And you think second-party development has an inherently worse risk/reward ratio for Sony (or other platform holders) than first- or third-party development? That's what you're trying to say?
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Lightbox (Starhawk) lays off 24 people, moves to iOS development
- Thread starter Kifimbo
- Start date
And you think second-party development has an inherently worse risk/reward ratio for Sony (or other platform holders) than first- or third-party development? That's what you're trying to say?
chertipros
Member
I'm just curious, but what former big time developers actually benefitted from developing for IOS?
Xplatformer
Member
And no single player worth anything.
I had such high hopes for this game...but it was ugly and never grabbed me with it's game mechanics.
Iacobellis
Junior Member
And... Sony lost how many studios this year?
Metalmurphy
Member
It wasn't a Sony's studio.
We need to have an OT for marketing campaigns and how to judge their effectiveness. I never know what's considered good marketing or not. I remember seeing lots of ads for Starhawk on the internet. But apparently now it never had advertising and that was the reason for its failure. Same thing for The Secret World, there was a time where I couldn't go to a website without seeing an ad for that game but now people say it never had advertising.
Just going to throw this out there. This is referring to Sorcery. Which i saw several adverts for here in the UK.
So they definitely marketed it.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
wouldn't surprise me. sorcery went from a very promising e3 demo to an average looking game.
Its fun so yeah.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
Might look average but it's fun
i didn't say it wasn't fun (game looked like shit from the gameplay i saw, but i respect other people's opinions), just that after the e3 demo and after whatever focus groups tests they did, the game couldn't be more generic looking than it already is, just like FUSE.
funkystudent
Member
But that ad was in Europe and the developer had there deal with SCEA and SSM, just like Lightbox. SCEE actually run TV ads for most of there games and platforms unlike SCEA who haven't really done much marketing for anything the last year outside of uncharted 3 and the vita launch window.
I would guess the call to cancel there deal was made by SCEA and the biz dev guys Sony Santa Monica.
I said it before but I think its time for a big shake up with SCEA management.
SCEE and SCEJ have had major shake ups this generation and its been for the better in most cases but SCEA still have a bunch of the same people that they have had since the ps2 era there.
Jack Tretton is probably the only SCE person who got through the PS3 launch with the same position in the company. Most other higher SCE management ether "left" or are Kaz Hirai.
Maybe its time to shake things up starting with replacing Jack.
So basically almost everyone is gone.
Sucks, though. 32 person team isn't that big. Starhawk must have really flopped hard. I bought my copy at launch.
FTFY. Jack is second to go but first we get on-time updates for America.
walking fiend
Member
I wonder how many developers iOS market can sustain before it is flooded
Chuck Norris
Banned
People wanted an ambitious Warhawk 2 that offered huge open Battlefields between land and space ala Star Wars Battlefront
Mixing RTS and shooting is just a conceptually weak idea. Two styles of gameplay that appeal to totally different types of gamers, and are played at a totally different pace. You can't have one without taking away from the other
I think it could've been done, the execution was just a bit gimpy.
But they should've put emphases on the resource gathering instead of just having people shoot a barrel, go off on their own, and build a hawk.
Like in Fat Princess, you had people who attacked, defended, and gathered. StarHawk's mechanics have no depth, and eventually that made every player fall into the same category by the end of a match. The maps also didn't really support this idea.
Yeah, because advertising/sci-fi setting was the issue... not the fact the beta showed huge problems with the gameplay, people stated such, they didn't listen game A-bombed into a specular mushroom cloud of price-dropping in weeks of launch, and only two months later they finally fix the beta faults... a beta that RAN FOR SEVEN MONTHS.
Nope, it was DAT BLASTED SONY MARKETTING (or lack thereof!) that was the problem with Starhawk! Not the beta/not fixing the fucking beta!
This game had a very weird PR campaign up until its release, first the unveiling in May 2011 which was very good then e3 which people summed that the game was Warhawk meets and RTS; the response was not bad really but then they go dark until the beta in fall which didn't include press and somehow Warhawk players got keys before the press. I got a beta key before most press outlets! It seemed the PR was going after the Warhawk fans but their wasn't a lot of them out there to begin with. Couple that with a lackluster single-player I can see why Sony didn't put its best foot forward on the product but at the same time they were really dependent on a beta that the press didn't have access to from the start.
Kenshin001
Member
While I don't think the lack of marketing was entirely the reason, SCEA's marketing is pretty shit. They are just not good at generating hype about games.
As already mentioned ad infinitum in this thread though, Starhawk also tanked because they did not make the game the people who loved Warhawk wanted. They also did not adapt to the realities of the market. They tried to sell a AA game for full price through retail, when they had already had success with a $40 game that came out on both retail/downloadable. I remember at the start of this gen there were a few games like that, Warhawk, GT5 Prologue, Siren.
With Sorcery it suffered from SCEA's lack of marketing but they also changed the look of the game from a bright younger oriented look to a less appealing mature look and it didn't review that great either.