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IGN: ~50 Layoffs at Sony Santa Monica, Project Canceled [Up2: Was Stig's New IP]
- Thread starter Jonboy
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MastaKilla
Member
Sometimes I'm not sure how Sony mishandles their first party offerings. I always think back to Socom and how they had the dominant console online shooter and now it's literally nothing because they took the franchise in horrible directions. I know that's unrelated to this, but a lot of times I feel like they're so disconnected from what we want. A lot of us have such heavy God of War fatigue and it would have been awesome to see such a creative studio give us a totally new experience. Idk it just sucks that it looks like they're gonna keep the God of War factory going.
YoSp seems awesome and friendly on twitter but idk, WWS should be running shit right now. But truth is there's nothing on the ps4 from them that I've played at this point. I'm not saying they should release every game and bust their load early at once but it's reasonable to think they should have had something more than knack or another failed killzone.
Idk. Looking forward to Infamous tho. Just my thoughts.
YoSp seems awesome and friendly on twitter but idk, WWS should be running shit right now. But truth is there's nothing on the ps4 from them that I've played at this point. I'm not saying they should release every game and bust their load early at once but it's reasonable to think they should have had something more than knack or another failed killzone.
Idk. Looking forward to Infamous tho. Just my thoughts.
Anticitizen One
Banned
I don't understand how mediocre garbage from guerrilla games and shit like Knack get greenlit but a new sci if game from the director of god of war 3 gets fucking cancelled?? Are you kidding me??
You want to cancel something cancel that fucking uncharted game and have Naughty Dog go back to the drawing board and come up with something new that we haven't seen before
You want to cancel something cancel that fucking uncharted game and have Naughty Dog go back to the drawing board and come up with something new that we haven't seen before
2 days on and im still feeling the effects of this.
I was looking forward to hearing and seeing what SSM were working on. We need new IP's.
Is there no way they can still develop the game instead of just canning it. How many years of hard work went into this title.
Im still praying (seriously i am) that Sony decides to shelve the game for now and not totally throw it away. Maybe develop it further into the generation.
I was looking forward to hearing and seeing what SSM were working on. We need new IP's.
Is there no way they can still develop the game instead of just canning it. How many years of hard work went into this title.
Im still praying (seriously i am) that Sony decides to shelve the game for now and not totally throw it away. Maybe develop it further into the generation.
Not saying Killzone and Knack are bad but any new IP's are welcome. Really hoping Sony decides to shelf the game rather than completely throwing it away.
same here man.
i am willing to buy this unfinished sci fi game for 20$ just so that i could support ssm and show sony there is room for 2 similar ips
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Sony does need to reveal more of the exclusive's they have in the oven for the PS4.
And damn if it indeed is yet another God of War title first out the gate at SSM, that would be seriously disappointing.
That would mean we have sequels to Killzone, Infamous, Uncharted and GoW for a new console gen for Christ sake. Most of the exclusive's in a new gen should be new ip's. All these games are PS3 era, now is the time to do something new, use the unique power of the PS4.
And damn if it indeed is yet another God of War title first out the gate at SSM, that would be seriously disappointing.
That would mean we have sequels to Killzone, Infamous, Uncharted and GoW for a new console gen for Christ sake. Most of the exclusive's in a new gen should be new ip's. All these games are PS3 era, now is the time to do something new, use the unique power of the PS4.
TechnicPuppet
Nothing! I said nothing!
The Order, Driveclub and Knack are all new.
But it did get greenlit.
We know literally nothing about Uncharted, we don't know if it's the same game design at all, we don't know if it's the same characters, we don't know if it's the same time period, we don't know anything.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Is it confirmed?
Cave Johnson
Member
The RocketChaindsaw article does shed some light to this situation. But, it really is bothersome in the AAA market when someone's idea can be overridden by similar ideas from a bigger, higher-tiered studio. This highlights that game design in general has stumped while visuals & XP-designed focused games have become the vanilla standard for the gaming market.
It's a problem many gamers sadly overlook - imagine if SSM came up with something to the degree of Star-Citizen or Kingdom Come. No other game even in "similar" genres can be compared because the difference would be like NFS and GT. That is the kind of creating traction we SHOULD be seeing from AAA studios, especially from Sony if they what the article reports to turn out to be true.
And I'd like to ask? Why cancel the game entirely? That's a product that is not being sold, even if it can't compete in the PS4 market, wouldn't it make sense to refine the gameplay mechanics and scale to fit into a PSVita title? It hits 2 birds in one stone:
One, the assets and mechanics are built off from AAA values with graphical assets booted down to a smaller screen. This gives leeway to cut the fat you see in high-tiered games and refine gameplay systems befitting for a handheld. Second, you're essentially liquidating some of those assets rather than leave them idle. Game developers should be flexible to make whatever resources they have and adjust. This whole "all-or-nothing" formula in an already troubled market is concerning to say the least.
It's a problem many gamers sadly overlook - imagine if SSM came up with something to the degree of Star-Citizen or Kingdom Come. No other game even in "similar" genres can be compared because the difference would be like NFS and GT. That is the kind of creating traction we SHOULD be seeing from AAA studios, especially from Sony if they what the article reports to turn out to be true.
And I'd like to ask? Why cancel the game entirely? That's a product that is not being sold, even if it can't compete in the PS4 market, wouldn't it make sense to refine the gameplay mechanics and scale to fit into a PSVita title? It hits 2 birds in one stone:
One, the assets and mechanics are built off from AAA values with graphical assets booted down to a smaller screen. This gives leeway to cut the fat you see in high-tiered games and refine gameplay systems befitting for a handheld. Second, you're essentially liquidating some of those assets rather than leave them idle. Game developers should be flexible to make whatever resources they have and adjust. This whole "all-or-nothing" formula in an already troubled market is concerning to say the least.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
They did that. It was called The Last of Us.
Yes. Look earlier in the thread.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Yeah and that should be par for the course for a new gen, not anything remarkable. Sequels to Killzone, Uncharted and Infamous is 2 sequels too much imo.
reptilescorpio
Member
The IP was cancelled because it was having issues wasn't it? If it was retooled successfully it wouldn't have been cancelled.
Sony already tried to save it once by retooling it from a Destiny-esque game into something that could stand up on its own in the market.
(that's if the sources are true)
Sony already tried to save it once by retooling it from a Destiny-esque game into something that could stand up on its own in the market.
(that's if the sources are true)
Sony has their established IP's and their new IP's.
It's a healthy mix. So keep your nonsense for yourself.
That was Level-5, Sony just helped. Same as Demon's Souls (From Software).
In terms of exclusives I agree.
He's been raging all day. Leave him be. Or her.
Games have to be made for the console. You can't just scale everything down and go "well now we have a Vita game". The mechanics also need to fit the system. What if it had gameplay mechanics built around analog control via the shoulder buttons? And then the game would have had to be re-engineered completely. The size of the world, art of the characters, complexity of the AI, probably completely new sound assets, trim down animation systems. This game was much too far a long to do all of that. The game had development issues and was cancelled. People no longer had a position to fill, and were let go.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
If my sources are correct, here's what probably happened.
- SSM Scifi IP conceptualised and greenlit. Enters production.
- Destiny announced. Unfortunate similarities to new IP (no idea what exactly: genre, presentation, story, design, etc). Sony/SSM not impressed.
- Sony/SSM request reworking the design to distance from Destiny. This naturally increases dev time, workload, and resources.
- Reworking fails. Either conceptually still too similar to Destiny, or (most likely) unable to conceptualise new designs and implement them efficiently. Project and development process suffers.
- Sony/SSM pull the plug on a project that has now gone on for too long, become too expensive, with no real end in sight and/or lack of confidence in a high quality game at the end of the tunnel.
- Decision made to downsize SSM as a whole. God of War 4 still in development (assuming it's not being headed by someone else), as well as aiding other studios on their projects (eg: The Order: 1886, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture).
- Many senior personnel of cut project let go as their positions at SSM no longer needed. Those roles already filled on existing projects. Staff that can move over to the production of existing projects kept.
- SSM Scifi IP conceptualised and greenlit. Enters production.
- Destiny announced. Unfortunate similarities to new IP (no idea what exactly: genre, presentation, story, design, etc). Sony/SSM not impressed.
- Sony/SSM request reworking the design to distance from Destiny. This naturally increases dev time, workload, and resources.
- Reworking fails. Either conceptually still too similar to Destiny, or (most likely) unable to conceptualise new designs and implement them efficiently. Project and development process suffers.
- Sony/SSM pull the plug on a project that has now gone on for too long, become too expensive, with no real end in sight and/or lack of confidence in a high quality game at the end of the tunnel.
- Decision made to downsize SSM as a whole. God of War 4 still in development (assuming it's not being headed by someone else), as well as aiding other studios on their projects (eg: The Order: 1886, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture).
- Many senior personnel of cut project let go as their positions at SSM no longer needed. Those roles already filled on existing projects. Staff that can move over to the production of existing projects kept.
Have you heard anything about why now? If they were considering an E3 reveal, did they just complete a vertical slice milestone and the game was killed in response to that?
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Nup. Heard nothing extra, probably won't get anything. Basically was just told what ended up in the article, extrapolating a little on the situation we already knew (layoffs, cancelled project).
Thank you. Hopefully everyone reads this. With the remaining points, do you mean not impressed with Destiny? Or the SSM IP? That parts a bit hazy even if I think I know the answer regardless.
I still don't understand that. Why couldn't they let them create something new while some other team made God of War 4? Someone posted a link to a podcast about a cancelled Insomniac game. They cancelled the project, but they didn't layoff everyone involved.
a teaser was being prepared - so take whatever you want from that
nelsonroyale
Member
Do you know if they have any other big IPs in the work aside from GoW now? GoW only would be shit. I really hope they don't keep on limiting themselves with this series. Kratos is basically one of the least likeable and coherent characters in the digital entertainment medium. He has a cool design and poweful persona, but his raison d'etra has become such a mess. He is a fool chasing his tail. If there is a new GoW it would be nice to squash him in the first few minutes of the game.
I guess it means "they were pissed, when they saw Destiny, because it was nearly the same game"
Edit.: Already answered by EatChildren
Kratos has a huge fanbase and is an iconic character in the PlayStation legacy/history.
Just because you or some people don't like him, doesn't mean he is shit and needs to be replaced.
If you want new IP's / different characters, etc. -> check all the other SONY studios.
Sony has the most 1st Party Teams/Studios (more than MS and more than Nintendo).
I'm sure you will find your luck with a different studio.
Enough for everybody!
Because you can't just whip up new projects out of thin air. That takes months of planning too. And also, people are better at certain types of games as jobs than others. You wouldn't put a Sci-Fi writer on a racing game or something. You can't pay people to sit on their hands and not do anything. If there's no longer a position for an employee to occupy, and they can't occupy something at a lower level, they are let go.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Not impressed with whatever state SSM's IP was in. Not impressed enough for them to see it through, anyway.
Because the goal was probably to downsize SSM at the same time. It wasn't just "let's cancel a project", but also "we need to reduce staff". Sometimes its not valuable keeping senior staff round when they've got no projects to leave.
I think Eidos Montreal is somewhat similar, though I could be wrong. Originally they geared up to work on three projects: Deus Ex, Human Revolution, and a new IP. Last we heard, from rumours, is that the new IP has been scrapped and the staff on that project probably helped finish Thief and have gone on to finish Deus Ex. They didn't have a round of layoffs, but that time might come.
So yeah. I'd say this isn't just cancellation of a project, but studio downsizing too, reducing projects in the pipeline. The two go hand in hand. Nuke the project, cut the staff.
I know nothing, only what's in the story. New SciFi IP = gone, with layoffs. Leftover personnel apparently sent off to work on God of War.
Maybe they don't want SSM to be so large. It is strange though, because two teams does make a lot more sense financially.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
To me it seems like Sony did, unlike Take 2 with Irrational, the smart thing and pulled the plug from the project when it wasn't showing needed progress instead of keeping it alive and only making it worse.
Thanks for this.
Nightengale
Member
Downsizing meant a conscious decision to reduce the no.of concurrent projects in the studio.
Even if those 50 were kept, they were never going to get the funding to build another AAA title because the studio is essentially now a single project studio.
DarkLordMalik
Member
So basically Smoke and Mirrors type of teaser like we had for Star Wars 1313 and Watch_Dogs. I'd rather have none at all as this could have hyped people further, and the impact of this news might have been worse. =/
A teaser? Wow. There wouldn't have been a gameplay video?
If after four years all they had was a teaser, they were clearly struggling with making progress
reptilescorpio
Member
Since RAD have stepped up to AAA dev I wonder if they helped Sony's decision to downsize SSM. They have Naughty Dog working on two projects now after all.
DarkLordMalik
Member
So, this definitely clears everything. Thanks for taking the time give us these updates.
As for SSM, i don't know what to expect of them now. I was hopeful for a new IP, but i am not now.
* They will be working on a new God of War, most likely released in 2016. Probably headed by Cory Barlog.
* Helping other developers with their projects like Rapture, RIME, Hohokum and The Order: 1886 etc.
Still can't figure out where Sitg will fit in all this. Hopefully he can work on a cool new IP again.
Naughty Dog have been working on two projects since the original Uncharted.
Really? My understanding was after UC2 the second team was formed.
MastaKilla
Member
So is stig out of the picture entirely or is it just that his project was scrapped?
see this part is odd. If it clashed with Destiny then they'd have known that a while back. So this teaser would have presumably been part of the 'reimagining'. Although as a teaser they might simply have been using CG to set a scene rather than show the actual game. Its at that point where you are really committing to deliver something, and so a decision one way or another needs to be taken.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Are they still going to be working on a new IP? They probably too small for that aren't they? Probably just GoW 4 
Is Stig still at SSM?
Is Stig still at SSM?
DarkLordMalik
Member
Don't take it as confirmation, it is merely my assumption. They had plenty of concepts for Uncharted, all before they started working on it as series. One of the concept actually ended up as The Last of Us.
IGN
Heck, Naughty Dog were also supposedly working on a concept of a game, that was eerily similar to Bioshock. Only after they saw the original Bioshock, they decided to scrap it completely.
Basically what happened with Stig's IP, except this time it was much more further in production.
The BioShock thing is funny considering TLoU and Infinite have some notable parallels, particularly with the attempt to further the companion AI concept.
DarkLordMalik
Member
That's true, lol. The companion AI for both games was always put at the forefront. Personally, i believe Naughty Dog came close here compared to Irrational.
dragonbane
Member
Very likely IMO. Someone higher up at SSM must have finally taken a look at it, decision seems like it came fast and quick.
Because they already had their chance. I doubt they want to waste that much money again. After GoW maybe.
Unlikely. These things are most of the time not related. RaD is second party and will probably stay that way, I doubt what they do influences other studios in the slightest.
DarkLordMalik
Member
What i don't understand is why people keep mistaking RaD at Dawn as Sony's first party studio or something. Ru Weerasuriya has clearly mentioned that The Order: 1886 was supposed to be multiplatform but as a small team, they decided to focus on one single platform. It had a much higher chance of ending on multiplatforms. Now it seems to me that Sony owns the IP(?) so maybe the series will become exclusive to PS, but i doubt RaD will restrict themself to one platform, unless Sony makes them first party studio or something.
Nightengale
Member
Maybe... and just maybe, SSM just wasn't well-suited for a multi-project studio approach. It isn't always an easy transition to split apart what was previously one team into two teams. If they can't manage to enhance their productivity and release schedule outside of its current 3 year cycle even if they split into two, then they're probably better off focused as a single team until they can take the leap.
No, he said that The Order could had been multiplat if they brought it to another publisher, but they've always been a single-platform team with a laser focused approach, and so they approached Sony. He never implied that it was planned to be multiplat, but there was nothing preventing it if he wanted to.
No, he said that The Order could had been multiplat if they brought it to another publisher, but they've always been a single-platform team with a laser focused approach, and so they approached Sony. He never implied that it was planned to be multiplat, but there was nothing preventing it if he wanted to.
dragonbane
Member
I wouldn't be surprised if they enter a long term contract similar to Insomniac and Quantic Dream. But I don't see a purchase happening at this point. It's the best for both sides too. People wanting them to be bought before The Order is even out are absolutely batshit insane. If it bombs they are likely gone immediately and have no chance to save themselves as soon as they are under the Sony umbrella. Even Sony knows this, so they probably only want to buy them if they are really sure they can deliver long-term. RaD likely thinks the same. Being owned by a platform holder is not always desirable, as much as I love Sony.
I'm sure they and Quantic Dream are already insanely grateful Sony even trusts them with a new AAA IP (or 3 in case of QD) and a lot of creative freedom. As we see with their internal teams you only make a new AAA IP with Sony if you can deliver. If you fail to have anything noteworthy to show after 4 years you go back to an existing IP until you prove your worth again and then you get another chance. Exactly like it should be IMO. I like Stig, but if he only managed to have a teaser ready after 4 long years it's maybe for the best he goes back to being an art director for the moment and let Barlog command the ship.
The IP (The Order: 1886) belongs to Sony.
The Order: 1886 is going to be a trilogy, according to RAD.
So yes, they have "restricted themselves" to one platform this gen.
There's 2 sides to that coin, struggling is just one of them. The flip side is a massive production which would lend credence to an IP similar to Destiny being made by a much larger studio. If the games were similar, I'd bet on the project being gargantuan.
Magic Mushroom
Member
Uncharted is a system seller. Would not make sense from a business point of view
With that rationale we would have never had a Resident Evil 4. A new IP is not a good game per se, nor is a sequel a bad one.
Chuck Norris
Banned
It seems like Cory Barlog's team is scaling up, so I don't think this is a case of reducing SSM back to a one game studio.
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