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Games deliberately sabotaged during development
- Thread starter lazygecko
- Start date
Cameron122
Member
The best Starfox game
does Sakamoto with Other M count?
he was the force behind the game being super linear, Samus' personality shattering everyone's image of her and the controls being unnecessarily limited. he even blocked the localization from spicing up the script and doing more emotional voice acting.
he was the force behind the game being super linear, Samus' personality shattering everyone's image of her and the controls being unnecessarily limited. he even blocked the localization from spicing up the script and doing more emotional voice acting.
SinCityAssassin
Member
It does not, again this thread is about active opposition or hinderance to the completion or success of a game, it's not about what you PERCEIVE to be the active sabotage of a game.
Superman 64 corporate politics counts, Square Enix trying to back out of a game deal counts, the whole mess with Sega Saturn counts.
Paper Mario and Other M changing direction does not count.
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
Being indifferent to the damage your decisions have on the game could be considered sabotage though, no? I know it's not as severe a crippling or knockout as others in terms of a game being released but I still think they knew how it would affect the game and did it anyway, which resulted in a hollow game devoid of most of what was promised.
Squarehard
Member
Does Mighty No.9 count?
SinCityAssassin
Member
That's just incompetence.
Even though most of the problems with alpha protocol is their own fault, and objectively it's only a B to C quality game in there first place, I still maintain that it would have been received a hell of a lot better if Sega hadn't just sat on it for six months, refusing to pay for the bug checking they wanted to do. And making it miss the holiday window. And most importantly, making it come out after splinter cell and, more notably, mass effect 2
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Counterpoint:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/f...tar-wars-battlefront-iii-failed/1100-6400936/
Don't trust everything from a particular side in these things.
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
Wow, that's another really big one. And Alpha Protocol too? Man, Pillars and Kickstarts was the perfect way out for those guys.
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
The would-be developers of the Homestuck game instead took that Kickstarter money and made King's Quest instead
I was reading about Fortress and HOLY SHIET ABOUT THIS PART:
Wow. That can't be real
Metal Gear Solid V, in a way. It wasn't intentionally left to die, as Konami still needed to make a shit ton of money back, but the way it was handled intentionally sabotaged some of the core game's design in favor of releasing it sooner, and in a pretty shady way, at best.
I mean, I get great stuff gets shelved in the middle of development all the time, but it seems like in V's case it was aggressively against some things in order to downplay Kojima and other core staff members involvement in order to distance themselves from him and the some design elements of the franchise. Who made those calls? Who knows.
I mean, I get great stuff gets shelved in the middle of development all the time, but it seems like in V's case it was aggressively against some things in order to downplay Kojima and other core staff members involvement in order to distance themselves from him and the some design elements of the franchise. Who made those calls? Who knows.
Hidden One
Member
Modern Warfare 2 lowkey.
As I recall the story elements were stripped out of Destiny very close to launch, possibly a matter of only weeks before.
From everything we know of LucasArts of that era, were the things FreeRadical alleged that out of character?
I think he became a full time executive after Iwata's passing. Yoshiaki Koizumi is the new director for the main Marios. Miyamoto gives some advice here and there, but I don't think he has any active role in game development these days.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Immediately came to mind. Very scummy.
woopWOOP
Member
lol
I loved that crummy game, but I forgot all about the half naked people making loud kissy noises. I just figured it was a hot day in the city and people were walking around in their trunks.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
As someone who was at LEC during that said time period, I beg to differ.
NDAs prevent me from going into further detail, and I acknowledge the FR side of things has some merit in places, but again don't completely accept a particular side's take as being the complete truth on the matter.
Isn't Action 52 like this?
If i recall the dev team were hired by some rich dude who had no idea how the games industry worked, and gave them a 3 month deadline then on the day basically went 'yep the games done' and chucked it out to the world.
If i recall , Kotor 2 was being made before KOTOR 1 was even released, so obsidian had to make a sequel to a game that they basically had no idea what it would be like. At least thats what i can recall about development, and that had to cut a bunch of stuff too.
Mass Effect 3 was also botched by EA due to the 18-22 months dev cycle when they needed more time to have a complete product.
Amazing to think what would have happened if Activision didnt fuck this up. Now treyarchs the Number 1 cod dev and respawn and busy making the fantastic titanfall 2
If i recall the dev team were hired by some rich dude who had no idea how the games industry worked, and gave them a 3 month deadline then on the day basically went 'yep the games done' and chucked it out to the world.
If i recall , Kotor 2 was being made before KOTOR 1 was even released, so obsidian had to make a sequel to a game that they basically had no idea what it would be like. At least thats what i can recall about development, and that had to cut a bunch of stuff too.
Mass Effect 3 was also botched by EA due to the 18-22 months dev cycle when they needed more time to have a complete product.
Amazing to think what would have happened if Activision didnt fuck this up. Now treyarchs the Number 1 cod dev and respawn and busy making the fantastic titanfall 2
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
In what way? Not challenging you I'm just wondering. I know the Infinity Ward OGs left cuz of some conflict.
But the final product still sold well and was polished (not balanced lol, but polished)
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
The only Activision game that was deliberately sabotaged was the last Tony Hawk game. Its the most plausible explanation honestly.
LordKasual
Banned
JinjoUnchained
Member
It's alleged that Id Software was pissed at Nintendo censoring Wolfenstein 3D, so they gave the source code to unlicensed Christian developers Wisdom Tree for them to make Super Noah's Ark 3D. Maybe that's more sabotaging the system instead of the game.
Sammy Samusu
Member
FF12
If I recall correctly, at one point they were halfway done, but they were using Naka's engine for NiGHTS, and when he found out he forced them to switch engines and start from scratch.
SinCityAssassin
Member
Who would that even sabotage, it was out so late in the console's life.
Joyful
Member
GRIN being asked to fax their final fantasy spinoff games code to Squareenix
it sounds so ludicrous I can only imagine it to be true, but it might not be
https://kotaku.com/5806511/bankrupt...code-by-fax-didnt-recognize-ffxii-screenshots
it sounds so ludicrous I can only imagine it to be true, but it might not be
https://kotaku.com/5806511/bankrupt...code-by-fax-didnt-recognize-ffxii-screenshots
Kent
Member
"Deliberate sabotage" isn't something that comes up as often as people are willing to believe.
Most of the time, what's perceived as such is primarily just a series of quite-substantial issues popping up at the worst possible moments, or something careening toward disaster due to mismanagement (highly likely for both Scalebound and Mighty No. 9), or people that have no idea what they're doing any more (Other M) or late-cycle design shifts that caused some internal ruffling (Destiny - which ended up being a fantastic game anyway).
"Halfway done" is a stretch, from my understanding, but yes.
I respect the hell out of Yuji Naka otherwise for his efforts, his achievements and his ability, but Sonic Xtreme didn't need another big setback like that. In a jarringly-literal sense, people very nearly worked themselves to death trying to make that game happen.
To make matters even worse, I don't think a single iteration of it that was shown looked like a particularly good idea of a Sonic game - but at least the "fisheye" version that was discovered somewhat-recently has engine features that were impressive at the time (voxel-based levels on Saturn hardware).
From what I've read, I think a substantial part of the issue was that Naka was himself being mistreated by management, and not being given the opportunities a senior employee should simply because company policy at the time mandated a college degree for eligibility (something he didn't have, because he entered the work force as a self-taught programmer straight out of high school - which is pretty damn impressive considering that this was in the early 80's). He probably viewed the passing along of his engine as more of a personal slight against him from management.
Most of the time, what's perceived as such is primarily just a series of quite-substantial issues popping up at the worst possible moments, or something careening toward disaster due to mismanagement (highly likely for both Scalebound and Mighty No. 9), or people that have no idea what they're doing any more (Other M) or late-cycle design shifts that caused some internal ruffling (Destiny - which ended up being a fantastic game anyway).
"Halfway done" is a stretch, from my understanding, but yes.
I respect the hell out of Yuji Naka otherwise for his efforts, his achievements and his ability, but Sonic Xtreme didn't need another big setback like that. In a jarringly-literal sense, people very nearly worked themselves to death trying to make that game happen.
To make matters even worse, I don't think a single iteration of it that was shown looked like a particularly good idea of a Sonic game - but at least the "fisheye" version that was discovered somewhat-recently has engine features that were impressive at the time (voxel-based levels on Saturn hardware).
From what I've read, I think a substantial part of the issue was that Naka was himself being mistreated by management, and not being given the opportunities a senior employee should simply because company policy at the time mandated a college degree for eligibility (something he didn't have, because he entered the work force as a self-taught programmer straight out of high school - which is pretty damn impressive considering that this was in the early 80's). He probably viewed the passing along of his engine as more of a personal slight against him from management.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Yeah, that was really, really bad
I think what MS allegedly did to Scalebound and the Phantom Dust reboot should count. Intentionally setting impossible tasks and deadlines with impossible budgets, trying to change what the games were at their core midway through development... If those allegations are accurate about them doing those things to break out of their contracts with the devs, then that's absolutely sabotage.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Were those deliberate, though?
Killer Queen
Banned
Will never not want this game
The Hermit
Member
Marvel is most definitely responsible for the glaring omissions on their side and one could argue that they dictated the art style & lack of classic themes for the Marvel side, but that's really it.
On-topic, I'd mention MGSV, but you guys beat me to the punch.
Square Enix was up to their old tricks last summer when they ordered Eidos Montréal to shoehorn microtransactions into Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at the last minute. Not sabotage in the sense that they intentionally ruined a game, but the effect was as if they had. And then they compounded things by using the low sales numbers -- caused in part by their nonsense -- to justify indefinitely delaying an already-in-production sequel that MD's story basically requires.
grosvenor_92
Member
I wish Human Head could recreate what they had and just slap a different name on it so it actually sees the light of day. It looked awesome
captainraincoat
Banned
Ermn i know people are pretty raw about this still but i would much rather not play anything than play a polished turd
Take some balls to cancel a title that had so much exposure when other titles seem to slip through the keeper and get released.
ProgenitorCastle
Banned
Although I don't know the specifics behind the development of the game, from both parties (PlatinumGames and Microsoft), I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Microsoft fucked around with PlatinumGames during the development of Scalebound. Things like possibly pressuring them to a design-by-committee approach to developing it as opposed to the typical way PlatinumGames usually designs their games, possible milestone-abuse on Microsoft's part to sabotage PlatinumGames' development of the game (which if true, I'd feel especially bad for PlatinumGames since to my knowledge, that was their most ambitious game to date, scope-wise, budget-wise, and/or creative-wise...as if it already wasn't hard enough on PlatinumGames' end :[ ) Things presumably got bad enough that Microsoft felt the need to straight-up cancel the game unfortunately...it's still beyond me why they wouldn't have even tried to make at least some of the money back spent on it's development by still sticking to the game and releasing it...*sighs*
NeoGAF arch-villain, Too Human huckster and all around giant douchebag Denis Dyack purposely sabotaging X-Men: Destiny to drain more money out of Activision, all the while funneling money and manpower into a side project (rumored to be Eternal Darkness 2 but more likely to be Too Human 2: 2 Human 2 Too).
Care to give an actual example?
shawnbuddy
Member
There was a crowdfunded porn game, Breeding Season, where one developer literally stripped his art assets out of the game, killing it. Guru Larry had a video about it.
pixelpatr0n
Banned
Seth Luisi pretty much killed Zipper Interactive. Forcing 3D and motion controls and demanding more time spent on single player while not focusing on MP. Don't even get me started on Socom: Confrontation. 😡