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Rumor: Sony Santa Monica failed game was codenamed "Darkside"

N

Ninja Scooter

Member
I don't even know what people's endgame with this argument is...that Sony cancelled a perfectly good and potentially amazing game because...spite?
 
HYDE

HYDE

Banned
alr1ght said:
Another open world bloatfest with RPG mechanics. Well I can't say I'm too broken up about this.
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This...give me linear or beautifully entwined games.

90% of the open world games are snorefests and give people boring backlogs.
 
M

MatrixMan.EXE

Member
Y2Kev said:
These are public companies. Sony has far more cash than EA or Activision, but it doesn't matter because that is not how you budget a project (if you were even going to assume SCE had unlimited access to Sony's cash or cash flow).

I really think there is a gross misconception because of shoddy reporting in the games press about Sony's financial health. The company is restructuring, not going bankrupt. The company has the same or better credit ratings as Activision (and EA, which doesn't even have public ratings) if you are talking about default risk.
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Unfortunately, a lot of gamers tend to read a few NPD threads and financial reports then think they know finance and business 101, page for page.
 
R

Ray Down

Banned
Massa said:
Not infinite money, just more than Sony has. EA and Activision for example would have seen it through.
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ey7QWsQ.png
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Boogalogist said:
Wait a second here... This failed a milestone while the Order passed all milestones?
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Whatever you may think of The Order, it's exactly what RAD described it as all these years. It's also extremely polished. A game that misses milestones means that they aren't hitting the target of what it's actually intended to be. Here's an example of what it meant when Free Radical started missing milestones for Battlefront 3

Free Radical pitched an ambitious design to LucasArts, in which the game would seamlessly transition from running and gunning on the ground to flying a vessel into space, where another war was being waged. “Within that, the seeds for disaster were sewn,” Doak says. “I think that core design pillar of the game was slightly untenable because of the scale.”

Free Radical worked on the Battlefront franchise for over two years, trying to get its vision to work. The art team moved on to designing assets for Battlefront IV even while Battlefront III was struggling to reach its intended vision.

Red flags were waved internally at Free Radical, but on LucasArts’ end, the game was looking like a smash hit. Development on Battlefront III seemed to be going well. “We kept getting these code drops that were amazing,” an ex-LucasArts employee remembers. “The big hook of going from ground to air to space seamlessly totally worked. Piloting a capital ship, getting out and running around in the ship’s interior, and jumping into an escape pod and rocketing down to land again – holy s---! We thought [Battlefront III] was going to turn the industry on its head. Free Radical was meeting all of their milestones. Even Jim Ward would sit in those core team meetings and would say things like, ‘So this is shipping next month, right?’ And this was 2007. This is a joke because it was looking so good, especially compared to Fracture and Force Unleashed at the time, which were just troubled the whole way. And we would all laugh, thinking, ‘Wow. If it looks this good now for a game that’s shipping in 2008, there’s not going to be any problem.’”

Difficulties arose early in 2008. Free Radical started missing milestones, and the new builds of the game that were coming in featured major stability issues. The design called for 100-player multiplayer matches. “We’d get 20 players in a match and it would just bog down,” a source close to the project says. “Then Free Radical started cutting content. They’re like, ‘Ok, we’re going to go from 100 to 50 players online. That’s still really good; it’s still more than anyone else. That’s fine. We’re going to cut this single-player campaign down in scope.’ So then the cuts started coming, which is all fairly standard stuff. But we just couldn’t get an estimate. It was starting to become apparent that they weren’t going to make the [release] date that they said they were going to make, and they weren’t being very clear about why or what the new dates would be. Internally, because this was right when Haze was shipping, we were all certain that they had pulled tons of resources off Battlefront to finish up Haze, and they wouldn’t tell us what was going on. We tried to get our producers over there and they wouldn’t let us into the building. The relationship just started fraying.”
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http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx?PostPageIndex=4
 
S

stryke

Member
Boogalogist said:
So now I believe there's a milestone for graphics but not gameplay...?
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Can't believe how daft some people here are. You don't know what their milestones are, do you? For all we know, The Order is exactly the type of game RAD wanted to make, ie it hit their milestones.

Darkside or whatever it was couldn't hit SSM's own milestones. What's so freaking hard to understand about that? You think every single game in the industry has the exact same milestones? If they did they'd all be the same game.
 
R

Reset

Member
Coulomb_Barrier said:
Counter to that is people eventually get bored of the same franchise. Hence Ascension sales were so poor.

ND could have just kept making Uncharted because it sells well but took a risk with TLOU. That's now sold around 10 million.
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Ascension still sold over 2 million copies, no? And it's not even a numbered title.
 
T

Trigonometrize.

Member
Y2Kev said:
lol wow sony u suk canceling game 2-3 years in the making that "isn't coming together" to make more multimillion selling 90+ rated god of wars omg kratos is SUCH a bad character I am going to go write in my uguu diary
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GoW saw unimpreesive numbers with Ascension and Remastered. A new God of War game fully replacing a new IP's decelopment is a bad business move to me.
 
Patapwn

Patapwn

Member
SolidSnakex said:
Whatever you may think of The Order, it's exactly what RAD described it as all these years. It's also extremely polished. A game that misses milestones means that they aren't hitting the target of what it's actually intended to be. Here's an example of what it meant when Free Radical started missing milestones for Battlefront 3



http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx?PostPageIndex=4
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Wow they sent producers over and they didnt let them in. I didnt even know you could do that
 
N

Nightengale

Member
Trigonometrize. said:
GoW saw unimpreesive numbers with Ascension and Remastered. A new God of War game fully replacing a new IP's decelopment is a bad business move to me.
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You know a "new IP" means to the mainstream market?

Absolutely fucking nothing.

A new IP has to be great, has to be marketed effectively, etc. A new IP doesn't have some business multiplier without the core of the game being good in the first place.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Massa said:
Not infinite money, just more than Sony has. EA and Activision for example would have seen it through.
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This is so painfully wrong.

Coulomb_Barrier said:
Counter to that is people eventually get bored of the same franchise. Hence Ascension sales were so poor.

ND could have just kept making Uncharted because it sells well but took a risk with TLOU. That's now sold around 10 million.
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The differences are beyond apparent. One is a TPS/stealth hybrid, which UC had already done to an extent, that was linear in a zombie apocolypse type atmosphere and focused on the story. The similarities to UC are so obvious- TPS, story driven, production values, etc. All of these things have been not only done by other companies, but by Naughty Dog themselves and in fact they were the kings of it.

Darkside was a secondary team that wasn't quite proven that in concept tried to combine a multitude of different game mechanics according to the leaks- Vehicles, full customization, open world which was very ambitious in scale, action game that blended with gunplay with no sacrifice on either side from the sounds of it. Milestones aren't just about how the game is coming together, it's about if you have been following your ideas and if it is apparent you can make those or not.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Trigonometrize. said:
GoW saw unimpreesive numbers with Ascension and Remastered. A new God of War game fully replacing a new IP's decelopment is a bad business move to me.
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and sinking MORE money when the rumored number was already a staggering 50 million, into a project that wasn't even presentable to internal QA, let alone the public, was a better idea?! On top of all of this they would be going all in on a project that could completely bomb out of the gate. This of course in contrast into a brand new next gen God of War reboot, which even if not a powerhouse, is guaranteed to make some money. Thank goodness you're not calling the shots.
 
R

Reset

Member
Neuromancer said:
It's not a matter of standards, it's a matter of preference. God of War is one of the series I'm least interested in. Whatever this would have or could have been probably would have been better.
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I think he's saying that you don't have to cry, since there are hundreds of games released that are not GoW titles. And if not being GoW is what excites you then you must get excited at 99.99% of the titles announced.
 
Z

zsynqx

Member
msdstc said:
Was this when he was making up false stories and slandering the driveclub director?
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Looking back at his posts he probably did have some legit info, (he knew it was called 'Darkside' etc.) but sprinkled that in with some made up stuff to make him seem more connected and all knowing.
 
brickarts295

brickarts295

Member
Looks like Sony gave them the same chanc they gave ND. Make a new I.P. while you make a sequel of one of your franchise. Im grateful turn out to be a success TLOU.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
BkzUzi said:
I think he's saying that you don't have to cry, since there are hundreds of games released that are not GoW titles. And if not being GoW is what excites you then you must get excited at 99.99% of the titles announced.
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I know what he/she was saying. Thank you though.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
It shouldn't be that hard to understand why people would want something new and fresh.

I doubt this was the first game to miss a milestone, or that at one point in development wasn't coming along as well as it could have been.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Neuromancer said:
It shouldn't be that hard to understand why people would want something new and fresh.

I doubt this was the first game to miss a milestone, or that at one point in development wasn't coming along as well as it could have been.
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Its clear from all indications that the plug needed to be pulled. 50 million dollars in and you're still missing milestones? You're done.
 
G

ginger ninja

Banned
It's really something hearing people say they would love hypothetical game X which they haven't even seen a bit of and how it's soo much better than a series with an average metacritic of >85.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
Neuromancer said:
It shouldn't be that hard to understand why people would want something new and fresh.

I doubt this was the first game to miss a milestone, or that at one point in development wasn't coming along as well as it could have been.
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This was a game by the directed of GoW3 and by one of Sony's most prized studios. You're kidding yourself if you don't think that they gave it every chance possible to come together before pulling the plug. No company wants to spend tens of millions of dollars and have nothing to show for it.
 
H

hodayathink

Member
Neuromancer said:
It shouldn't be that hard to understand why people would want something new and fresh.

I doubt this was the first game to miss a milestone, or that at one point in development wasn't coming along as well as it could have been.
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Stig had more thank likely been working on this game in some capacity since GOW3 came out (since it had no DLC or online to work on after release). That was in March 2010. The game wasn't cancelled until last year. That's 4 years to hit milestones and give Sony something that says "this is worth continuing to invest in". If they couldn't do that in 4 years, then I don't know how you don't pull the plug unless you're 3DRealms or something.
 
T

Trigonometrize.

Member
msdstc said:
and sinking MORE money when the rumored number was already a staggering 50 million, into a project that wasn't even presentable to internal QA, let alone the public, was a better idea?! On top of all of this they would be going all in on a project that could completely bomb out of the gate. This of course in contrast into a brand new next gen God of War reboot, which even if not a powerhouse, is guaranteed to make some money. Thank goodness you're not calling the shots.
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Didn't say anything about trying to salvage this apparently disastrous game, just the GoW shit it stupid. Start fresh.

Thank goodness I'm not calling the shots for trying to get an established studio to get a successful franchise going? Destiny is a game that was a new IP off a studio abandoning their franchise that is 5x the juggernaut of God of War and they're doing pretty well for themselves. Please.

Some of you guys have a warped notion of what old vs new IP mean to the people green lighting these games and that it's not actually a colossal uphill battle to get a new thing going all the time.
 
M

Mezoly

Member
Trigonometrize. said:
Didn't say anything about trying to salvage this apparently disastrous game, just the GoW shit it stupid. Start fresh.

Thank goodness I'm not calling the shots for trying to get an established studio to get a successful franchise going? Destiny is a game that was a new IP off a studio abandoning their franchise that is 5x the juggernaut of God of War and they're doing pretty well for themselves. Please.

Some of you guys have a warped notion of what old vs new IP mean to the people green lighting these games and that it's not actually that one sided all the time.
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If they tried another new IP and it failed that would mean the end of the studio most likely. They went the safe route in something they know they could do.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
Mezoly said:
If they tried another new IP and it failed that would mean the end of the studio most likely. They went the safe route in something they know they could do.
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Sony Santa Monica isn't going anywhere. They are also a support studio and work with lots of other developers.
 
N

Nightengale

Member
Trigonometrize. said:
Didn't say anything about trying to salvage this apparently disastrous game, just the GoW shit it stupid. Start fresh.
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So... another 5-6 years of development?

In the first place, Sony Santa Monica was never the most speedy studio in the world. Their games generally have a 3-year dev cycle, (GoW2/3/Asc), even with an established formula and IP.

A new IP, especially if it's going to steer far away from their core formula (like Darkside's RPG, shooter, open-world, etc) is going to have to spend a lot, lot, lot of time in pre-production. Heck, Stig spent 4 years in pre-production and still didn't manage to have a compelling vertical slice.

No AAA studio can afford to go "without a game" for 6 effing years. The last time devs were given such a flamboyant time to make games, it killed them. (Bioshock Infinite)

I'd love a new IP, but realistically, a new IP will have to be built behind-the-scenes while a game that can be released within 3 years take priority. ( in this case, God of War)
 
C

Cave Johnson

Member
SolidSnakex said:
Whatever you may think of The Order, it's exactly what RAD described it as all these years. It's also extremely polished. A game that misses milestones means that they aren't hitting the target of what it's actually intended to be. Here's an example of what it meant when Free Radical started missing milestones for Battlefront 3



http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx?PostPageIndex=4
Click to expand...

You missed an important context to the article, it details WHY milestones are missed:


GameInformer said:
At that time, Jim Ward stepped down as LucasArts’ president and was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez, a new overseer who a former associate sized up as “not f---ing around.” Rodriguez pushed Free Radical hard, creating a tense working relationship between the two companies.

Doak recalls this time, his words quiet and melancholy. “I wouldn’t even talk about it personally because it completely did my head in,” he says. “I think, particularly, because of the role that I was creative director and also the front man for the company, I got to do all of 
the putting on a brave face and smiling, then going behind doors and having the arguments, and then going back telling my guys we have to work harder this time. And after that thinking, ‘You’re going to miss the next milestone because I know they [LucasArts] don’t want you to pass it.’ I really hated that. It just completely stopped me from functioning. You don’t believe it’s actually a real thing until it happens to you, but I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Tears all over the place. It was just a really horrible time. I wasn’t there for the very end.”

In an interview with Eurogamer, Free Radical audio director Graeme Norgate revealed that LucasArts stopped funding the project around this time.

“LucasArts hadn’t paid us for six months, and were refusing to pass a milestone so we would limp along until the money finally ran out,” he said. “They knew what they were doing.”

In early 2009, Free Radical released a company video that made fun of LucasArts and Star Wars. In it, a representative of LucasArts tells a Free Radical employee, “We have to pull the game. It has become too good. You need to make it worse, or we are pulling the game. We need to make products with the Star Wars name, but with little content. It’s about making a f---ing bucket full of money, don’t you understand?” After an exchange of words, the Free Radical employee responds, “You guys are a--holes.”
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