Barack Lesnar
Banned
Wow @ n8rtot's posts on page 2. Revealing stuff. This industry is just as shady and cutthroat as any other, not that that's surprising.
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Ex-Human Head developer alleges on Twitter that Bethesda is lying about Prey 2
- Thread starter sflufan
- Start date
Despite all the shitty things going on behind the scenes, this game is one of my dream games and I hope it makes it out on next gen. Arkane is a good studio to finish it up too. I just want to know why such an awesome looking game was treated so badly. The concept prints money. I do think it would be better served as a new IP since Prey isn't exactly the type of game that has much of a following.
I'm conflicted over Arkane being involved. I'd have preferred a Dishonored sequel or an IP that's more like Deus EX. But then, they name check System Shock as a game Arkane were striving to make, so they can easily turn this into a game thats influenced by Deus Ex/System Shock. Call me hyped I suppose.
Jawmuncher
Member
Someone needs to leak that build then sometime in the next 5 years.
Woah, I know this is probably just a bit of throwaway hyperbole, but let's not go crazy, here.
No, it cannot. Zenimax outright owns the Prey copyright. Apogee/3D Realms sold/moved the IP to Radar in June 2009, who in turn sold the IP to Zenimax the following month.
I find it odd that you are unaware that Arkane did contract outsourcing work, which supplemented milestones payments from their publisher for Dishonored. Up until they were acquired, my understanding is that they were working on the multiplayer for a AAA shooter in addition to their work on Dishonored.
MaverickHunterX
Member
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/20...lion-worldwide-3d-realms-reaffirms-prey-2.htm
1 million within 2 months. If I remember correctly, it made Platinum Hits as well...
But if the game was already a "full game" they went past 10 million+ in development costs, no? Seems like a financially bad decision to scrap the whole thing. Starting from ground 0 costs a lot more, and we have been given no indication that it was scrapped because they saw no value in it. The situation is odd.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Exactly, thanks for the clarification.
Well, of course it would be true. The real news here is the way they're treating developers, which should be covered by gaming press.
Yeah, sorry about that. It just really bothers me that they treat developers like cannon fodder to improve their financial call's numbers.
Absoludacrous
Member
Yea, I remember Prey being a big hit at the time. It was back in the early era of the 360 where the million+ user base would just jump on a new game every month and blow it up.
reptilescorpio
Member
How quick we are to forget Skyrim PS3. They released a broken game on PS3 willingly.
Both Obsidian and inXile have spoken out publicly about how shitty Bethesda treated them.
It isn't a leap of logic to accept they did similar things to Human Head, in addition to forcing the Prey 2 name onto Arkane.
Probably caught up in contract disputes, something like Bethesda cannot hand off HH code to another developer and release it.
That still doesn't really address what I said. That means they willfully took a hit and are starting from scratch for reasons unknown, and are just using the name for the sake of using it(because they possibly may lose it). I mean, unless this is a simple pride thing, of not wanting to look like a fool, because the title wasn't looking good... but again, there is no word that is the case. I mean, don't get me wrong, it isn't abnormal for a private company to stay tight lipped about this. But at the moment, with nothing to go off of if they really had a full game, they just waited money, for an unspecified reason.
Even if that stand to lose the title for not using it, the game has been out of the mind of consumers for so long, I cant see Prey having the mindshare to justify the cost of restarting, when you have so much money already invested. From a financial aspect, to me, it doesn't make sense on its own, at all.
But its still an example of playground mentality.
I can tell you that n8rtot's post echoes things I've heard a few times before, and things I'd already been doing reporting work on. I can also tell you that those claims are exceptionally difficult to prove, and that the gaming press should certainly not be reporting accusations like that without significant evidence.
I agree. That said it seems like if there is a story somewhere in this, some form of journalism would be picking up on this in most other industry and asking around, poking around and ect.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Of course, those are not allegations that should be thrown around without evidence, it is merely asking for game journalism to look further into it so people know what some companies do. Which I knew you were already doing, so thank you, Jason.
Metal Gear?!
Member
The ending of Prey said that TOMMY WILL RETURN
Don't make Prey 2 without Tommy as the protagonist, simple as that.
You can make it a spinoff, sure, but at that point why would you?
Also making the protagonist GENERIC WHITE GUY doesn't help.
game is not called Tommy Tawodi big Adventure, it's called Prey, and Tommy arc ended as he "found himself" already and just wanted some answers,honestly it will be boring to have him again.
and it's not about race, Killian Samuels was on the airplane from Prey 1 and got kidnapped by aliens for years and went to their planet then turned into a freaking aliens bounty hunter in the freaking aliens planet(how cool is that), this is alone is more interesting than everything in Prey 1.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Interesting read. Not gonna take this at face value, but after the Skyrim PS3 debacle, I couldn't think much less of Bethesda anyways.
I couldn't get into Dishonored so I'm not sure what news about this is going to get me excited again.
I couldn't get into Dishonored so I'm not sure what news about this is going to get me excited again.
maladroit
Member
Yeah, so why don't you fucking guys, you know, do some legwork, you know, actual reporting? Like real journalists do? Really investigate? I guess it's easier to run vapid stream of consciousness opinion pieces on shit like "what it's like to be a female that plays adult visual novels", or regurgitate corporate press releases, and just collect that ad revenue, than it is to actually investigate something and maybe cause waves in an industry with a history of shady practices, mistreating employees, retaliation, gender discrimination, etc.
I think that an established IP has a better chance of getting more sales than a completely new IP, even if it's a slightly old, semi-mediocre IP.
Like, there are probably atleast 1 million people that have played Prey by now, 40-50% of those might have told friends about it, and 40% of those might be fans who'd buy the next title. It already has some "mindshare".
Even if a brand new IP looks super impressive, I don't think it would have the same sales potential as a mediocre title with an established IP.
And it's much easier to market, since it has some mindshare. An important part of advertising is just to get people to remember the title and what it's about. It'd be easier to remember the new game (Through marketing and such.) if it's the successor to a game you might have heard about or played.
But yeah, it's probably because they bought the IP or something, or at least mostly because of that.
They suddenly stopped production, handed it over to another team and told them to start from the beginning, so there has to be some other reason for why they are doing this. The marketing logic would have them release the successor as fast as possible to make profit.
because video games sites depend on publishers ads and reviews codes to survive we will never see any real investigation going on because that might upset the publishers who might put that site on their black list, in the end these people have families to feed (maybe if a rich Media Network entered the video games news world we will see better things)
Human Head and Zenimax thing was going since late 2011 and we still don't have the full picture on what happened.
Deified Data
Banned
Game would have bombed anyway, we all know it.
No we don't know that
Prey 1 did fine
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/20...lion-worldwide-3d-realms-reaffirms-prey-2.htm
that with the all new buyers in the past 6 years and with Bethesda strong marketing (and Bethesda faithfuls/fans support) Prey 2 could've been even bigger hit than the original.
Joseph Merrick
Member
yeah, they did the same thing with rogue warrior. and I'm pretty sure zombie, the original developers on that, were treated the same way as human head were on this. people blame rebellion for how shitty the rogue warrior game that was released was, but it's pretty obvious it was a super short dev cycle rushjob on no budget at all. for no actually good reason.
to be fair Rebellion track record is not good at all, I don't think they can make a good game even if you give them 4 years.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...cks-lie-that-prey-2-was-only-ever-just-a-demo
Eurogamer is picking up on this too. Hopefully it gains more traction.
Eurogamer is picking up on this too. Hopefully it gains more traction.
That gameplay reminds me a lot of Dishonored actually.
Well, they've made several good games.
Prey 2 is gonna be as Bioshock or Dead Space is to SS2, which means not really.
Well, at least it is gaining traction. Hopefully the story on Bethesda doesn't die, simply because it is out of the mind of the consumers. Game company business practices inside its own company, needs to be reported more, so we know what we are buying, beyond just a game. Don't like supporting companies that routinely rely on hostile takeovers to expand business.