MassiveAttack
Banned
MAtgS said:
What really killed Pandemic was the failure and subsequent cancellation of their open-world Batman game which was supposed to ship simultaneously with the Dark Knight. BioWare isn't going anywhere.
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Confirmed: Layoffs at Krome (Studio Closed)
- Thread starter V_Ben
- Start date
What really killed Pandemic was the failure and subsequent cancellation of their open-world Batman game which was supposed to ship simultaneously with the Dark Knight. BioWare isn't going anywhere.
Anerythristic
Member
MAtgS said:
What do they do about Biowares profitable franchises though?
I AM JOHN!
Banned
That, plus the mediocre sales and reception of Mercenaries 2 and Lord of the Rings: Conquest.MassiveAttack said:
Best of luck to everyone who lost their job.
MassiveAttack
Banned
Kuran said:
I would hardly call Blade Kitten part of their legacy. The studio has been around for more than a decade. Subjective considerations aside, this is a big loss for the Australian games industry - as big a loss as RTW in Scotland if not bigger considering there are far fewer studios in Australia.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Mercs 2 sold 2+ mil and is getting a sequel from EA LA (which hired on some former Pandemic staff).I AM JOHN! said:That, plus the mediocre sales and reception of Mercenaries 2 and Lord of the Rings: Conquest.
Best of luck to everyone who lost their job.
GitarooMan
Member
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger was a really solid series and definitely Krome's highpoint I think. After that petered out it seemed like they bounced around too much and never had the opportunity to take some time and make another solid franchise. I suspect the talent was there but the opportunity to really run with something like Ty just never arose again, which is the case for many companies.
riceandbeans
Member
MassiveAttack said:
Didn't Mercs 2 bomb as well? The game was delayed to no end, had a pretty big marketing push, and didn't make much of an impression. They had a stellar run on last-gen consoles, but they couldn't put it together for this gen.
Sucks about Krome though. The Arcade Room thing bombed big time. Would've been a huge boost for them. Guess this means no Blade Kitten episode 2. Had a blast exploring with the first game and grabbing unlockables, even if the controls were a little floaty.
funkmastergeneral
Banned
onken said:
Why is it a shame? They made shit games.
notworksafe
Member
1. Game Room is awesome. Less so lately, but it HAS been awesome.funkmastergeneral said:
2. It really sucks when so many people lose their jobs. You may not like their games, but there were probably a lot of artist and programmer types that just came in and did their job, and weren't a part of any poor design choices in their games.
Patriotsbball5460
Member
MassiveAttack said:
There was an open-world batman game in development? :O
Damn, I wish that would have happened, that makes me as sad as the POTC: Armada cancellation
Princess Skittles
Prince's's 'Skittle's
Game Room is awesome because of the games of other companies.notworksafe said:
Now mind you, the interface is sort of cool.. but it has a lot of issues, I addressed this in the Game Room thread today.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
MAtgS said:
I don't think TOR is going to bomb. However, given whatever chance it does, it won't mean the demise of BioWare. It will mean the demise of BioWare Austin. They won't close all BioWare studios because Mass Effect and Dragon Age are still good sellers.
Dr Zhivago
Member
There's going to be no developers left anywhere at this rate.
Boerseun said:
I'm going to have to stop you there, the assets were indeed uprezzed from the PS2 SKU and exported from high-detail assets (I did this myself :lol) and we did use Havok for the physics on the Wii (have a look the next time you force throw something, you can't script that!).
I did a lot of work on the multiplayer component of the game, an AI controlled opponent could have been cool but a lot of work for not much return.. the game is most fun with a friend anyway.
Back on topic, this is really sad to hear. I have a lot of good friends who are now left jobless due to this, my heart goes out to them.
As far as the Australian industry goes, Blue Tongue is still alive and well - De Blob 2 is shaping up nicely (I was working on that up until 2 weeks ago).
I've left the games industry myself, it's just not secure and well-paid enough for my liking.
Mr Killemgood
Member
Bad news for them. Sorry to see a studio go.
Blade Kitten bombed. That may of been the straw that broke the Kangaroo's back. <30,000 copies sold between 3 platforms. I wonder who will get royalties if they keep it up on PSN/XBLA/Steam.
Blade Kitten bombed. That may of been the straw that broke the Kangaroo's back. <30,000 copies sold between 3 platforms. I wonder who will get royalties if they keep it up on PSN/XBLA/Steam.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
MAtgS said:
That's not why Factor 5 closed down.
Cow Mengde
Banned
Stumpokapow said:
Really? What happened then?
stonedwal
Member
Saddest thing here is the loss of Melbourne House/Beam Software. The studio was a class act in their prime, if you can forgive their partnerships with LJN/Acclaim on the NES and SNES. I feel they more than made up for the Back to the Future games with Shadowrun, Transformers and Le Mans. I'm a big sucker for Super International Cricket/Cricket 96 too.
Wasn't another in a bit of trouble last week too? Can't remember whether it was Torus or Tantalus though.
Work for hire is pretty much dead in this country with the dollar at parity. There are still a few studios around - some are doing well, others not so much. Just off the top of my head:
- Halfbrick
- Big Ant Studios
- Infinite Interactive
- Sega Studios Australia (formerly Creative Assembly)
- THQ Studio Australia
- Team Bondi
- Visceral Melbourne (formerly EA Melbourne)
- Firemint
- Trickstar Games (what's left of IR Gurus/Transmission after they ditched that company and set up shop down the street)
- Torus
- Tantalus
- Blue Tongue
- Micro Forte (are they actually making anything other than MMO engines though?)
- Wicked Witch
- Sidhe (across the Tasman)
Then you've got smaller groups like SSG (who've been rockin' out strategy games since the early 80s), and Endgame Studios and Nnooo (working on DS projects with small teams), and a bunch of really small companies making iOS and Facebook games. Industry is not dead here, but it's far from the healthy days of 2005-2006.
Some of the publisher owned studios are on tight leashes too - for example, Sega wasn't particularly happy with Stormrise (sold/reviewed abysmally), so CA's been doing stuff like Sonic Classic Collection.
Continued survival of the industry is going to be pretty heavily dependent on government support. The game industry wants similar tax breaks to the film industry (IIRC, film productions can claim a deduction for for 40% of their production budget). Of course, the opposite seems to be happening, with the state governments slashing their game development grants. While I'm all for these grants and such, it's hard to blame the Queensland government for scaling back after they provided millions in funding for Fury. Then again, that could just be another example of the Beattie Government's ineptitude, funding a project that was a failure waiting to happen.
Wasn't another in a bit of trouble last week too? Can't remember whether it was Torus or Tantalus though.
Work for hire is pretty much dead in this country with the dollar at parity. There are still a few studios around - some are doing well, others not so much. Just off the top of my head:
- Halfbrick
- Big Ant Studios
- Infinite Interactive
- Sega Studios Australia (formerly Creative Assembly)
- THQ Studio Australia
- Team Bondi
- Visceral Melbourne (formerly EA Melbourne)
- Firemint
- Trickstar Games (what's left of IR Gurus/Transmission after they ditched that company and set up shop down the street)
- Torus
- Tantalus
- Blue Tongue
- Micro Forte (are they actually making anything other than MMO engines though?)
- Wicked Witch
- Sidhe (across the Tasman)
Then you've got smaller groups like SSG (who've been rockin' out strategy games since the early 80s), and Endgame Studios and Nnooo (working on DS projects with small teams), and a bunch of really small companies making iOS and Facebook games. Industry is not dead here, but it's far from the healthy days of 2005-2006.
Some of the publisher owned studios are on tight leashes too - for example, Sega wasn't particularly happy with Stormrise (sold/reviewed abysmally), so CA's been doing stuff like Sonic Classic Collection.
Continued survival of the industry is going to be pretty heavily dependent on government support. The game industry wants similar tax breaks to the film industry (IIRC, film productions can claim a deduction for for 40% of their production budget). Of course, the opposite seems to be happening, with the state governments slashing their game development grants. While I'm all for these grants and such, it's hard to blame the Queensland government for scaling back after they provided millions in funding for Fury. Then again, that could just be another example of the Beattie Government's ineptitude, funding a project that was a failure waiting to happen.
The game would either need to be damn near perfect, or the company would need a complete management overhaul for that to happen. LA Noire is way overbudget, and well beyond its intended release date (game has been in development since like 2003-2004, was meant to be a PS3 launch game when SCEA was still publishing). Too big a risk for most publishers.
Oh man. I can't think of any projects more poorly managed than that one. Should be used as a textbook example of what not to do when you're on a tight schedule.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Cow Mengde said:
Someone will no doubt give a better recap of the events, but it was a number of incidents that lead to their demise.
They were originally contracted for a few titles with Sony if I recall correctly, all of which were canned when Lair bombed. Factor 5 were then contracted to work on Brash's Superman game, and when Brash went under so did this. There were pretty solid rumours they were getting a Pilot Wings-esque game up and running for the Wii, which either never found a publisher or too was canned.
Rogue Squadron 4, or the Rogue Squadron Trilogy, was part of the whole ordeal, but I dont think it was one of the major contributing factors to Factor 5's closure.
.la1n
Member
Game industry considered most lucrative market currently, studios are laid off left and right, weird. I will say this though and I really mean no offense by it, the studios iv'e seen close their doors were not putting out necessarily quality work. I do realise that is not always their fault but instead the guy whipping them.
Speevy said:Has anyone compiled a list of every studio that has closed or been hit with massive layoffs this generation? This is horrible.
I was keeping of every studio closure since the start of 2007 and posting it every now and again. If you check through my post history or do a search for something like "ironlore pandemic pseudo" you'll find it in there somewhere, though has probably been at least 6 months since I posted it so I've missed anything that has shut down during that time.
A Black Falcon
Member
On the one hand, of course it's too bad that those people all lost their jobs... but on the other hand, the only game of theirs I've played is Star Wars: Republic Heroes, which is a pretty bad Lego Star Wars knockoff. It's such a boring, subpar, poorly designed game... doesn't exactly make me really want to play their other stuff.