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IGN: ~50 Layoffs at Sony Santa Monica, Project Canceled [Up2: Was Stig's New IP]

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SSReborn

Member
Maybe in order to take GOW to the next level you need new blood? I don't know.

Personally, I have zero interest in GOW. :(

I could more likely see a situation where they brought Cory on and he wanted to make a new ip but Stig had a team working on a new ip as well. The studio head basically saw two new ip's as risky and decided to cut one and have the second team double down on GOW.

This is all speculation and based solely on the possibility that GOW is being made, or at least planned.
 

FiggyCal

Banned
But they moved to their new studio, away from Santa Monica to Playa Vista, even released a youtube video showing how awesome it is to work at their studio. What's going on?

The decision to cancel the project probably led the downsizing and not the other way around.
 

beril

Member
Why?????

Do you really think that Sony, the company that said very loud "WE USE OUR MONEY TO POWER UP OUR STUDIOS, NOT TO MONEYHAT EXCLUSIVES" are gonna fire talented people that could weaken their internal studios????

Like people said here, nobody cancels a 4-year developement game without a good reason.

Yes because that's exactly what they just did, because they were running out of money to power up their studios most likely
 

Fezan

Member
Also when was it confirmed Cory Barlog was making a GOW?

The way it seemed from the post he made on the PS Blog was that the game he intends to make is a new IP at least to me. I don't really see why a special "Ocean’s 11" type team needs to be formed for a GOW game when all the talent from that series should already be there.



I thought this for a while as well with the little info we knew about the SSM game I always pictured it being very similar to Destiny.

Same thing happned with 8 days according to shu.

It was Stig's new IP? I wonder why :(

Looks like its less to do with the quality of new ip but more with budget and settings like 8 days.
Stig,s new ip went over budget which would have been difficult to recoup back and setting (scifi from shinobi twitter )and gameplay (open world vehicle fps from job posting )sounds very similar to destiny.
 

Mexi

Banned
I wouldn't be surprised to see Driveclub cancelled at this point. We know about as much about DC as we did this new IP.

As far as i know, there are rumors saying that it will be showed at GDC with the Virtual Reality Headset but yeah, it could have been cancelled too.
 

Corto

Member
This made me remember of The Getaway and Eight Days cancelation/put on hold. At least this game wasn't officially announced before.
 

Chamber

love on your sleeve
It's more of going forward. I always liked that Sony made a shitload of new IP's, but my fear is that like allmost every other dev out we mostly will get updates of existing franchises. Maybe I couldn't be more wrong and you people can point that out for sure, but I rather not be called a troll! That was the gist of my previous post. Anyway this is getting OT.

Going forward, the only announced SCE published sequels coming up are Infamous: Second Son, MLB The Show '14, Uncharted and Shadow of the Beast if you want to count that. There's a reason some of us are laughing at the new IP whining.

Did some of you actually think Sony was going to stop making God of War and Uncharted coming into this generation?
 

TyrantII

Member
So, they are closing stores to maintain competitiveness, seems logical to me.

Yup, they way over extended themselves when LCD's were hot ticket items and they were still a premium brand. Besides a few middle range and mom and pop stores, there was no where else to demo their better LCD and LCOS lineups.

That boat has sailed and they soon might be out of the TV biz. No need for a ton of brand stores, not in the numbers they had at least.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Awww, damn it, the canned project was going to be a Sci-Fi game? Crap. :-(

The decision to cancel the project probably led the downsizing and not the other way around.

Haven't followed the thread so far, but isn't it odd to fire talented staff because their project got canned? Can't they "just" put them on a new or another project? Other Sony studios seem to be hiring after all.
 
The decision to cancel the project probably led the downsizing and not the other way around.

I agree. Sounds like for whatever radio sony decided not to proceed with the game and cut the team loose after they decided to cancel the game. Sucks, but that is the nature of the beast, I suppose.
 

Chamber

love on your sleeve
I was hoping for that, yes.

Obviously a lot of you were but that's not the question I asked, playboy.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Driveclub cancelled at this point. We know about as much about DC as we did this new IP.

Well, Driveclub actually has a name rather than "Unannounced new IP from the director of God of War 3". I wonder if any of you were trashing Evolution for not making another Motorstorm because DC "looked like Gran Turismo".
 

Freeman

Banned
That is where all the secrecy in the game industry really doesn't pay off. The thing never even saw the light of day. I was understanding of PS4's underwhelming launch lineup because they kept hyping secret projects and expanding studios, specially SSM. Who is to say Guerrilla or some other studio new IP won't be shut down too? With PS4 market share growth internal development shouldn't be getting smaller.
 
I wasn't talking about profitability, just talent.

Wasn't Liverpool profitable too?

Im gonna guess no. Wipeout sold less and less with every game and it was the only franchise they made for years. They tried to do new IP's but they just seem to strand in early alpha and concept stages.

Yosp didnt close BigBig,Zipper and Liverpool for shits and giggles, we only see this from a gamers perspective never from the financial one. Yes it sucks that Liverpool got shutdown but we had no clue of the studio's financial state.
 

StuBurns

Banned
That is where all the secrecy in the game industry really doesn't pay off. The thing never even saw the light of day. I was understanding of PS4's underwhelming launch lineup because they kept hyping secret projects and expanding studios, specially SSM. Who is to say Guerrilla or some other studio new IP won't be shut down too? With PS4 market share growth internal development shouldn't be getting smaller.
Ideally you shouldn't be buying a console on the hope of a completely unannounced project being released. You shouldn't even be buying a console based on games announced given last generation's holy trilogy of FF Versus XIII, The Last Guardian and Agent.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
That is where all the secrecy in the game industry really doesn't pay off. The thing never even saw the light of day. I was understanding of PS4's underwhelming launch lineup because they kept hyping secret projects and expanding studios, specially SSM. Who is to say Guerrilla or some other studio new IP won't be shut down too? With PS4 market share growth internal development shouldn't be getting smaller.
This studio is still hiring and moving to a new office this summer. Why the people were let go after the cancelation is still a mystery but this studio is still growing.
 

jayu26

Member
That is where all the secrecy in the game industry really doesn't pay off. The thing never even saw the light of day. I was understanding of PS4's underwhelming launch lineup because they kept hyping secret projects and expanding studios, specially SSM. Who is to say Guerrilla or some other studio new IP won't be shut down too? With PS4 market share growth internal development shouldn't be getting smaller.
Are you saying that The Last Guardian situation is better? SSM did not hype anything, I don't think they have ever acknowledged that this game existed.
 
I wasn't talking about profitability, just talent.

Wasn't Liverpool profitable too?

Your team can have all the talent in the world but if they not bringing out anything there useless.
At the end of the day profitability matters more than talent it's sad but the way it is .

As for Liverpool they used to make F1 games and Sony gave that up and wipeout failed.
Then Sony bought Evolution so they had 2 racing teams and they merge them under Evolution name with some getting fired or leaving .
 

PJV3

Member
This made me remember of The Getaway and Eight Days cancelation/put on hold. At least this game wasn't officially announced before.

Yeah that's been running through my mind, it was gutting to see next gen London and then see it scrapped.
 

FiggyCal

Banned
Awww, damn it, the canned project was going to be a Sci-Fi game? Crap. :-(



Haven't followed the thread so far, but isn't it odd to fire talented staff because their project got canned? Can't they "just" put them on a new or another project? Other Sony studios seem to be hiring after all.


My other theory was that they were letting people go to make room for new talent:

c4MxwbM.png
 

viveks86

Member
I wouldn't be surprised to see Driveclub cancelled at this point. We know about as much about DC as we did this new IP.

Wish I were Kaz, so I could play all the cancelled games! ;)

To clear his mind, Hirai likes driving his sports car with the top down. When he’s not on the road, he still prefers the driver’s seat, playing videogames like “Driveclub” and “Grand Turismo” on Sony’s PlayStation. “As you can tell,” he says, “I love cars.”
 

Arion

Member
This may be because of the hype Destiny and Titanfall is getting. If the new sci-fi IP wasn't as good as those two it would make sense to cancel it since its bound for failiure.

I would really prefer it was otherwise since GoW dosen't interest me in the least anymore.
 

Corto

Member
Going forward, the only announced SCE published sequels coming up are Infamous: Second Son, MLB The Show '14, Uncharted and Shadow of the Beast if you want to count that. There's a reason some of us are laughing at the new IP whining.

Did some of you actually think Sony was going to stop making God of War and Uncharted coming into this generation?

Sony should hope for that too. Audiences can show saturation over time. Even if the content keeps its high quality. This is normal to happen in every form of entertainment. It's a very fine balance between recognizable and well known IPs with a regular release of new ones that in turn can become a series. Iterations/sequels are not inherently bad, they can turn a good first game into a staple series (ie. Uncharted) but a The Last of Us is much needed now and then to keep the audience interest high. And don't forget that creative teams can also burnout if working on the same thing for years. It's reasonable to think that SSM as a team, while loving the work they've done on God of War games also wants/needs to make new games, new stories and characters to keep the team motivated.
 

injurai

Banned
This may be because of the hype Destiny and Titanfall is getting. If the new sci-fi IP wasn't as good as those two it would make sense to cancel it since its bound for failiure.

I would really prefer it was otherwise since GoW dosen't interest me in the least anymore.

They had KZSF so I'm not sure if it was an FPS. But I do think they likely cancelled it because it wasn't going differentiate itself from the 3rd Party fodder.
 
This studio is still hiring and moving to a new office this summer. Why the people were let go after the cancelation is still a mystery but this studio is still growing.
Are you sure? Perhaps they stop now that Barlog has a full team and the positions for open world designers etc. are not longer needed. This decision looks like it was made pretty late. Hell, they even privated their studio tour video on YT where employees praise the studio. HR department probably still needs to update the website and stuff.
 

SSReborn

Member
That is where all the secrecy in the game industry really doesn't pay off. The thing never even saw the light of day. I was understanding of PS4's underwhelming launch lineup because they kept hyping secret projects and expanding studios, specially SSM. Who is to say Guerrilla or some other studio new IP won't be shut down too? With PS4 market share growth internal development shouldn't be getting smaller.

I don't think secrecy itself is the issue, the alternative would've been a game we saw that got scrapped. Something like eight days comes to mind. Its more an issue when they aren't doing a good job of keeping things under wraps. We should've never known the details with regards to what got scrapped.
 
If that was the case then why not simply close the whole studio instead of keeping 190 employees in it...?

Because someone still has to make GOW 4 and maybe also a new IP.
The problem could be the simple grew to big also if they want some new talent the old ones have to go .
 

beril

Member
This studio is still hiring and moving to a new office this summer. Why the people were let go after the cancelation is still a mystery but this studio is still growing.

The move was planned ages ago and the game game just got canned the other day, so they can't really change that. Not immediately updating their website to remove job listing's is also not the same thing as hiring. Unless you have proof otherwise I seriously doubt they'll be hiring people in the near future.
 

FStop7

Banned
My other theory was that they were letting people go to make room for new talent:

c4MxwbM.png

Companies always say they're hiring, publicly reaching out like that makes them look good. And they may have actually been hiring, anyway - a lot of the time hiring managers aren't high enough on the totem pole to know about impending layoffs.
 

Corto

Member
thanks for this :) i remember working on the Getaway ...*sigh so damn good.

Sorry for bringing bad memories, but I remember some trailers with great looking scenes. That one was also on a lengthy dev time, yes? 3-4 Years IIRC, before the cancellation?
 

Eric_S

Member
A shame to hear!

Though, In a way. If you are not canceling projects, you aren't taking enough risks. Having people let go is always sad to hear. I hope the best for all involved.
 

Freeman

Banned
Are you saying that The Last Guardian situation is better? SSM did not hype anything, I don't think they have ever acknowledged that this game existed.
Firing a team because one project didn't work, from their flagship studio?

Yoshida said he was too scared to say anything about Sony Santa Monica, maybe I interpreted it in the wrong way.
 

injurai

Banned
A shame to hear!

Though, In a way. If you are not canceling projects, you aren't taking enough risks. Having people let go is always sad to hear. I hope the best for all involved.

Yeah, we know Valve starts and stops tones of experimental projects.

Thing is they don't over hire for them, nor do they cancel them after such a long incubation process.

From our perspective it's seems like a nuke went off over at SSM.
 

george_us

Member
This studio is still hiring and moving to a new office this summer. Why the people were let go after the cancelation is still a mystery but this studio is still growing.
If I had to guess the they probably let go people who's skill set might not have matched what the company as a whole wanted going forward. No clue.
 

Freeman

Banned
Ideally you shouldn't be buying a console on the hope of a completely unannounced project being released. You shouldn't even be buying a console based on games announced given last generation's holy trilogy of FF Versus XIII, The Last Guardian and Agent.
That is why I don't own a PS4. All I need is one game to justify my purchase tho.
 
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