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[ElRenoRaven]

They could sue Sony and regain their losses. PSN was down and hurt their sales badly.

No they can't because they are owned by Sony.

 

[params7]

They can blame Sony and go multiplat. I didn't even realize Socom 4 had RELEASED until I started reading reports of its disappointing sales thanks to PSN being down. From what I've seen of Socom 4 so far, its an amazing game. And I played MAG and it was very fantastic effort for a game that supported that many players online.

 

[Brazil]

They should've made sure the game was ready for release before releasing it and maybe it would've sold more with basic features everyone has come to expect.

No lobbies, no party system, no nade arc, camera/field of view fucked up even though everyone in the beta shitted on it, noob tubes and OTS aiming from far away ridiculously unbalanced in classic mode, no classic game modes like extraction. I bet they wanted to save that stuff to milk for DLC, I guess we'll see how that turns out now that nobody is playing the game because it was missing so much shit.

Socom 2 at 50 bucks has like 3 times the features, maps, and polish that Socom 4 had at 60$. The only thing that brought Socom 2 down was the glitches and gameshark cheaters. Unacceptable that Socom 4 released in the state it was in imo, and i'd let go whoever decided that was the right way to go. It's a shame that others had to lose their jobs who had no say in these discussions like programmers or graphics guys, but you play with fire you get burned. They took a risk by releasing an unfinished, weightless game and expected everyone to be okay with patches months after release. And I won't even get into the single player which is a whole nother discussion. I guess it's Sony's fault for all the lack of features and budgetary stuff but i don't know.

I did like MAG a lot though. It tried a lot of new things and did them very well imo. The problems with it were only stuff like the guns feeling cheap or the lack of great sounds. But it was really solid and I do hope for a sequel.

That's all there is to it.

 

[Raul_Atreides]

My sympathies to those involved. I've never played SOCOM, but MAG is a great game that was supported to an unprecedented level, they completely overhauled the skill/weapon/leveling system and improved graphical elements to the game well after launch, among all the other balance/bug fixing changes. It is a level of support I wish other developers would learn from if they insist on making MP games.

 

[bonesmccoy]

Always sad to hear of layoffs, even if they were expected and not because of the game's 1 month performance.

Socom 4 seems like the kind of game that I'd pick up months down the road, when it's $30-40 rather than $60-70.

 

[depward]

Always sad to hear of layoffs, even if they were expected and not because of the game's 1 month performance.

Socom 4 seems like the kind of game that I'd pick up months down the road, when it's $30-40 rather than $60-70.

Well it's $44.99 at Amazon right now... so it's getting closer to your range.

 

[Raoh]

Zipper should never named socom 4 socom. A part of the socom experience a new take in the genre to hold you over until the return of socom.. but stamping the name socom without actually making it the same as previous socoms was the problem.

I give credit to ms and bungie. they didnt steer to far from what the core audience liked about halo and kept their fans for the most part happy and coming back..

New ideas are great but you shouldn't lump those new ideas into and old franchise without at least keeping the core features in.

Even the single player, i hated the story i just wanted to do navy seal missions. I hated that they took out voice commands.

With that said socom 4 is currently my favorite shooter and i plan to play it non stop. But they shouldn't have called it socom, it would have been better received.

MAG would have been hated on if it were called socom.

 

[Greg]

SOCOM wasn't successful on the PS2 because it was ugly and clunky, or that it had a steep learning curve, SOCOM's success on the PS2 had to do being the most robust MP experience at the time with very few alternatives on the PS2, things like friends list and party system were virtually unheard of on the PS2, this is definitely not the case on the PS3 where there are plenty of good MP games on the system, many of which are very easy to get into with a good number of maps and you can play them with friends, you can't build a game on average graphics, clunky controls and a steep learning curve nowadays and expect it to be successful anymore.

I never said the older games were successful because of that, I said it was successful despite that.

Your reasoning doesn't explain why Confrontation was a complete failure at launch in a number of ways yet still had one of the longest lasting communities on PS3. It had more simultaneous users than R2 and KZ2, and by the time the DLC came out over a year later it still had 10k+ simultaneous users.

Maybe it's a failure if you're measuring success based on total game sales (that's probably the case here, sadly), but in terms of a successful online community I'd like to see your numbers for other PS3 games online.

Anyways, I don't want to debate the quality of their games here - I'll save that for their respective topics. It's a shame so many got laid off, and I hope they all land somewhere.

 

[Angry Fork]

I never said the older games were successful because of that, I said it was successful despite that.

Your reasoning doesn't explain why Confrontation was a complete failure at launch in a number of ways yet still had one of the longest lasting communities on PS3. It had more simultaneous users than R2 and KZ2, and by the time the DLC came out over a year later it still had 10k+ simultaneous users.

Maybe it's a failure if you're measuring success based on total game sales (that's probably the case here, sadly), but in terms of a successful online community I'd like to see your numbers for other PS3 games online.

Anyways, I don't want to debate the quality of their games here - I'll save that for their respective topics. It's a shame so many got laid off, and I hope they all land somewhere.

I think Confrontations continued support from the fans is because it still had the same core Socom 2 gameplay, it was just little things that needed to be changed, changes that people thought would come quickly in the form of patches. Eventually we did get those major patches it just took a long time and by then a lot of people were too tired of waiting and just kept bitching about it. Sony 100% dropped the ball on Confrontation and thought that it was only a niche audience interested, then they realized more people continued to play Confrontation on a daily basis then any of their other shooters and they were like 'oh shit, damn...' and announced lots of patches and all that, but by then the damage was done when you've still got a broken game 3 months after release. Socom fans are loyal/patient but they're not that patient. Their mood was irreversible at that point, even if they still played it it was begrudgingly, trying to mimic the feelings of Socom 2.

Fans stuck with Confrontation because it basically was a Socom game and even though there were many frustrating things about it, it had that gameplay people were waiting for that other games didn't have. The only other alternative for me was COD4's hardcore search and destroy. It was the closest thing to Socom but still didn't match it.

But the bad taste from Confrontation's late patches and bad launch got people worried about the franchise in general (even though Socom 3 already did this as well). When Zipper was announced as doing Socom 4 everyone was like fuck yea it's going to be like a fixed Confrontation everything will be great etc. we'll have 20 maps like Socom 2, lobbies will work properly etc. and then ...we got none of that, and something completely different. Those first bits of information/screenshots were the death blow for fans of the series. The 'classic mode' reveal took way too long to be revealed and when it did it was missing a lot of features 'classic' people wanted in their classic mode.

Basically S4 is too little too late, or very little much too late. I think a lot of fans have already accepted that Socom is dead and if it's going to come back it has to be handed to a developer that knows what they're doing and doesn't try to shoe-horn in every little mainstream gameplay concept without first making sure they have the basics (party system or lobbies, making sure the game feels right with gunplay, moving etc.) I think someone else said it best in this topic that when you've got Naughty Dog doing multiplayer shooter better than SCEA shooting studios then you've got some serious problems since Uncharted 2 was Naughty Dog's first effort and it still wiped the floor with other devs stuff.

It's a shame though because I think after the patches Confrontation turned out to be a really good game, it just needed more time in development to actually get that stuff in there before release and it would've been much better received. I remember raging back then about things I thought were big changes like sprinting, but compared to Socom 4 that's child's play. I feel bad now for Slant Six and all the shit they got considering Confrontation right now is more fun and interesting than S4 imo. I'm looking forward to Slant Six's Resident Evil game now and will give it a real chance now that they have some PS3 experience and will hopefully have everything coded right and polished by launch.

edit - rofl damn, I didn't realize I wrote that much, sorry =( big Socom fan here though and felt like venting.

 

[Loudninja]

Lay-offs at SOCOM/MAG studio

A spokesperson for Sony told Kotaku that it was "normal business practice and a result of cutting back on production resources after the launch of two major franchises."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-19-lay-offs-at-socom-mag-studio

 

[dorkimoe]

Really, really sucks. Just bought Socom 4 a week ago and beat the campaign. Thoroughly loved every second of it and am really liking online too. Curious to see what Zipper's next game will be. MAG 2 or new IP?

Id really love to see a mag 2. Well..maybe cut down the number of players to like 64 to increase the graphics a tad. But would be cool to see what they could come up with now

 

[eternaLightness]

It sucks when devs have to lose their jobs shortly after a game they worked on releases. I'd feel terrible.

 

[Winterblink]

Sad, sad news. I've never really been huge into the SOCOM games, but I really enjoyed my time with MAG.

 

[daffy]

Lay-offs at SOCOM/MAG studio
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-19-lay-offs-at-socom-mag-studio

Good. Nothing unexpected then.

 

[Greg]

edit - rofl damn, I didn't realize I wrote that much, sorry =( big Socom fan here though and felt like venting.

Hahah, it's ok. I had to respond because you typed so much.

You'd be surprised at how many people thought otherwise about Confrontation being similar to S2 though. It wasn't until after the fact (S4 footage/beta being released) that a lot of those people realized that Slant Six did a great job at capturing the feel of the earlier games in the series.

Maybe it's too late to bring in a huge new audience like they intended for S4 given the bad press and unfortunate timing of PSN going down (not that it exactly mattered because the people they were trying to attract are most likely the ones that would bounce from one big title to the next), but I don't know many fans of the series that have already accepted the game as dead. The game is already technically sound (netcode, framerate, hit detection), and the support for content/patches is going to be there.

 

[element]

Good. Nothing unexpected then.

What do you expect them to say? That is just a PC statement. I can tell you right now, this wasn't expected for the people who were laid off. Letting go ~30% of your staff isn't the normal ups and downs of development. You are changing the culture of your studio. You are changing your workflow. You are changing dependencies. Added the fact that lead level staff are leaving on their own accord doesn't show a good sign.

Looking at Linkedin. I'm seeing a lot of Senior and Lead in the Recent Departures feed. As well as a good number of programmers. Studios rarely layoff programmers due to 'normal' up and downs. 3D Artists, Level Designers, and Testers typically fall into that pool.

 

[plainr_]

I feel bad now for Slant Six and all the shit they got considering Confrontation right now is more fun and interesting than S4 imo.

edit - rofl damn, I didn't realize I wrote that much, sorry =( big Socom fan here though and felt like venting.

Wholeheartedly agree with this. Despite the horrible launch, Confrontation turned out amazing. It's really a shame they got ragged on by us Socom fans. In return of my shameful attitude towards them, I will support them by buying their Resident Evil game no questions asked. If it's anything like Confrontation, it'll be awesome. Let's hope they have a rock solid netcode at launch though. I don't think RE fans are as patient as Socom fans.

 

[newjeruse]

Id really love to see a mag 2. Well..maybe cut down the number of players to like 64 to increase the graphics a tad. But would be cool to see what they could come up with now

Orrrr....up the player count to 1024, using real life locations, and make it a PS4 launch game. I'd buy four.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Confrontation had a good core, but it deserved the hate for all the awful bugs and just sloppy design that it had for more than half a year after it launched. While I enjoyed it when it worked, it often didn't and had so many bugs and crashes. The many ridiculously sized patches and general slowness of everything in Confrontation (menu navigation, load times on everything, etc) just made it hard to like and really can't expect people to give the game a break when it took so long for it to get properly to a good stable state. The game was obviously rushed out the door and not given the budget of a real retail game sadly.

SOCOM 4 despite the complaints from old fans, at least feels pretty competent and playable out the door. It's still early in it's release so I will see how well they support it.

 

[railGUN]

Socom 1-2 were the fucking best...

East 2 on a Friday night - good times.