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[Aquamarine]

wasn´t Retro hiring?

I'd love to see Warren Spector at Nintendo / work with Retro for their new project.

Sad to see Specter fall so far. Makes me wonder who the real Warren Specter is, the man who made System Shock, or Disney Schlock?

The video games industry is REALLY damn hard. And a mismanaged team can lead to even the greatest ideas going awry to meet extremely limited budgets and super-tight deadlines.

Those guys probably had a host of problems that prevented EM / EM2 from being great. I wouldn't blame it on Warren Spector's talent.

 

[metalslimer]

Epic Mickey 2 had like 600 people working on it so I can imagine those sales weren't good. Disney seems to be done with that kind of gaming for good now.

 

[Anony]

how does EM1 sell over 1 million on 1 console fail so horribly on 3 consoles in the next iteration

they should have just focused on wii (maybe wii u)

 

[abrack08]

how does EM1 sell over 1 million on 1 console fail so horribly on 3 consoles in the next iteration

they should have just focused on wii (maybe wii u)

I'm guessing a large portion of the people who bought Epic Mickey 1 ended up not liking it and therefore not buying the sequel. Plus mediocre/bad word of mouth and reviews, which hurt the other consoles. Not to mention the demo.

 

[Aquamarine]

Epic Mickey 2 had like 600 people working on it so I can imagine those sales weren't good. Disney seems to be done with that kind of gaming for good now.

Well...

Epic Mickey 2 - two year development schedule

600 people x $55,000 a year salary average x 2 years = $66 million budget.

Let's assume that most of those were contractors and only worked for like 6 months, knocking that down to a $30 million budget estimate ($20 million conservative estimate).

Projected sales = 2 million x $25 = $50 million

Epic Mickey 2 sales = 270,000? (the only figure I could get...assuming it's more)

270,000 x $25 (average that a publisher gets from publishing a Wii game) = $6.75 million.


So that's like $23 million (maximum) in the red for Disney...no wonder the studio got closed down immediately.

 

[Father_Brain]

how does EM1 sell over 1 million on 1 console fail so horribly on 3 consoles in the next iteration

they should have just focused on wii (maybe wii u)

AFAIK, a large majority of EM1's sales were in the first month, which suggests very poor word of mouth.

 

[Kifimbo]

Sad to see Specter fall so far. Makes me wonder who the real Warren Specter is, the man who made System Shock, or Disney Schlock?

Well, some movie directors fall from grace when they get old. Coppola is a great example. Not saying Spector has lost it, would be too harsh and premature.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Actual Epic Mickey 2 sales = 270,000.

270,000 x $25 (average that a developer gets from publishing a Wii game) = $6.75 million.

that figure is not accurate

 

[Aquamarine]

that figure is not accurate

How much does Disney get from an average sale, then?

 

[Doug Heffernan]

I hope he goes back to Deus Ex

 

[Saty]

The 270k copies sold of EM2 is the incorrect figure.

 

[McNum]

I'm guessing a large portion of the people who bought Epic Mickey 1 ended up not liking it and therefore not buying the sequel. Plus mediocre/bad word of mouth and reviews, which hurt the other consoles. Not to mention the demo.

I bought Epic Mickey and expected a fun 3D platformer starring Mickey Mouse wielding a magic paintbrush. I mean that's the obvious thing to do with a game like this, and it sure looked like they had the talent for making one. I got a... I have no idea what that was supposed to be, really. It was all obscure Disney references with so-so platforming and boring combat. It kind of felt like the leftovers from Kingdom Hearts, only less fun. And with a morality system. Because Mickey Mouse SO needs a good/evil meter.

So I didn't buy Epic Mickey 2, because, well, the first wasn't epic at all.

 

[Hero of Legend]

I'd love to see Warren Spector at Nintendo / work with Retro for their new project.



The video games industry is REALLY damn hard. And a mismanaged team can lead to even the greatest ideas going awry to meet extremely limited budgets and super-tight deadlines.

Those guys probably had a host of problems that prevented EM / EM2 from being great. I wouldn't blame it on Warren Spector's talent.

Warren would be epic at Retro, hell a lot of folks who worked at his studios are there, he worked on Ultima right? I keep seeing loads of people with that game at Retro. A few from Ion Storm are there.

 

[Stumpokapow]

How much does Disney get from an average sale, then?

sorry, let me rephrase; the 270,000 figure is not accurate

 

[Aquamarine]

The 270k copies sold of EM2 is the incorrect figure.

Oh, okay. Know what the actual sales are, then?

 

[Derrick01]

hahaha ok

That was publisher interference more than anything. He still made the first game which is the greatest game ever so it's not like he doesn't know how to make one.

 

[jimi_dini]

Epic Mickey 2 apparently missed the mark fairly significantly, sales wise, but still. Hope people land on their feet.

They didn't fix the camera.

They didn't FIX THE CAMERA.

 

[Danielsan]

Sad for all those involved and I hope everyone lands on their feet, but honestly, who didn't see this coming? Pretty much everything regarding Epic Micky, aside from the initial concept art, has been shit.

 

[SnipeyMcGee]

Sucks for those who lost their jobs but, that studio was pretty terrible. Epic Mickey 1 & 2 were both bad games and didn't justify its existence.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Paul Weaver is the guy from Rare I was referring to who's at JP. At Rare he was Lead Designer, at JP he's Studio Director, he'd be a GREAT pick up for Retro!

 

[batman2million]

1 was so bad I'm surprised they actually made 2.

 

[slightconfuse]

so much squandered potential

 

[grandjedi6]

Warren would be epic at Retro, hell a lot of folks who worked at his studios are there, he worked on Ultima right? I keep seeing loads of people with that game at Retro. A few from Ion Storm are there.

Why is Retro suddenly some mystical development studio that everyone under the sun should work at? lol

It's become the development equivalent of people wanting every jobless journalist to go to Giantbomb.

Oh, okay. Know what the actual sales are, then?

Well unless you know someone with access to NPD or Disney's financials, and are willing to tell you, you probably aren't going to get an answer to that one.

 

[SykoTech]

700 people, right? Ouch.

What a waste Epic Mickey turned out to be.

Maybe Warren can convince Nomura to put dat sweet concept art into a KH3 level

That'd be awesome. Might actually be able to do the concept art justice. Not holding my breath though.

 

[Aquamarine]

Well unless you know someone with access to NPD or Disney's financials, and are willing to tell you, you probably aren't going to get an answer to that one.

It's times like these that I wish NPD / GfK would publicly release sales numbers.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Why is Retro suddenly some mystical development studio that everyone under the sun should work at? lol

It's become the development equivalent of people wanting every jobless journalist to go to Giantbomb.


Well unless you know someone with access to NPD or Disney's financials, and are willing to tell you, you probably aren't going to get an answer to that one.

Well Retro's had some of the best consistent track record that I know of, I mean even with four games, all have been critically acclaimed, their output is low, but the wait is always worth it. Plus they're the closest to carrying on Rare's legacy at Nintendo, I mean Rare was unstoppable in their prime.

 

[Sciz]

Between Warren Spector and Chris Taylor's studios vaporizing, Ken Levine's latest game going through development hell, and Peter Molyneux having trouble making anything decent for the last decade, these visionary types don't seem to make for particularly good managers once the teams scale to AAA size.

 

[antonz]

Nintendo would probably be a good fit for Warren. Not going to say retro specifically but Nintendo. Get a solid platformer team setup and partner with Disney for duck tales etc an go wild.

 

[fenners]

700 people, right? Ouch.

There's not 700 people working at Junction Point. Let's knock that on the head. Those quoted numbers of the "number of people who worked on Epic Mickey 2" included large numbers of outsourcers, external QA & contractors at Junction Point. Do you really think JP is larger than Bioware Austin at its peak SWTOR development!?!?!?

 

[Ninja Scooter]

it sucks whenever anyone loses jobs and companies close down, but at the same time, you have a huge amount of resources, and a potentially golden IP to work with, and you produce 2 very mediocre (3 if you count the 3DS one) games and it's hard to not see something like this coming.

 

[Vampirolol]

Epic Mickey was really good to me. They went wrong with the second one. It probably needed a next gen release, not a Wii engine... or at least something really unique.

 

[oconnomiyaki]

This is going to happen more and more. This (next) Gen is going to be a nightmare.

 

[Pikma]

In my opinion going PS3/360/Wii/WiiU/PC is what affected them the most, I mean, there was no need to go that route, it's like De Blob 2 all over again, it's not a good idea, releasing your game in all of the available platforms won't always mean more sales and more $, because 1) the game loses a lot of it's focus and 2) it gets lost in the shuffle.

 

[antonz]

Epic Mickey was really good to me. They went wrong with the second one. It probably needed a next gen release, not a Wii engine... or at least something really unique.

Nah its market was really Nintendo consumers. Just like UDraw was for THQ very much a Nintendo focused property and they still tried to expand it outwards and then suffered for it.

EPM1 had too many flaws that hurt it long term and frankly I don't think 2 received half the advertising that 1 did.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

In my opinion going PS3/360/Wii/WiiU/PC is what affected them the most, I mean, there was no need to go that route, it's like De Blob 2 all over again, it's not a good idea, releasing your game in all of the available platforms won't always mean more sales and more $, because 1) the game loses a lot of it's focus and 2) it gets lost in the shuffle.

so then where would they have gone? Wii was pretty much dead, Wiii U was just coming out and wouldn't have a big enough install base, and making it exclusive to PS3 or 360 really limits their market. You can release games on all platforms and still have them be good and sell really, really well. Developers and publishers do it all the time. I doubt that was EM2's problem. The problem was that it just wasn't very good.

 

[KageMaru]

Sad news. =( Hope everyone lands on their feet soon.

 

[SolidSnakex]

In my opinion going PS3/360/Wii/WiiU/PC is what affected them the most, I mean, there was no need to go that route, it's like De Blob 2 all over again, it's not a good idea, releasing your game in all of the available platforms won't always mean more sales and more $, because 1) the game loses a lot of it's focus and 2) it gets lost in the shuffle.

It probably shouldn't have been on all the HD consoles, but I don't think that's the reason why they may be shutting down. The first game has a 73 Metacritic average. It basically sold off of the pre-release hype. The only way that the second game was going to do well is if it lived up to the hype that the first game had. And I don't think that going multiplatform had anything to do with its eventual quality.

 

[Mikeside]

Warren Spector could now go to Arkane? Man that would be awesome.

Ohhhhhhh.

I'd like to see Chris Avellone work with Arkane

 

[Stumpokapow]

Oh, okay. Know what the actual sales are, then?

without the 3ds version, double that in the us/npd alone

 

[Ridley327]

This will certainly be the least surprising studio closure of the year.

I love Warren, but he needs to stay the fuck away from platformers from now on. He had the backing of Disney and hundreds of staff members, and he still couldn't pull off a decent one with two tries at bat.

 

[antonz]

so then where would they have gone? Wii was pretty much dead, Wiii U was just coming out and wouldn't have a big enough install base, and making it exclusive to PS3 or 360 really limits their market. You can release games on all platforms and still have them be good and sell really, really well. Developers and publishers do it all the time. I doubt that was EM2's problem. The problem was that it just wasn't very good.

Don't agree. The dead Wii Sold more Just Dance 4 in December than the live and well 360 sold Halo 4. The hardcore market is dead on the Wii but the casual is alive and well. Mickey just ruined its reputation after 1 and was treated poorly for 2 by farming it out to a bajillion people to make a ton of versions.

A Wii only EM2 probably would have turned out much better and maybe got more advertising

 

[sacrificengineer]

Good luck to everyone.

I hope Spector won't waste his talent on mobile/social crap and will end up with competent publisher, which Disney Interactive obviously isn't.

 

[Father_Brain]

without the 3ds version, double that in the us/npd alone

Which is still (less than?) half what EM1 sold in about the same timespan, on one-fourth the platforms. So it's not hard to see why Disney wouldn't be happy.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

Don't agree. The dead Wii Sold more Just Dance 4 in December than the live and well 360 sold Halo 4. The hardcore market is dead on the Wii but the casual is alive and well. Mickey just ruined its reputation after 1 and was treated poorly for 2 by farming it out to a bajillion people to make a ton of versions.

A Wii only EM2 probably would have turned out much better and maybe got more advertising

Yeah but none of that matters if you can't produce a good game, and I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe that they would have produced a good, memorable Mickey game. Take Spector's name out of the equation and nobody would have ever cared about the games as little as they did, and they would have been brushed aside as typical license character cash-ins.

 

[Zoe]

Ouch... I still remember the comment that he made on my game design group's final project: that it was either time to put platformers to rest or to revitalize them...

He kept promising to try to show us his super secret Disney project (back in 2007), but that never happened.

 

[Hot Coldman]

I hope he goes back to Deus Ex

Let's not chance Invisible War 2.

 

[Zia]

Would be nice to see Spector going to Valve or Arkane. But, Junction Point is/was a tragedy, and his bullheadedness over serious issues the first game had makes me doubtful he can keep his ego in check to fill a worker bee role at someplace like Valve.

Guess we'll see.

 

[Spierek]

Too bad to hear that (if true). I have to check out the first Epic Mickey soon, though I'm not sure if I'll risk playing the second one.

So with this, Disney is now entirely out of console development?

There's that Disney Infinity thing in the works.

 

[diffusionx]

That was publisher interference more than anything. He still made the first game which is the greatest game ever so it's not like he doesn't know how to make one.

He didn't make the games himself. He has said that over and over (there's an old IGN joke about it). Maybe he just needs that ace team behind him - maybe everybody does.

Apparently EM was this guy's dream job and all we got was two bad-to-mediocre platformers. Must be crushing.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Which is still (less than?) half what EM1 sold in about the same timespan, on one-fourth the platforms. So it's not hard to see why Disney wouldn't be happy.

If I remember correctly, Disney wasn't particularly happy with Epic Mickey 1's sales--I think they were expecting really, really, unrealistically big things from it.

It's also worth noting that Disney made it very clear a few years ago that they have no desire to be making "big" games. They started aggressively buying mobile teams, they've had some big mobile hits (Where's My Water? most notably), they've downsized their console holdings. So Junction Point was already an expensive abberation for their strategy.