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RIP United Front Games

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
Is the PS4 port of Sleepy Dogs meant to be janky? I own it on 360 & PC already but probably wouldn't sit down to play it on either.
I just finished a main story play through on PS4 a couple of weeks ago after completing it on 360 previously. It's not as smooth/detailed as PC, but still a solid port - and the game itself is awesome.

Pretty bummed about this whole situation.
 
I just finished a main story play through on PS4 a couple of weeks ago after completing it on 360 previously. It's not as smooth/detailed as PC, but still a solid port - and the game itself is awesome.

Pretty bummed about this whole situation.
Sleeping Dogs 2 could happen eventually
Think of all the otherwise insane things that have happened recently in the gaming sphere
TLG actually got announced, alongside Shenmue 3 and Psychonauts 2
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
The problematic assumption you're making here is that this would be profitable.

Well, it's true that they didn't consider Tomb Raider a good enough success either after it sold far more than Sleeping Dogs. But my assumption came with a secondary assumption (yeah, I know) that these games weren't profitable because their development was kinda troubled.

We know the story behind Sleeping Dogs and why that would've had to be a monster success to make its money back all the way, but...are we really at the point where a game under normal circumstances sells 2+ million and it still can't be considered profitable?

Holy fuck this industry is screwed.
 

jmizzal

Member
I dont get this industry sometimes, United Front made a very good big AAA game in Sleeping Dogs and yet no publisher banks them for a new game after.

That makes no sense
 

Alebrije

Member
I dont get this industry sometimes, United Front made a very good big AAA game in Sleeping Dogs and yet no publisher banks them for a new game after.

That makes no sense

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SeanBoocock

Neo Member
Best of luck to everyone at United Front. It is incredibly hard to survive as a "middle sized" independent developer, particularly if you aren't doing work-for-hire jobs to establish some sort of financial baseline outside of publisher backed projects.

You can mitigate risk, and usually the potential upside, by working on lots of smaller projects, or concentrate on one or two larger projects, the cancellation or poor performance of which will endanger the future of the studio.
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
Sleeping Dogs 2 could happen eventually
Think of all the otherwise insane things that have happened recently in the gaming sphere
TLG actually got announced, alongside Shenmue 3 and Psychonauts 2

So what you're saying is that we have to wait at least 10 years or so to get a Sleeping Dogs 2?

Yeah, that's not much consolation.
 

EYEL1NER

Member
Good luck in your future endeavors, UFG employees. Sleeping Dogs was one of my favorite open-world games last gen and replaying the Xbone port was some of the most fun I have had this gen. And I hardly EVER replay games, but Sleeping Dogs was just as fun on the second play.
Really bummer news this is...
 

Revan

Member
No Sleepy Woofs 2?

No more Wei Chen motherfucker?

This...sucks.

Sleeping Dogs was such a fantastic game.

Good luck to all those in the studio. Hope everyone lands somewhere.
 

Darknight

Member
Didnt Dead To Rights 3 turn to Sleeping Dogs?

Maybe the next WatchDogs3 will get scrapped and turned to Sleeping Dog2.

You heard it here first!!
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Well, it's true that they didn't consider Tomb Raider a good enough success either after it sold far more than Sleeping Dogs. But my assumption came with a secondary assumption (yeah, I know) that these games weren't profitable because their development was kinda troubled.

We know the story behind Sleeping Dogs and why that would've had to be a monster success to make its money back all the way, but...are we really at the point where a game under normal circumstances sells 2+ million and it still can't be considered profitable?

Holy fuck this industry is screwed.

There's a reason we see so few AAA $60 games these days...

There's also the catch that these games have to be making a pretty good profit to be worthwhile. You don't want to invest $40+ million to earn $2 million in profit. You'd be much better off just dumping your money in the stock market.

Given the astronomical risk involved in making a game in the failure case, you want some big returns in the success case.
 
Well, it's true that they didn't consider Tomb Raider a good enough success either after it sold far more than Sleeping Dogs. But my assumption came with a secondary assumption (yeah, I know) that these games weren't profitable because their development was kinda troubled.

We know the story behind Sleeping Dogs and why that would've had to be a monster success to make its money back all the way, but...are we really at the point where a game under normal circumstances sells 2+ million and it still can't be considered profitable?

Holy fuck this industry is screwed.

SD came at a time when the industry, specifically the Japanese side, put ludicrous demands in terms of sales for their games. Capcom, for one, wanted far too much for far too little, and ended up fucking themselves for it.

By the time things swung around, which is like in the past few years or so, UFGs was already doing other things or SE simply wasn't interested in a sequel. I'm sure a subpar remaster didn't help chances either.

There's a reason we see so few AAA $60 games these days...

There's also the catch that these games have to be making a pretty good profit to be worthwhile. You don't want to invest $40+ million to earn $2 million in profit. You'd be much better off just dumping your money in the stock market.

Given the astronomical risk involved in making a game in the failure case, you want some big returns in the success case.

Yeah, unless you plan on slicing costs heavily, getting another source of revenue either through DLC or by being games-as-a-service, or some other buffer like taking the hit to establish a franchise, games need to be profitable. They always had to be for the most part, but with rising costs, it's harder and harder to justify ones that aren't big sellers, much less take risks.

I think it's getting better, since who the fuck was going to buy a niche game like Nier 2 but somehow SE is bankrolling it, but it's not a problem solved overnight.
 

Stider

Member
Well, it's true that they didn't consider Tomb Raider a good enough success either after it sold far more than Sleeping Dogs. But my assumption came with a secondary assumption (yeah, I know) that these games weren't profitable because their development was kinda troubled.

We know the story behind Sleeping Dogs and why that would've had to be a monster success to make its money back all the way, but...are we really at the point where a game under normal circumstances sells 2+ million and it still can't be considered profitable?

Holy fuck this industry is screwed.

Agreed, it's why we are seeing so many AAA full price games with micro-transactions. The thing is, with the constant push for better graphics and more detailed games with larger worlds, it also means development costs shoot through the roof. The problem is: games prices haven't really changed. I remember buying brand new SNES and PS1 games for the same price and buying a new game today, and with the rare exceptions(FF7 and 9) I doubt most of them would be anywhere near the cost to produce as current games.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop Look at the years most of the games on this list were produced.
 
This sucks :/ Sleeping Dogs is one of my favorite open world games; shame we probably won't get to see a sequel. Best of luck to everyone from the studio; they're a talented bunch.
 

B00TE

Member
Man, this sucks. Sleeping Dogs was such a fun game, I sold a few friends on it during my initial play through of the 360 version (the friend leaderboard for jump kicks got fierce lol).I hope the team manages to land on their feet, as others have said.
 

Ashtar

Member
Rip to a great dev team, I loved sleeping dogs
Best wishes to all those effected
I need to work on my post about the impending collapse of aaa gaming :(
 

cripterion

Member
Sleeping Dogs was good but i found Smash & Grab awful. Still that's too bad for them.
A lot of people were looking for a sequel to Sleeping Dogs, too bad they didn't work on that.
 
This comes a big shock to me... from what I heard Smash + Grab was a pretty fun game. I missed the free weekend but was planning on picking it up.
 

Omikaru

Member
Well this has bummed me out; Sleeping Dogs was awesome, and it's a shame to see the breakup of the studio responsible for it.

Sending my best wishes to everyone affected by this.
 

MRORANGE

Member
WHAT THE HELL.

Square has a lot to answer for this. They bought the rights for a game a that turned out to be one-off the best games of 2012 and then decided on how squeeze the game into their 'social F2P, game' ideology. When it failed they just decided it was okay to ditch the devs who've probably done more than most of Square's Japanese division.

It's fucking stupid that Square is willing to let go of Wrstern developers who have actually been profitable, makes me worried about how other properties are being handled.

Honestly I stil don't think Square understands how the western markets works.
 

bobbytkc

ADD New Gen Gamer
First game sold two million copies. I don't see the sequel selling less at all, so why are we making excuses for SE?

We just had another thread that says psychonauts needs to sell 2 million copies to break even.

And sleeping dogs, good as it was, sold a lot of copies at rock bottom bargain bin prices.
 
If Square own the Ip you can forget about ever seeing a sequel to sleeping dogs.

It's sad that the first game did not sell that well, but it came too late in the last gen. If it had released between 08 and '10 it would have been a big hit.
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
We just had another thread that says psychonauts needs to sell 2 million copies to break even.

And sleeping dogs, good as it was, sold a lot of copies at rock bottom bargain bin prices.

It hit 1.75 million by the end of the second month it was out. So I'm imagining the copies you're talking about are on top of that. Either way, I get the picture and I'm gradually realizing the way the industry is headed we're going to be stuck with paying $100+ for a game or playing some shitty mobile titles and I'm depressed.
 

t26

Member
It hit 1.75 million by the end of the second month it was out. So I'm imagining the copies you're talking about are on top of that. Either way, I get the picture and I'm gradually realizing the way the industry is headed we're going to be stuck with paying $100+ for a game or playing some shitty mobile titles and I'm depressed.

We gotten some amazing indie games that were made by small teams.
 
MOd nation racers would have been so Greatif it had even half the loading times.

And sleeping dogs was Awesome.

What a shame UFG
 

Ray Down

Banned
It hit 1.75 million by the end of the second month it was out. So I'm imagining the copies you're talking about are on top of that. Either way, I get the picture and I'm gradually realizing the way the industry is headed we're going to be stuck with paying $100+ for a game or playing some shitty mobile titles and I'm depressed.

No it sold 1.75 by March 2013.
 
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