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GSC is closed, STALKER 2 cancelled [Up5: GSC: Wait for Up6 in mid-January]

S

specialguy

Banned
ghst said:
C.R.E.E.P.Y.D.U.D.E.I.N.A.T.R.E.N.C.H.C.O.A.T.H.A.N.G.I.N.G.A.R.O.U.N.D.B.Y.T.H.E.B.I.N.S

i'm still blaming consoles; some ukranian oligarch's son is probably getting a kinect for christmas.
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You should probably blame the fact I bet this game was bought 200k times and pirated 10m+.
 
N

Nemo

Will Eat Your Children
1)one of the ukranian law enforcement structure was interested in taking control over GSC (translation - they wanted to capture the company and have their money/control their direction). - edit5: this isn't true.
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Where does it say this isn't true? Is it not some kind of hush up?
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
ghst said:
you should carefully look at how you've worded this, unless you're some consultant want to start getting mailbombs from /v/
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Why did you have to quote that, I have him on ignore for a reason, man (only GAF person I've ignored too). He can't even look at a few rough facts before sprouting such bs, the games have sold over 4 millions total, even divided by 3 that's not close to 200k. Given he said "this game" he probably didn't even know there's been more than one S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in the series and just wanted to quickly write something up at random just to attract attention despite knowing he's 100% clueless... Meh.
 
P

psykomyko

Member
This sucks...

Stalker is my favorite FPS franchise by far. Like some others have said, at least we have Metro 2033 and Last Light, but that doesn't fill the hole that's gonna be left from this.
 
Artofwar420

Artofwar420

Member
What a fucking bummer. Hope that somehow the people land on their feet and continue developing awesome stuff.

Or that this whole thing is not true.
 
T

TouchMyBox

Member
This is depressing as hell... But hey, some of their talent already left the company and made Metro. Hopefully after this we'll have several studios making spiritual successors to STALKER.
 
M

mik83kuu

Banned
In a weird way I kinda feel like this could be a good thing. They couldn't make good games together so maybe it's time to shuffle the compost a little.
 
L

Lasthope106

Member
Good night sweet prince.

5066357200_21e2b27071_b.jpg
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
ok, I think that's pretty much it.

http://alogvinov.com/2011/12/gsc-r-i-p/

the dude is a quite known russian games journalist.

-The game existed in the form of the engine mostly
-The engine itself lacked some crucial features (like cutscene editor) and the overall impression was that the team wasn't able to produce a game that would meet high expectations from a modern action title.
-Not many people were working on the game. Most efforts were focused on the clothing line, comic books, movies, merchandise
-merchandise, clothing line etc. etc. weren't really successful

heh

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=33324266&postcount=397
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=33318860&postcount=302
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
subversus said:
ok, I think that's pretty much it.

http://alogvinov.com/2011/12/gsc-r-i-p/

the dude is a quite known russian games journalist.

-The game existed in the form of the engine mostly
-The engine itself lacked some crucial features (like cutscene editor) and the overall impression was that the team wasn't able to produce a game that would meet high expectations from a modern action title.
-Not many people were working on the game. Most efforts were focused on the clothing line, comic books, movies, merchandise
-merchandise, clothing line etc. etc. weren't really successful

heh
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Gross mismanagement then. That's a shame.
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
EviLore said:
Gross mismanagement then. That's a shame.
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not mismanagement, but lack of any will to make the actual game. If what is written is true of course. But I have no reason to believe otherwise because other people had said pretty much the same and according to rumours and hearsay Grigorovich has been thinking about closing the company for a year or so. The dude has money, he is not interested in this game and this business anymore, that is all.
 
B

Blast Processing

Member
subversus said:
-The game existed in the form of the engine mostly
-The engine itself lacked some crucial features (like cutscene editor) and the overall impression was that the team wasn't able to produce a game that would meet high expectations from a modern action title.
-Not many people were working on the game. Most efforts were focused on the clothing line, comic books, movies, merchandise
-merchandise, clothing line etc. etc. weren't really successful
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Well, I guess we can at least be thankful we were spared a possible disgrace of a sequel.
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Galyonkin translated his blog:

As this blog post was picked up by some English-speaking outlets, I thought I should add an English translation, because Google Translate does a really poor job here.

So, I wasn’t going to write about this before I could talk to Grigorovich, but he isn’t picking up phone and there is a lot of rumors around, so I’ve decided to clarify some things. I don’t work at GSC, but I know a lot of people there and here is what I got after talking to them. This is purely unofficial of course.

GSC is no more. Almost everyone is let go, only few people left and still employed. STALKER 2 project is closed.

My friends in GSC believe that the reason for that is failed console publishing deal. GSC couldn’t sign any publisher for STALKER 2 on consoles, and GSC wasn’t strong enough to do it all by itself. STALKER 2 was going to become PC exlcusive, which isn’t a great future for story-driven game.

Some say that Grigorovich demanded a lot from publishers and his terms were unacceptable, some say that publishers didn’t like setting – Eastern European postapocalypse is not that popular outside Europe. I don’t know which is true, but guess it is a bit of both.

Also, some people at GSC say that Grigorovich wasn’t happy with quality of STALKER 2, but others say it was going to be a great game and huge improvement over first one. One guy said that Grigorovich was tired of game development and no longer interested in STALKER at all, but I don’t believe it, knowing Sergey for last ten years. He might be tired, yes, but he loved STALKER.

I’ve read on Ukranews about «goverment agencies trying to take over GSC». None of my friends confirms it. It is just not possible: only thing that valuable in GSC is it’s IP and it is registered outside Ukraine. Also, I’ve heard numerous people saying that Grigorovich talked to them about closing GSC for a year now.

I don’t know what will happen to STALKER next. Grigorovich might sell or lease it to other companies: there was at some point browser-based STALKER game in production. But there is only one studio in Ukraine that can handle this – 4A Games, creators of original STALKER. And they’re not exactly friends with Grigorovich. As for other Eastern European developers (from Poland or Bulgaria) – I don’t believe they can do STALKER 2 justice. Some are just too good to work for IP that is not their own and some don’t have enough experience.
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O

Oreoleo

Member
This is the worst fucking godawful shit news to come across these forums. I don't even know what else to say other than I'm in complete awe. STALKER has become my favorite gaming franchise, and STALKER 2 my most anticipated game (Maybe even more than the next Half-Life, ya rly). Ugh. I feel like I've just found out a friend has died. This is the worst.

:(
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Sounds silly then. It's not like it was a mega success but surely they were getting by, not leaking money and in debts all these years (unless the failed accessory stuff and canned browser game did cause such). Should have just toned down the expectations of an AAA quality multiplatform game that was over their capabilities and just kept making janky fun that can pay for itself. And maybe eventually with experience and incremental updates per sequel they'd reach near that level too at least in terms of polish if not visual prowess. I wouldn't mind a DLC driven model either, as long as they could offer well crafted missions worth playing through for their atmosphere, plots, impact on the world of the main game, and such, not just random side quest level drivel and trying to attract purchases with super powered weapons and shit.
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
bengraven said:
So no console deal meant death?

Oh god, no, get off the ledge master race, it's going to be okay...
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Why do you think Grigorovich started talking about DRM? It's a single player PC-only game and I think he decided that "good enough to continue developing" sales aren't worth it.
 
C

Corto

Member
Seems that we were lucky that we had these games in the first place... Still contradictory news but it appears that GSC was closed on a whim?
 
C

Corto

Member
subversus said:
Young people from Ukraine and Russia tend to think that everything is PR. Such cynicism is rooted in 90s when most people were naive and some people exploited it.
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Well, we have the GOG closing stunt from last year too... This would be nice (this being a PR stunt) in a fucked up kind of way.
 
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