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Rumour: Nintendo cancels Eternal Darkness 2; Fact: Silicon Knights hit by layoffs

E

evangd007

Member
Shiggy said:
Nintendo can even make Next Level Games produce good games, so I wouldn't have worried about ED2.
Click to expand...

Nintendo brings out the best in people. Compare Metroid: Other M (gameplay only, not the story) to Ninja Gaiden 3. It's the only reason why I have faith in Razor's Edge.

Being employed at Next Level Games must be a roller coaster ride. Euphoria when you have Nintendo contract, near depression when you don't.

<3 Mario Strikers and Punch Out!!
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
I'm not sure what would be the bigger disappointment- that which we're feeling now towards Dyack and the loss of a sequel to a great game, or what the game itself would have been.
 
C

Coppertracks

Member
Somnid said:
List of companies that would likely still be alive today if they had stuck with Nintendo:

-Silicon Knights
-Free Radical
-Factor 5

Hell Sega would be in much better shape too. I shudder to think how much next-gen is going to kill. One major bomb and you're out.
Click to expand...

Can we add Rare to that list? ;)

Nintendo + Sega = Nintega!
 
M

Mifune

Mehmber
Fuck Denis Dyack for going to trial in the first place.
Fuck Epic for shipping out UE3 before it was ready. Fuck them again for putting a smaller company out of business.
Fuck the game journalists for treating the story like Epic won the Superbowl.

There were no winners in this trial. A struggling once-promising company has been put to bed. A rich company gets richer. And no ED2.

I hope all the people who have lost their jobs in this mess land okay.
 
G

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Somnid said:
Funny thing about that. SK actually left the Nintendo fold because they wanted to make bigger more epic games with budgets Nintendo would never approve.

List of companies that would likely still be alive today if they had stuck with Nintendo:

-Silicon Knights
-Free Radical
-Factor 5

Hell Sega would be in much better shape too. I shudder to think how much next-gen is going to kill. One major bomb and you're out.
Click to expand...

Okay, hold on. This fallacy that every company would have been just fine if they stayed with Nintendo needs to stop.

-Silicon Knights brought about their own destruction. Even if they had "stayed with Nintendo" they still probably would have fucked up and destroyed themselves. In fact, considering the quality and sales of their games, Nintendo probably would have pulled out anyway resulting in this same scenario.

- Factor 5 got killed off thanks to the Brash deal. Not Lair, Brash. And Brash was a multiplatform game for the 360, PS3 and Wii.

-Free Radical wasn't even with Nintendo ever!

-And neither was Sega! Seriously, what?

Also, "staying with Nintendo" isn't come kind of formal 1st party contract or anything. A lot of the developers who recently have worked with Nintendo (such as Next Level Games) are only working on a per game relationship. And when they don't have contracted games with Nintendo they still have to work on other games to keep them afloat (usually shovelware). At best, Factor 5 and Silicon Knights would have gotten a few more jobs from Nintendo but ultimately would have still needed to find work elsewhere. Going off and trying to develop games for the 360/PS3 to grow as an independent developer wasn't a bad decision at all for them. What killed them was bad management and deals gone bad (and suicidal lawsuits in Silicon's case).

Doing contract work for Nintendo isn't come kind of invincibility star for independent developers.
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
Mifune said:
Fuck Denis Dyack for going to trial in the first place.
Fuck Epic for shipping out UE3 before it was ready. Fuck them again for putting a smaller company out of business.
Fuck the game journalists for treating the story like Epic won the Superbowl.

There were no winners in this trial. A struggling once-promising company has been put to bed. A rich company gets richer. And no ED2.

I hope all the people who have lost their jobs in this mess land okay.
Click to expand...

While Epic certainly isn't blameless (it seems a lot of people were biting their tongue because of Epic's position), this is mostly about SK. They simply ran out of people to bamboozle. It'll happen when you've been around that long and been that unproductive with other people's money.
 
V

volturnus

Banned
Somnid said:
Funny thing about that. SK actually left the Nintendo fold because they wanted to make bigger more epic games with budgets Nintendo would never approve.

List of companies that would likely still be alive today if they had stuck with Nintendo:

-Silicon Knights
-Free Radical
-Factor 5

Hell Sega would be in much better shape too. I shudder to think how much next-gen is going to kill. One major bomb and you're out.
Click to expand...
Better to last one year independently than a decade as a pawn IMO.
 
G

GC|Simon

Member
Whoa, sad news. I loved Eterna Darkness. And I also loved The Twin Snakes. Nintendo wanted to give them a second chance but it is understandable that they now step away from their agreement. And totally the same thing happend to Factor 5.

Imagine Eternal Darkness 2 and a game from Factor 5 for Wii U... would have been good for the Wii U lineup, very good.

Nintendo should found or buy two or three studios in the US and Europe. They clearly need more western games from wester devs to complete their lineup (shooter and racing games). They would be more independent from 3rd parties then.

Remeber Slicion Knights, Rare, Leftfield, Factor 5.... all great devs a while ago. Then they left Nintendo and got into serious trouble.
 
M

Mifune

Mehmber
1-D_FTW said:
While Epic certainly isn't blameless (it seems a lot of people were biting their tongue because of Epic's position), this is mostly about SK. They simply ran out of people to bamboozle. It'll happen when you've been around that long and been that unproductive with other people's money.
Click to expand...

Sure it's about SK. But most of SK's problems stem from suing Epic. Maybe dropping UE3 was a mistake, but suing Epic was a colossal one. Microsoft was VERY high on Too Human before the infamous engine troubles hit. It's quite possible that if production had started on the game a year later, development would have gone smoothly and things would have turned out well. Most of the games using UE3 at the same time suffered similar issues, but their developers didn't take the drastic step of dropping the engine entirely and idiotic step of suing its maker.

The whole thing is just a messed tangle of bruised egos, poor management, and honestly, bad luck and timing. It's sad, really.
 
S

Somnid

Member
grandjedi6 said:
Okay, hold on. This fallacy that every company would have been just fine if they stayed with Nintendo needs to stop.

-Silicon Knights brought about their own destruction. Even if they had "stayed with Nintendo" they still probably would have fucked up and destroyed themselves. In fact, considering the quality and sales of their games, Nintendo probably would have pulled out anyway resulting in this same scenario.

- Factor 5 got killed off thanks to the Brash deal. Not Lair, Brash. And Brash was a multiplatform game for the 360, PS3 and Wii.

-Free Radical wasn't even with Nintendo ever!

-And neither was Sega! Seriously, what?

Also, "staying with Nintendo" isn't come kind of formal 1st party contract or anything. A lot of the developers who recently have worked with Nintendo (such as Next Level Games) are only working on a per game relationship. And when they don't have contracted games with Nintendo they still have to work on other games to keep them afloat (usually shovelware). At best, Factor 5 and Silicon Knights would have gotten a few more jobs from Nintendo but ultimately would have still needed to find work elsewhere. Going off and trying to develop games for the 360/PS3 to grow as an independent developer wasn't a bad decision at all for them. What killed them was bad management and deals gone bad (and suicidal lawsuits in Silicon's case).

Doing contract work for Nintendo isn't come kind of invincibility star for independent developers.
Click to expand...

They misjudged their audience and they were not managed well to begin with. Nintendo solved both of these. It's not a joke when when people say teams like Retro and Next Level were whipped into shape under Nintendo management. It's also fair to say that they abandoned a fair amount of their original audience.

-SK died from going high budget and mismanaging their projects.
-Factor 5 died from going high budget and and a toxic publishing deal.
-Free Radical died from toxic publishing deals (with Sony instigating). You're right they were never published by Nintendo but they also tended to sell well on Nintendo platforms.
-Sega died from going high budget. Wii/DS Sonic games were keeping them alive and that's really all they have left.

It wasn't a ticket to success but I can't a see a world where they would have done worse, especially by keeping costs under control. Maybe you could say ignoring the Nintendo philosophy or simply failing to understand their strengths and weaknesses?

volturnus said:
Better to last one year independently than a decade as a pawn IMO.
Click to expand...

Better to die making shitty games than succeed making awesome ones?
 
J

Jorok Goldblade

Member
Baconsammy said:
No Starfox, no Mario, no Donkey Kong, no Zelda. Please. Give these franchises to B teams and let Retro do something new and good.
Click to expand...

You don't give your A franchises to B teams.

Retro needs o expand- I'd like to see a Retro capable of handling 2-3 simultaneous projects. Make them the new Rare- creating new IP and refreshing classic Nintendo IPs.
 
B

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
MEHFu.jpg
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
This was a potential system seller for me, so I guess this means I can safely avoid the WiiU for the time being. Take that Nintendo! ;p

I don't think we are ever gonna get to go back to Eternal Darkness. :( This is probably the closest we will ever get. Ah well.

bone_and_sinew said:
Dyack should be unbanned for one day only to answer to this.
Click to expand...

No. We already know what the dumbass did to sink this, we don't need him here trying to excuse his douchebaggery and calling us idiots or whatever.
 
W

wrowa

Member
It's all GAF's fault. We all know that GAF kills every drop of productivity -- if Dyack was still posting here, he would have never gotten the idea to sue Epic. ;(
 
B

BassForever

Member
And another great development studio dies :( I don't even want to imagine how potentially UE4 and the next generation cost will kill ever more studios I love
 
A

apana

Member
Jackano said:
This is Nintendo politics I don't understand, or at least I don't agree with.
If they want third party love, they better show more interest in their second party first.
If they want more core gamers games and generally more games for their systems, they also need to invest in more western studios.
They should have secured Silicon Knights IPs and supported them years ago.
Click to expand...

Nintendo is supportive as long as you are loyal to them. Dyack wanted to do his own thing and he failed. Nintendo was being generous by even working with this guy again and he blows it with this stupid lawsuit.
 
T

Twenty7KVN

Member
Green Scar said:
I'm not sure what would be the bigger disappointment- that which we're feeling now towards Dyack and the loss of a sequel to a great game, or what the game itself would have been.
Click to expand...
After seeing Zombiu i was really excited to see what could be done.Let's how this rumor isn't true.
 
M

MercuryLS

Banned
SK makes shitty games, I don't care if they go under. Eternal Darkness was turrrible, what's wrong with you people! Better off getting Retro to make a sequel, SK makes nothing but shit and ED2 would be shit if they had to make it.
 
N

Neon_Icarus

Member
Shit. Having ED2 confirmed, then told that it was
cancelled is like being punched in the guts.

I guess the franchise is dead now. Perhaps Nintendo
could always start over with another development
team, but the franchise is really just too niche to
bother.

Shit.
 
L

Loofy

Member
Factor 5 survived because of the star wars license.
If Lair was Called Rogue Squadron 3 they would have been around longer.
 
P

Penguin

Member
A stretch, but what is the chances of like Nintendo starting a studio with the SK people who were canned and financing Eternal Darkness 2?

Sans Dyack of course. Maybe put in someone they trust as the lead.
 
G

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Somnid said:
They misjudged their audience and they were not managed well to begin with. Nintendo solved both of these. It's not a joke when when people say teams like Retro and Next Level were whipped into shape under Nintendo management. It's also fair to say that they abandoned a fair amount of their original audience.

-SK died from going high budget and mismanaging their projects.
-Factor 5 died from going high budget and and a toxic publishing deal.
-Free Radical died from toxic publishing deals (with Sony instigating). You're right they were never published by Nintendo but they also tended to sell well on Nintendo platforms.
-Sega died from going high budget. Wii/DS Sonic games were keeping them alive and that's really all they have left.

It wasn't a ticket to success but I can't a see a world where they would have done worse, especially by keeping costs under control. Maybe you could say ignoring the Nintendo philosophy or simply failing to understand their strengths and weaknesses?
Click to expand...

None of those developers died from going high budget or from abandoning their original audience. SK, Factor 5 and Free Radical all continued to make similar games to what they were known for; its just that they all sucked. But even then that is not what killed those studios. Hell, SK apparently even got full reimbursement for Too Human from Microsoft! What killed each of those was publishers pulling out of publishing deals with them (Brash killed Factor 5, the loss of Star Wars Battlefront III killed Free Radical, and numerous gaming deals + the lawsuit + Nintendo pulling out of ED2 killed Silicon Knights). And again, Free radical is a horrible example: Their games did equally good on all platforms. There is no connection between them and Nintendo, let alone "Nintendo management".

And Sega is a horrible example. For one, whats keeping the company afloat is Sammy not Sonic Wii/DS games. Sega's problem right now is that their division (particularly the overseas offices) are drawing too much red ink for Sammy's liking. And Sega's losses and gains were never platform specific. They had bombs on the HD platforms and the Wii. Their Sonic games on both Wii/DS and PS3/360 did well. And the titles that kept them afloat ranged from Super Monkey Ball DS to Football Manager for the 360/PC. There is no defining "staying with Nintendo" sales pattern for them.

Nintendo's management wasn't a catch all saving grace for these companies. Yes, Nintendo's management helped Retro out in the early days. But that doesn't mean you can apply that example to every studio. Nintendo has plenty of studio management problems of its own and they aren't afraid to pull out of project, even if it dooms the developers (see this thread). At best, staying with Nintendo would have resulted in them working on random Nintendo IPs for the rest of their studio careers or, would have just resulted in the same situation we see here as any potential Wii titles would have fallen through, sold poorly and watched as Nintendo bailed out of their publishing deals.
 
A

apana

Member
I'm not sure what you guys are debating exactly. Nintendo needs competent developers, they have a lot projects that people could be working on. If you show that you are competent and are willing to do what they want then they will fund you. Dyack and others who left wanted to go for bigger and better things, they had their own vision, and they failed. The benefits of working with Nintendo is the fact that they are a stable company and they have talented game designers who can assist and consult on games. The drawback is that they are very controlling.
 
J

Jay Sosa

Member
Since I didn't know it was even in development I can't say I'm upset.

And judging by the last game SK released* it probably would've been shitty anyway.

*Last was TH, wasn't it?

And Jesus at all the people saying the first was 'turrible' and 'crap'. It might not have been for you but crap? Come on**.

**I know this is the internet and it's either OMG AMAAAAZING or the worst game in the world, but still.
 
T

Terrell

Member
The Nintendo 2nd-party curse strikes again. News at 11.

Writing was on the wall, as far as I'm concerned. Every time a 2nd-party abandons Nintendo, shit like this happens. Rare is only alive because Microsoft has basically gutted them and changed them into something they're not, all the while holding IPs that MS seems intent on never using again.

Just hire the writers from ED2 and send their work to another studio. Problem solved.


grandjedi6 said:
And Sega is a horrible example. For one, whats keeping the company afloat is Sammy not Sonic Wii/DS games. Sega's problem right now is that their division (particularly the overseas offices) are drawing too much red ink for Sammy's liking. And Sega's losses and gains were never platform specific. They had bombs on the HD platforms and the Wii. Their Sonic games on both Wii/DS and PS3/360 did well. And the titles that kept them afloat ranged from Super Monkey Ball DS to Football Manager for the 360/PC. There is no defining "staying with Nintendo" sales pattern for them.
Click to expand...

For what he was trying to convey, it is a horrible example. But one can not deny that dividing a former 1st-party fan base, that could obtain all of your games on one platform, onto 3 platforms, was a TERRIBLE idea. And while they have had successes now, it was easy to see where the diaspora of Sega fans wanted them to hang their hat, when nearly everything sold better on Gamecube. That generation led to the death of many Sega franchises, because while their games are strong interest-generating games, they can't generate interest in buying 3 different consoles. That was their mistake, and they have never lived it down.
 
S

Somnid

Member
grandjedi6 said:
None of those developers died from going high budget or from abandoning their original audience. SK, Factor 5 and Free Radical all continued to make similar games to what they were known for; its just that they all sucked. But even then that is not what killed those studios. Hell, SK apparently even got full reimbursement for Too Human from Microsoft! What killed each of those was publishers pulling out of publishing deals with them (Brash killed Factor 5, the loss of Star Wars Battlefront III killed Free Radical, and numerous gaming deals + the lawsuit + Nintendo pulling out of ED2 killed Silicon Knights). And again, Free radical is a horrible example: Their games did equally good on all platforms. There is no connection between them and Nintendo, let alone "Nintendo management".

And Sega is a horrible example. For one, whats keeping the company afloat is Sammy not Sonic Wii/DS games. Sega's problem right now is that their division (particularly the overseas offices) are drawing too much red ink for Sammy's liking. And Sega's losses and gains were never platform specific. They had bombs on the HD platforms and the Wii. Their Sonic games on both Wii/DS and PS3/360 did well. And the titles that kept them afloat ranged from Super Monkey Ball DS to Football Manager for the 360/PC. There is no defining "staying with Nintendo" sales pattern for them.

Nintendo's management wasn't a catch all saving grace for these companies. Yes, Nintendo's management helped Retro out in the early days. But that doesn't mean you can apply that example to every studio. Nintendo has plenty of studio management problems of its own and they aren't afraid to pull out of project, even if it dooms the developers (see this thread). At best, staying with Nintendo would have resulted in them working on random Nintendo IPs for the rest of their studio careers or, would have just resulted in the same situation we see here as any potential Wii titles would have fallen through, sold poorly and watched as Nintendo bailed out of their publishing deals.
Click to expand...

I don't think you understand the importance budget played. If SK hires 60 people for a large project and the publisher bails then that's a huge problem, if they were at the same size and a publisher bailed it's not as big a deal because they have cash reserves to at least pay their employees. Hell even when you finish a project successfully that's a problem because now you have to keep everyone busy or face demoralizing layoffs. The best case is to have other side projects and not devote their entire studio to a single thing. One of the trends between all of these is the studios grew to take on large projects and couldn't sustain themselves afterward. The other trend as you point out is they made terrible games. Again this is points to poor management, signing the wrong contract, committing to the wrong deadline or doing more than you're able.

The only dev with a contract from Nintendo to die in long while was Cing. Hell Monster Games haven't had the best of luck with sales but they keep getting contracts and keep making good games. Again would you rather make crappy games and lose your job over it or make good products and have a stable job? Maybe you don't like the management and that's fine but it certainly gets results and you get paid for your work. They all said "I could do better," and they couldn't.
 
D

DeaconKnowledge

Member
A few of the companies you mention didn't "abandon Nintendo" though.

Sega was always multiplatform focused.
Ditto Free Radical.
Rare was dumped by Nintendo, onto MS.
Left Field apparently left of their own accord.

Many of these developers are only as good as their next game. Nintendo does bring out the best in devs, but working with them isn't a guarantee for solid work. Just like any other first party.
 
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