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[Tyrant Rave]

Yeah I saw that the other day in the delisting thread, it's pretty terrible.

I can't say I'm surprised since it was kind of obvious Activision had no faith in the title. It took us far too long to even get straight gameplay footage.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Skylanders they have for now but I think it might end up being a fad more than the next pokemon. Activision has a tradition of running this stuff intro the ground. They don't have Destiny. Bungie owns it.

Who cares if Bungie owns Destiny? Activision is the publisher for the next ten years, and we've seen with Titanfall what power a publisher can wield in spite of the team actually making the game.

Who cares if Skylanders winds up being a fad? Even Disney can't knock it off it's perch, as it appeals to a segment of kids that have "outgrown" Disney characters. Even if they run it into the ground you can bet your ass they'll have something big to replace it with, much like they did Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero.

 

[shiftplusone]

High moon doesn't deserve this

Deadpool does, though

Sucks for high moon only

 

[Tenrius]

Using a Metacritic score like that is what is the real issue here.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I find the most horrible thing about Activision isn't the quality of their output, but the treatment of their employees. Cutting staff to avoid paying bonuses is pretty cruel. I wonder what other publishers have this skeleton in their closet?

 

[FunkyPajamas]

wat

I tole you so.

 

[Sushigod7]

Sounds to me like they were setting realistic expectations, something more publishers and developers should do. Not every game can be a 90+ just like every movie or book won't get 5 stars.

Have to say this is my first reaction as well. Sad to say but if you give a bunch of fans/designers a bunch of money and no deadline they will keep coming up with new ideas and refining old ones and the project goes nowhere. If the publisher says look finish up by this time we aren't looking for a 100 score game here they shouldn't get all butt hurt about it.

 

[feint_ruled]

They got a metacritic of 62, so they were pretty much bang on target.

 

[Creamium]

I feel sorry for High Moon. They're capable of so much more, and they deserve it too (see the incredible job they did on Transformers)

 

[angrygnat]

These developers can't really complain. When they sign on to work with an EA, or an Activision, they know exactly what their getting into. They are sacrificing their own creative vision and license, for the security of working for a large producer. They know full well that the environment they are entering is stockholder driven, and they could give a rats ass about quality games, as long as the bottom line is preserved. If developers want to make their kind of games their way, they should have stayed Indie.

 

[Shard]

Dark of the Moon was released in-between those two but I see now that it was not well regarded. But still, that means Fall of Cybertron was developed in one year unless they had two internal teams.

They did.

 

[Shard]

These developers can't really complain. When they sign on to work with an EA, or an Activision, they know exactly what their getting into. They are sacrificing their own creative vision and license, for the security of working for a large producer. They know full well that the environment they are entering is stockholder driven, and they could give a rats ass about quality games, as long as the bottom line is preserved. If developers want to make their kind of games their way, they should have stayed Indie.

I'll note that in the case of High Moon, they never signed on with Activision, they signed on with Vivendi and so saddled onto Activison after the merger with Blizzard.

 

[Some Nobody]

Have to say this is my first reaction as well. Sad to say but if you give a bunch of fans/designers a bunch of money and no deadline they will keep coming up with new ideas and refining old ones and the project goes nowhere. If the publisher says look finish up by this time we aren't looking for a 100 score game here they shouldn't get all butt hurt about it.

So you tell them to shoot for utter mediocrity. (Which is actually what we got.) Okay then. Next time tell them to shoot for "competent, fun game that does absolutely nothing new", at least.

 

[monlo]

game gets bad scores? WE MEANT TO DO THAT

 

[Some Nobody]

game gets bad scores? WE MEANT TO DO THAT

reaching.jpg

If you're coming down on that side of the fence then honestly you're not too far from "Who cares, reviews are bought and paid for anyway." Why not go all the way? Or accept the possibility that publishers probably know what they're doing and publish mediocre games in order to:

A.) Round out a release schedule
B.) Make a quick cash grab, since it sounds like this game was developed for fairly cheap.
C.) Not take attention away from your big releases.

 

[Piers]

And this is kind of why I want no part in the games industry.

 

[Petrie]

This made no sense. If you have an approved budget you should try and stick to it. Tomb Raider was the exception, not the rule. Cutting and overworking a team will get you your Deadpools.

Also, anyone who wants to deliver a subpar product just to make a profit should be laughed out of the industry. Let's not treat our customer base like mindless drones with deep pockets.

That's just what some games are going to be, and some people will appreciate them, others won't. To me a game that gets a 60 is something that caters to a specific audience, and others should stay away. Perhaps that's not how the scoring is used, but it's what I'd hope for.

I know I've enjoyed many 60ish games. They knew a 60ish game is what they could churn out with the budget and time available. Good on them for keeping expectations reasonable.

Have to say this is my first reaction as well. Sad to say but if you give a bunch of fans/designers a bunch of money and no deadline they will keep coming up with new ideas and refining old ones and the project goes nowhere. If the publisher says look finish up by this time we aren't looking for a 100 score game here they shouldn't get all butt hurt about it.

Exactly. Some games are going to just be disposable entertainment. Tons of movies, books, and such do the exact same thing. It isn't a bad thing.

Deadpool isn't a license you throw money at for a AAA game kids.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Shoots for a 64 score, still charges $60 for the game.

 

[Joni]

If they were shooting for a high score, they wouldn't have hired High Moon.

 

[Senor Kami]

Somebody probably crunched the numbers on the Transformer's games and realized no amount of quality was going to get the sales up to justify a budget higher than X. Maybe they were hoping a Deadpool movie would materialize and that would shoot Deadpool into Avengers level popularity and the game would get the sales boost needed to justify paying for quality.

Whatever, the numbers didn't add up so they made what they thought was the best move. I think it sucks to not aim for your best but numbers never lie. Plus I mean, just saying... Marvel game... not made by Capcom. It was always going to be garbage HOT garbage. No amount of budget would fix it.

 

[water_wendi]

This is what happens when you get Proctor and Gamble people completely infesting the world of gaming.

 

[Theecliff]

Plus I mean, just saying... Marvel game... not made by Capcom. It was always going to be garbage HOT garbage. No amount of budget would fix it.

Treyarch's Spider-Man 2 wants a word with you.

 

[NotLiquid]

Deadpool felt like a game where you can tell the dev team had some great ideas but didn't find much opportunity or even resources/dev time to actually go through with them. It kind of felt like a Grasshopper game.

This wouldn't surprise me if it's true honestly. We know High Moon can do better than what they put out. It's a shame it didn't live up to it's potential.

 

[gblues]

Shoots for a 64 score, still charges $60 for the game.

Didn't Deadpool release in the $30-40 range? At least on PC, it did.

 

[Tyrant Rave]

Didn't Deadpool release in the $30-40 range? At least on PC, it did.

Was $50 on consoles IIRC

 

[spekkeh]

Sounds to me like they were setting realistic expectations, something more publishers and developers should do. Not every game can be a 90+ just like every movie or book won't get 5 stars.

This.

Though I think demanding continued overtime is always deplorable.

 

[IncandescentPrecept]

Sounds to me like they were setting realistic expectations, something more publishers and developers should do. Not every game can be a 90+ just like every movie or book won't get 5 stars.

I completely agree.

 

[BennyBlanco]

i wonder what score they were shooting for with ghosts and guitar hero: warriors of rock?

64 is an alarmingly accurate prediction

 

[FriedConsole]

As a fan of stupid "B" games, I don't mind that they didn't shoot to be a AAA game. Activision is one of that developers to still make "B" games, I guess some people want there to be no "B" grade games anymore.

Come on THQ is dead now. Where am I going to get my "B" grade games now?

Loved these "B" grade games:
PS2 Evil Dead games
Deadly Creatures
Destroy All Humans!
Army of Two
Top Gun games
Transformer games

These games didn't need to be high quality for me to have a good time with it.

 

[DerZuhälter]

What else were they supposed to do considering their license ran out 2014? Either cancell it completely or push out a shitty cashgrab as fast as possible.

 

[dmr87]

So tired of Metacritic, and fuck Activision.

 

[Scarecrow]

Once again, people are upset to learn that video games are a business first, artistic medium second.

 

[Petrie]

Once again, people are upset to learn that video games are a business first, artistic medium second.

And just like movies, music, etc, if you want something that's art first, you generally have to go Indie.

 

[V AA D E R]

Pitfalls of not being an independent developer.

 

[daviyoung]

And just like movies, music, etc, if you want something that's art first, you generally have to go Indie.

This is a great luxury we have, because outside of table top RPGs and communal board games our current games are descended from those made specifically to take our money.

 

[PuppetSlave]

Well I kinda enjoyed the game, only took me five hours to beat otherwise I would probably had gotten bored with it though. Granted I picked it up for cheap during the steam sale.

The "boot" part of the game was brilliant really.

 

[Nirolak]

What else were they supposed to do considering their license ran out 2014? Either cancell it completely or push out a shitty cashgrab as fast as possible.

As far as I can tell they sold back the license since they had Spider-Man and X-Men through 2017.

 

[jrcbandit]

Seems obvious that since Activision was losing the Marvel license they wanted Deadpool released way before it was ready to get a few months more of sales, except if they had given High Moon 4 more months of development time it may have turned into an actually decent game and would have sold way better in the 2-3 months remaining instead of languishing for 6 months.

 

[DedValve]

As a fan of stupid "B" games, I don't mind that they didn't shoot to be a AAA game. Activision is one of that developers to still make "B" games, I guess some people want there to be no "B" grade games anymore.

Come on THQ is dead now. Where am I going to get my "B" grade games now?

Loved these "B" grade games:
PS2 Evil Dead games
Deadly Creatures
Destroy All Humans!
Army of Two
Top Gun games
Transformer games

These games didn't need to be high quality for me to have a good time with it.

"B" games don't mean low metacritic score. It means making a quality game with a lower budget. Activision didn't care for quality at all and just wanted a super cheap cash grab, they didn't even care about what score it got.

 

[LaserHawk]

Who shoots for 64 and lower? Did the quoted person misspeak or something? Nobody does that. Also, in crunch time for "weeks"? I sure wish my crunch times were like that. One time I was in crunch time for seven months.

Crunch time and and cutting content are regular occurrences in video game production. Developers do it because of time constraints.

 

[RoboPlato]

Aside from it just being depressing for morale, 64 or lower sounds so weird. Instead of the usual 90+ meta bonuses did they get incentives for keeping it low? It almost sounds like there would be repercussions if it scored higher than that.

 

[Ponn]

Sounds like activision may have known they were losing marvel license and tried to push this out quick in time for holiday to earn something before they had to pull it.

 

[QaaQer]

Using a Metacritic score like that is what is the real issue here.

Yeah, it just goes to show how messed up the system is. Having everything geared towards the tastes and prejudices of reviewers is a strange way to make games because aren't 99% of them 20-35 y.o. white males in a state of semi-arrested development? Having everything gear towards that demo excludes like 90% of the population from wanting to play those games.

Also, as simcity showed with the initial reviews such as Polygon's 9.5, even objectively shitty games can be massaged in such a way that reviewers will review it well. Who cares about the actual quality of the game when you can get good enough reviews to push 3 million copies in 48 hours.

 

[Prime crotch]

Who shoots for 64 and lower? Did the quoted person misspeak or something? Nobody does that. Also, in crunch time for "weeks"? I sure wish my crunch times were like that. One time I was in crunch time for seven months.

Crunch time and and cutting content are regular occurrences in video game production. Developers do it because of time constraints.

Regular occurences doesn't excuse those practices, no wonder why IT consultancy and videogame development has such a high burnout rate, fuck crunch times

 

[LaserHawk]

"B" games don't mean low metacritic score. It means making a quality game with a lower budget. Activision didn't care for quality at all and just wanted a super cheap cash grab, they didn't even care about what score it got.

You're right, B games can be good. But B games and crappy games have the same cause: lower budget.

If you think back on the last game you didn't like, it's possible that the developer was inept. But it's also possible that it was a good game being held back by a lower budget. Extra money can buy the developers more time to polish, or more people to distribute the work load, or more talented people. When we cut back a budget from AAA to B, it's those things we're sacrificing.

I guess the key to making a good B game is proper scoping and talented, hard-working people.

Regular occurences doesn't excuse those practices, no wonder why IT consultancy and videogame development has such a high burnout rate, fuck crunch times

I agree, and you're right about burnout. But I think we end up with crunch because of human nature. Think of any time you stayed up late the night before a project was due. Most developers hate crunch time, but they also hate putting out a bad game. It's yet another problem that can be solved with budget and scoping.

 

[Some Nobody]

Somebody probably crunched the numbers on the Transformer's games and realized no amount of quality was going to get the sales up to justify a budget higher than X. Maybe they were hoping a Deadpool movie would materialize and that would shoot Deadpool into Avengers level popularity and the game would get the sales boost needed to justify paying for quality.

Whatever, the numbers didn't add up so they made what they thought was the best move. I think it sucks to not aim for your best but numbers never lie. Plus I mean, just saying... Marvel game... not made by Capcom. It was always going to be garbage HOT garbage. No amount of budget would fix it.

Capcom made--no, you know what? If you like MvC3 that's cool, but it has a LOT of problems. And plenty of cool Marvel games came out that weren't attached to Capcom.

 

[Baron_Calamity]

Sounds like activision may have known they were losing marvel license and tried to push this out quick in time for holiday to earn something before they had to pull it.

This sounds like what happen here. Development may have even started with them thinking it would be an easy renewal. Maybe Disney just said no and refused to give them an extension.

 

[graboids]

I really liked the Transformers/Cybertron games, but I never had any interest in Deadpool, always looked generic... I hope they or someone else makes a good TF game again someday.

 

[Dysun]

Activison is worse than EA.
Not even a contest IMO, outside of CoD and their partnership with Blizzard they don't produce anything worth playing. Bungie doesn't count

 

[Orayn]

So what you're saying that Porygon's recent tweet is accurate.