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Layoffs at Ghost Games UK, unannounced NFS title put on hold
- Thread starter Quentyn
- Start date
velociraptor
Junior Member
Fucking sucks. Does Criterion still exist? It's sad that EA is gutting all the top developers in the industry.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Don't bring this stuff here.
From what I understand, after Need for Speed Most Wanted, 80% (70 people) of Criterion Games became Ghost Games UK whilst the rest of Crtitrieon Games (17 people) would focus on smaller games.
Not too long ago Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry left Criterion Games to form their own studio and now we have these layoffs at Ghost Games UK.
Long story short, Criterion/Ghost Games staff are all over the place and no longer working under the same roof. We'll never get another Burnout game.
FUCK YOU EA!
Not too long ago Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry left Criterion Games to form their own studio and now we have these layoffs at Ghost Games UK.
Long story short, Criterion/Ghost Games staff are all over the place and no longer working under the same roof. We'll never get another Burnout game.
FUCK YOU EA!
For now yes. There are still 20 or so people at Criterion working on a new IP.
funkystudent
Member
So when was the point Need 4 Speed stopped being the guaranteed success it once was?
It was the unstoppable COD level juggernaut of the latter half of the ps2 gen / early 360/ps3 gen.
Was it Pro Street?
It was the unstoppable COD level juggernaut of the latter half of the ps2 gen / early 360/ps3 gen.
Was it Pro Street?
I think the series go up and down multiple times, it went unpopular after High Stakes then popular again with Underground then died Carbon and got resurrected again with the new Hot Pursuit just to lose its steam again with Rivals.
they need to let fans breath annual releases is not good for it.
It should be important to point out the differences in corporate culture between companies. It allows some perspective of what we're dealing with and shows that yes, there can be alternatives to laying off what the company thinks is underproductive staff. Lets be frank, EA's corporate culture has always been to layoff and cut employees before attacking Executive pay. This is just another instance of that.
SneakyStephan
Banned
This will happen to dice as well the moment their franchise drops in popularity after they release a dead space3/rivals equivalent game
EA claims another victim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SPMmE04NB8E
EA claims another victim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SPMmE04NB8E
Cool, now they can go work for Alex Ward again.
Most Wanted wasn't as popular as Hot Pursuit I don't think. I think The Run is where it started losing steam again.
Most Wanted wasn't as popular as Hot Pursuit I don't think. I think The Run is where it started losing steam again.
SolidSnakex
Member
ProStreet did pretty poorly, but Undercover was next and it actually did quite well (over 5m) even though it was generally considered to be mediocre.
I liked Pro Street. :-(
AHA-Lambda
Member
I thought rivals did well?
what is happening with nfs then? weren't ghost games in charge of it?
what is happening with nfs then? weren't ghost games in charge of it?
dragonbane
Member
And they even disguised it by moving them to a new studio first that no one knows before firing them. Sneaky bastards!
Another one bites the dust.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Rivals is a racing game that runs at 30fps. I'd rather be forced to play BF4 for all eternity than deal with that.
Visualante2
Member
AHA-Lambda
Member
Totalbiscuit?
modders managed to unlock the 30FPS limit long ago. and without speeding up the game
You can play at 60fps now, but you need a pretty beefy rig to do it, especially maxed. I can't.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
It messes up the physics though, so still not a viable option. And it's not an option for the consoles. The game isn't winning any graphics awards so I don't know why it's capped at 30 on next gen hardware.
I'd guess for parity between the two consoles. The Xbone version's running at 1080p, I'm sure that means sacrifices had to be made.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
But the context is not exactly the same or equiparable. As Nintendo es both publisher, Harware manufacture and the reason of the salary cuts is not with the same intent as EA.
Bring it here is tangential at the discussion at hand. But feel free of do a thread about it and look te responses.
SneakyStephan
Banned
You really can't, the second the game has any slowdown the ingame time slows down, and it WILL slow down because frostbite seems to be a garbage engine for racing games (remember the endless microstutter in most wanted reboot as well?)
Most Wanted wasn't done on Frostbite.
Paladin CL
Member
Seriously, EA need to die, they have no idea what they are doing with racing games:
They are blocking Porsche license for everyone.
They had 2 racing franchises to sell, Need for Speed and Burnout. They put Black Box on a death march to release a game per year under lots of stress and pressure, obviously the quality decreased, then to fix it they made Criterion stop making Burnout to make NFS, they got Slightly Mad to help with the sim department (Shift)
Now they kicked Slight Mad, put pressure on Criterion, divide the studio and still put Ghost under a death march, lowering the quality once more.
So, from 2 good racing franchises and a possible Third (Shift) they end with just one and its crumbling.
Good job EA.
I hope Bioware and Dice can escape from EA and then I want to see this company crash and burn, too many good developers have been ruined by them.
They are blocking Porsche license for everyone.
They had 2 racing franchises to sell, Need for Speed and Burnout. They put Black Box on a death march to release a game per year under lots of stress and pressure, obviously the quality decreased, then to fix it they made Criterion stop making Burnout to make NFS, they got Slightly Mad to help with the sim department (Shift)
Now they kicked Slight Mad, put pressure on Criterion, divide the studio and still put Ghost under a death march, lowering the quality once more.
So, from 2 good racing franchises and a possible Third (Shift) they end with just one and its crumbling.
Good job EA.
I hope Bioware and Dice can escape from EA and then I want to see this company crash and burn, too many good developers have been ruined by them.
SolidSnakex
Member
When the split happened it sounded like the people that stayed at Criterion wanted to do something other than racing games, while the people that left wanted to continue making them. Most of the studio obviously split off since only 17 people stayed at Criterion. It'd be pretty shitty if all along EA was planning on basically killing the studio once Rivals shipped.
block tower
Member
Another one bites the dust.
this is too accurate lol.
That's what I mean - Ghost is clearly EA's racing team, Criterion are downsizing to prototype some new stuff, and Ghost UK were brought in as all but contractors to help finish Rivals otherwise most would've just been let go between the two 'new' studios.
I'm not saying the plan all along was to kill them straight off, as we'll likely never know that, just that they were likely just temporary help while Ghost got up and running. Luckily there are still plenty of racing teams in the UK that the talent can look to.
BumblebeeCody
Member
Another one bites the dust.
How effing true and depressing. Also, Criterion is on there in some form. As well as the team who made Skate.
Not unexpected, Rivals was even worse than the new Most Wanted. I don't know what went wrong with Criterion/Ghost, they should've just made another Hot Pursuit with a different environment instead of messing with the series in new ways. Rivals was the only racer on PS4, a launch title and still couldn't move a lot of units despite the 4 million users.
Too bad so few people seem to get how "evil" EA is. They truly deserved their worst company for 02 years in a row.
Alex Ward claimed the split into Ghost Games and Criterion Zero was because the Ghost Games UK people wanted to do a new Need for Speed and the Criterion Zero people wanted to do something else. The something else is still coming.
SolidSnakex
Member
Hot Pursuit was a great mix of both. It did take place in an open world, but selecting an event to race in would drop you into a closed section of a track. So, you were going to be taking the exact path that Criterion wanted you to take. There were some shortcuts along the way as well, but you couldn't get t-boned into a wrong route or miss a turn because the map updated too slowly. In HP I actually tried to beat the times of people on my Friends list, while I never even bothered with it in MW or Rivals. There's just too much unpredictability in open world racers for me to care about setting fast times. And then its worse once you introduce performance upgrades. There was NOS in HP, but everyone had that and it was more about how you used it more than anything else.
Shame, Rivals was fun although had some absurd design decisions. The lack of a proper multiplayer for starters.
The best part of Hot Pursuit was the big Cops vs Racers Hot Pursuits online. Why would you remove that.
As much as I want to believe that I'm sure the reasoning was more along the lines of "We're making a NFS studio and shrinking Criterion. Pick who is staying at Criterion, offer a lot of the others a job at Ghost, fire the rest and anyone who rejects the Ghost offer." Because that's how big companies like that work.
The best part of Hot Pursuit was the big Cops vs Racers Hot Pursuits online. Why would you remove that.
As much as I want to believe that I'm sure the reasoning was more along the lines of "We're making a NFS studio and shrinking Criterion. Pick who is staying at Criterion, offer a lot of the others a job at Ghost, fire the rest and anyone who rejects the Ghost offer." Because that's how big companies like that work.
Duxxy3
Member
Hot pursuit was the last NFS game that I actually bought. Still sits on my shelf, and I still pop it once a year to try and beat my friends records.
I believe it is the capital of Cuba
The reason I didn't buy Rivals was the previous game was a disaster and burned the franchise for me.
I had high hopes for what Ghost would put out before knowing most of its developers were in the new studio.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Should have known Ghost was a sinking ship when people starting leaving a month or so ago. All the signs were there...
Such a shame to see Criterion go out like this. Hurts just as much as when Acti shuttered Bizarre or when Sony shuttered Studio Liverpool...
Such a shame to see Criterion go out like this. Hurts just as much as when Acti shuttered Bizarre or when Sony shuttered Studio Liverpool...
Methamatics101
Member
This. Seriously, EA. Don't fucking bother otherwise.
Need for Speed is the only remaining franchise I still somewhat care about from them, and if they are insisting on continuing with the Burnout approach, I'm done.
SolidSnakex
Member
Yeah, Hot Pursuit is one of my favorite racing games ever, while I felt that Rivals and MW were a step back from that. HP exceeded in mostly just being a pure racing game. Yes, you still had some pursuit tech, but it seemed much more focused than the other games. I think the open world is the biggest problem with the other games. That's one reason why i'm happy that Evolution decided to just make a course based racer with DRIVECLUB instead of doing the trendy thing which is to make an open world racer.
Smaller studios need to be careful working with EA, they are haphazard and very quick to leave studios in the shit as soon as they feel like it, or as soon as things don't go their optimal way. I've read other similar stories like this, and even a friend of mine who worked at a studio that used to have its games published by EA, also had its relationship unceremoniously canned, which left them is a seriously precarious financial position.