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Insider Gaming: Everybody who played Respawn's cancelled Mandaloria game thinks it's fantastic

But EA felt like the game was too much of a financial risk and has decided to pull the plug.

First, it should be said that by all accounts this game was fantastic – and that isn’t just coming from the developers, but from everybody who had the opportunity to play the game. Feedback from playtests was always positive and surrounded by buzz, with the developers enjoying the entire process of working on the project. That being said, for whatever reason, EA felt like the game was too much of a financial risk and has decided to pull the plug.

More details about the game in the article.

 

Kumomeme

Member
The Child D GIF by Disney+
 

Ozzie666

Member
With the movie coming out etc, this seems like a poor decision. Yes it lost some steam, but it's been some of the best received star wars for a while. Grogu is still a draw for the cuteness. A nice little world they could have played in with so many rich characters. . Sounds like it would have sold well enough?

Haven't been this disappionted since Robotech N64 was cancelled, I bet this game was way better.
 

Perrott

Gold Member
That’s unfortunate and I am surprised EA did this, unless Disney was charging too much and dev was going to stretch several more years.
Yeah, looking at how big Disney's share of the revenues was in the case of Sony's Spider-Man games, I wonder about the economics of these sort of licensing deals when we're talking about 200M projects from third-party publishers that don't get to benefit from that extra 30% cut that platform holders such as Sony get for owning the storefront where the game is sold.

I could totally see how the numbers don't add up.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Lol, those guys got fired from Activision, left and formed Respawn, and then got bought by EA. Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

And yet they’re achieving tremendous success right where they are.
Their Jedi games have been solid successes and Apex legends is a significant hit.

They greenlit two Jedi games starring the ginger kid from Shameless but a fucking Mandalorian game is too risky lmao

No Mando, no KOTOR remake, no Rogue Squadron reboot, no 1313, no Pod Racer

because of WOKE

At this point I’m convinced much of the anti-woke crowd are just on the same spectrum of weird. Because where’s the sense in this?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Assuming what’s written is true, that’s business.

Just because a product is good it just might not sell well or it just costs too much.

No different than my company. I’ve been hearing for 3 years about a certain line of products that supposed to be awesome. Marketing say it’s awesome, customer focus groups say so too. Marketing already has professionally made promotional videos made.

Nada.

Can’t get the costs down enough to make worth launching as the selling price would be way too high.

Last time I heard marketing is still working with the labs to try to get costs down. Who the fuck knows. Maybe I’ll see another internal promo vid later this year for the fourth year in a row. Lol
 
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ProtoByte

Member
They greenlit two Jedi games starring the ginger kid from Shameless but a fucking Mandalorian game is too risky lmao

No Mando, no KOTOR remake, no Rogue Squadron reboot, no 1313, no Pod Racer
I'm guessing the change in calculus here is Disney's increased license fees. Which they should check themselves on if they want anyone to pick up their shit going into next gen.

because of WOKE
As has been pointed out already, nah. And I've got no time for woke.

Yeah i'd expect a third person jedi game to be pretty safe
It's the safest thing you can do, and it hasn't even been done that often. Jedi and Sith are the defining characters of Star Wars.
 

CamHostage

Member
Reskin everything that resembles SW property in the game and make a new IP then.

That might happen. Depends though how the accounting worked, if they're taking a loss or is LucasArts funded it at all or owns any registered elements. (I don't think either is the case. ) It also depends if EA actually wants it as a new ip (they haven't committed to a brand new title in ages, outside of the copub EA Originals. ) And the skinning might be easier said than done. For now, it's canned, but maybe they can pick up the pieces.
 
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CamHostage

Member
With the movie coming out etc, this seems like a poor decision. Yes it lost some steam, but it's been some of the best received star wars for a while. Grogu is still a draw for the cuteness.

Supposedly, it was a game about a Mandalorian, not the Mandalorian. As in, no Din Djarin, no Grogu; different timeline.
 
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EA have no idea how to handle Respawn games. They released Titanfall 2 (one of the best FPS games of last generation) at the worst possible times and didn't make as much as they expected on it.

They're probably thinking that the risk is too high financially but it probably isn't, provided they release the game at the right time and not between COD and Battlefield. Fools.
 
I fully understand when you lay off people because a game just does not work out, eg Suicide Squad probably should have been stopped halfway through development, restarting with a whole different approach or rather with something entirely else, but just canceling stuff left and right because reasons, to get an arbitrary 10-20% cost cutting without any actual goal, is just pure dumbassery.
Especially weird with the SW IP, which seems to only be used for remasters and various prototypes, which people seem to generally like, but won't be finalised anyway. SW and Bond too are just mismanaged in the gaming space and I have no idea why companies even pay for rights when they do nothing or very little with it.
 

Hudo

Member
How the fuck can a Star Wars FPS by Respawn be a risk? In comparison, the Star Wars: Jedi games were much more of a risk.

That being said, I'd hoped they'd be working on Imperial Commando and not a Mandalorian game...
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
How the fuck can a Star Wars FPS by Respawn be a risk?

Maybe it's a single player game that they think would sell 10m copies and be a huge hit, but after paying royalties out for the license and to platform holders, the cost to produce and advertise the game might be unlikely to be covered.

All the talk of crazy budgets, licenses and break even points plus the high profile failure of a licensed product from a proven studio recently would seem to point to video games being harder to make a profit on than has been regularly assumed.
 
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Hudo

Member
In terms of Star Wars, I just want two things:

1) Imperial Commando
2) A Sith action game
 

Embearded

Member
That might happen. Depends though how the accounting worked, if they're taking a loss or is LucasArts funded it at all or owns any registered elements. (I don't think either is the case. ) It also depends if EA actually wants it as a new ip (they haven't committed to a brand new title in ages, outside of the copub EA Originals. ) And the skinning might be easier said than done. For now, it's canned, but maybe they can pick up the pieces.

It most definitely is easier said than done, I won't argue there.
Let's hope then can reuse most of it for future projects because its a shame if everything is thrown in the garbage bin.
 

Mephisto40

Member
In other words, they play tested it with Mandalorian TV show fanboys who raved about it, but when they tested it with normal people they didn't get the same response
 

stickkidsam

Member
At this point I’m convinced much of the anti-woke crowd are just on the same spectrum of weird. Because where’s the sense in this?
While I think there’s more to this than the wonders of WOKE, I think I get what they’re saying.

Star Wars as a brand has been impacted by woke (i.e. identity politicss) pandering continuously since Disney took over. Years of inflammatory politics would damage any IP. Executives may just not feel Star Wars is a safe bet anymore. I mean they announced Ray was returning to a crowd of crickets lol
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
Star Wars dosent sell anymore ... is a dying brand with a hurt scattered fanbase, they ""probably"" saw the declining numbers from the shows, the sales numbers from their last SW game and the brand recognition as whole and decided that the remaining investment was not worth it... specially now that there's a civil law suite involving gina/musk ... and rumors about a disney sale/takeover ... who knows wtf will happen. When the game was greenlighted things weren't good but now they are disastrous for lucasfilm and this reflects on products attached to the brand as a whole.

5-10 years ago this game would not have been canceled... but now ? Yeah.. I can easily see it.
 

midnightAI

Member
While I think there’s more to this than the wonders of WOKE, I think I get what they’re saying.

Star Wars as a brand has been impacted by woke (i.e. identity politicss) pandering continuously since Disney took over. Years of inflammatory politics would damage any IP. Executives may just not feel Star Wars is a safe bet anymore. I mean they announced Ray was returning to a crowd of crickets lol
Did I miss something about Star Wars being 'woke'? Sure, the new ones by Disney have their issues and Disney has certainly gone to the extreme with other franchises and remakes, but I don't really see it in the Star Wars films?
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
Did I miss something about Star Wars being 'woke'? Sure, the new ones by Disney have their issues and Disney has certainly gone to the extreme with other franchises and remakes, but I don't really see it in the Star Wars films?
Is about the new movies and disney star wars.. is not about the OG and Prequels

And I dont even think that wokenees is the real problem with star wars.. is Kathleen Kenedy (a extreme feminist) and her absolutely hate for the male fanbase and probably I would bet man in general .. her will to turn Star Wars into a girls franchise at the cost of legacy characters simple didnt work ... and she has been doubling down ever since .. """supposedly""" she has a "cant be fired" 10 year contrat, a clause that Jorge lucas demanded, and has to complete her contract that was renewed after the first one.
 
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Was Disney asking too much for this? Possibly. But I liked Titanfall 2 campaign so they definitely know how to do good SP games. But yeah they probably should use their own IPs (or create new ones) instead of using Disney's expensive IPs. No much success lately in those Disney movies...Geez I wonder why.
 
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Hudo

Member
When it's not THE Mandalorian but some new original character made up for the game. No different than a new IP like Immortals.
Fair enough. To be honest, I am not a fan of the series (Mandalorian) anyway, so my interest in a Mandalorian game was near to zero. But I thought that the IP had some pull since many people seem to like the series.
 

Gojiira

Member
With the movie coming out etc, this seems like a poor decision. Yes it lost some steam, but it's been some of the best received star wars for a while. Grogu is still a draw for the cuteness. A nice little world they could have played in with so many rich characters. . Sounds like it would have sold well enough?

Haven't been this disappionted since Robotech N64 was cancelled, I bet this game was way better.
Doubtful,highly doubtful, Only Mando season 1 was reviewed well after that it lost viewership and ratings as it became the ‘Everybody Else….+ Mando’ show…I really dont think Mando is popular enough at this point to be considered a safe bet, and the movie is going to flop hard.
 
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