

Member
wow! Anyway you slice it that's some pretty damning evidence against Gearbox. Even if the guy loses his job he could have really hurt Gearbox's rep in the industry with this news.

all companies have skeletons and every publisher worth their salt knows it. I doubt their reputation is more shot to hell than it was already..
 
I'd expect his career is finished after this.

He did the AMA under a "throwaway account." So he should stay anonymous (and keep his job).

Sega probably sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reddit, forcing them to remove the AMA and delete all of his posts / ban his account.
 

Orionas

Banned
I love gamers, I am also... I always love the way we punish companies like that. They deserve to be punished, especially gearbox. I didnt like the wii U part, mostly

Sarcasm, or true? If confirmed real, why delete it?

Because its real and because its a fraud against customers... ?
 

ari

Banned
What's the controversy here? Gearbox being hired only to let another studio botch the game?

If this is true, gearbox can eat a bag of dicks.
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
I swear this CM crap could make an excellent six part miniserie. Every day there's something more pathetic coming out of the shitter
 

Orionas

Banned
this is the second gaming company scandal I ve read in my life.. I remember Microsoft years ago, paid lots of millions to keep a game as an exclusive, cant remember which company (square enix?) And the company used that money to built a ps3 edition of the game. lol
Well its not the same, but it belongs in the same scale or even worse! They used the money to built their own ip's...
 
He did the AMA under a "throwaway account." So he should stay anonymous (and keep his job).

Sega probably sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reddit, forcing them to remove the AMA and delete all of his posts / ban his account.

that makes little sense, reddit haven't signed an nda
 
that makes little sense, reddit haven't signed an nda

Lawyers can send C&D letters if they believe what is being exposed to be private information or Slander. It will of been more of a persuasive request than a legal order

Reddit would like comply with something like this to avoid potential court cases.
 
What a bizarre statement.

Why? If Gearbox did indeed use Sega's money to make Borderlands while neglecting the project Sega gave them the money to make, then Gearbox absolutely deserves to be punished. At best, the company is run by flimflam men; at worst, thieves.

If these allegations are true, it's a serious blow to Gearbox. There could be a bevy of negative consequences: 1. Sega sues Gearbox for breach of contract and fraud; 2. other publishers stop doing business with Gearbox; and 3. consumers stop buying Gearbox products.
 

antitrop

Member
He did the AMA under a "throwaway account." So he should stay anonymous (and keep his job).

Sega probably sent a cease-and-desist letter to Reddit, forcing them to remove the AMA and delete all of his posts / ban his account.
That's not quite how Reddit works.

This was removed on purpose by the poster after he was identified.

There's also no guarantee this guy should keep his job just because he was posturing for anonymity.
 
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