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Sony closes Evolution Studios (Motorstorm, Driveclub)

Sad but expected. Such a shame, their work on Driveclub should be held as a standard on how to support a game and turn it into something 10 times the game it was when it released. Just superb work all around. Thank you, Evolution Studios and hopefully all the people working there land on their feet.
 
I'm having a hard time seeing how this makes sense for Sony. They're already struggling to put out a solid amount of first party games for the PS4, they're doing tremendously well as it is, but they still close one of the few studios they have pumping out first party content? What?
 
Obliterator said:
These studio closings in the industry are getting scary.

RIP Evolution I enjoyed your work. Hope everyone finds employment elsewhere quickly
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For every closure another studio will take it's place, independent or otherwise.

EatinOlives said:
I'm having a hard time seeing how this makes sense for Sony. They're already struggling to put out a solid amount of first party games for the PS4, they're doing tremendously well as it is, but they still close one of the few studios they have pumping out first party content? What?
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Wat?

You mean had pumping out content, and basically support for a game that had a bad launch that SOny themselves had to come in and fix. It sucks evolution is no more, they have talent. But have made a bunch of super costly projects that most of which didn't get their money back on.

And with the way racers are now with Project cars and such it's no wonder they closed. Look to what happened to the BLUR guys Bizarre Creations, they closed and Blur was decent.
Surprised the guys who make GRID haven't closed shop yet. Look at all the failed racers last gen. There are a bunch.

It's just this game was green lit at a time where racers were on the decline.
 
Bummwr. That was unexpected.

But they are some of the most talented devs around, I'm sure they'll be fine.

Still a shame
 
Feels like a big loss. We need these UK racing game studios... Sure Driveclub had an unfortunate start when it could have made a bang it came out to a ton of negative press (when it eventually came out), but they've done a superlative job supporting it and improving it beyond measure.

Perhaps the game doesn't fundamentally fill that Forza Horizon kind of niche maybe Sony had hoped it would but they could definitely have gone on to do something awesome given their technical pedigree. A PS4 Motorstorm, specifically one made into a VR game could have been incredible. Missed opportunity. Damn you Sony!
 
jett said:
GT6 took three years to make, less than it took DriveClub actually (Apocalypse came out in early 2011.)
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One was built from scratch for new hardware the other an iterative update to GT5.

Ninja Scooter said:
So what argument see you trying to make exactly? That DriveClub is a bigger hit and brand than GT? That Polyphony should be closed down?
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DC was shut down most likely due to poor sales and taking too long to come out. Polyphony on the other hand is given a pass to do whatever.
 
Wait what? I thought DriveClub was successful? Or was it a failure because people were waiting for the PS Plus edition and that killed sales?
 
Damn this sucks.

Hopefully someone picks the core tech staff up. The visuals they produced with DriveClub were unparalleled. Letting them work on a next gen racer starting now would be a big deal.
 
RoboPlato said:
They have Media Molecule, Guerrilla, Guerrilla Cambridge, Sony London, and North West Studio.
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And I assume they will double down on their XDev partnerships for the time being, like Quanic Dream and Supermassive. Quantic Dream just expanded again and is now somewhere above 200 employees (they were about 170 during Beyond).
 
Yoshida never hide the fact that Sony didn't have faith about racing games. PD will live of course, but that's it for the genre at Sony Studios.

This closure also confirm that only the biggest boys are going to survive within Worldwide Studios, I think Sony doesn't care anymore about the growth of first party studios and will do more partnership instead like Wild or Detroit.

If Bend doesn't deliver, they are next on the list.
 
Kysen said:
GT6 may have sold more but look at how long it took to put out. Imagine if each COD took 4 years to release would Activision still be happy with the sales numbers?
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Polyphony only have 140ish staff, when you sell like GT(5million minimum) you can support that many staff, if GT7/Sport bombs and sells 2 million copies they would last just as long as Evo.
 
Oh for God's sake Sony.

Now that's SCEE Liverpool and now Evoultion you've killed. Hope that the guys there can land on their feet. We got Playground Games from the ashes of Bizarre (And bits of Codemasters etc) so I'm hoping for a similar thing here.

I think it shows Sony up as being a bit schizophrenic though as they held a recruitment drive after Lionhead went and then killed off a UK studio themselves.

Sad few months all round for UK devs tied to 1st parties it seems really.
 
EatinOlives said:
I'm having a hard time seeing how this makes sense for Sony. They're already struggling to put out a solid amount of first party games for the PS4, they're doing tremendously well as it is, but they still close one of the few studios they have pumping out first party content? What?
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Because running studios is expensive. Just because they're doing well doesn't mean that they won't lose money elsewhere. After bleeding money on TVs and Vaios for years, I think they're very careful with this
 
Thank you, Evolution, for all your games. I loved the Motorstorm series and I loved DriveClub. I really hope everyone makes it through the closure OK. I was getting excited for a season 2 of DC DLC and now this... its heartbreaking to know all these people are out of work and that they won't get to keep working on what I think is one of the best racing games I've ever played.

Are there even any more UK racing studios left? Codemasters... and anyone else? The past several years have been hard on the developers over there and we as gamers unfortunately have lost a lot of top tier talent because of it.
 
This news still hasn't registered with me. I really do not believe Driveclub is over.
 
Awful news. MS and MS: Pacific Rift are some of my favorite racing games ever, especially Pacific Rift. Had a lot of fun with DriveClub.
 
Its a real bummer that Polyphony will be the only 1th party racing team at Sony now.

We will be lucky to get a racing game every 5 years form here on.
 
That sucks.. Hope for the best for all involved.

I am, however, not surprised. The abismal failure that was DriveClub during it's first months will wreck almost any studio (that isn't named 343i).
 
LifeBrandRobot said:
Seems short sighted considering Evolution is one of the few Sony studios working on a VR game.
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It sounds like work on VR is continuing at other locations. All the assets are already in place, so it's likely just tweaking performance at this point. I fully expect to still see Driveclub VR in some form.
 
EatinOlives said:
I'm having a hard time seeing how this makes sense for Sony. They're already struggling to put out a solid amount of first party games for the PS4, they're doing tremendously well as it is, but they still close one of the few studios they have pumping out first party content? What?
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They haven't needed first party to sell so far. I don't know why they would waste money on maintaining AAA studios that don't produce out and out hits or work on VR.
 
Obliterator said:
Certainly not true of AAA. Perhaps indie but if you look at the number of AAA developers and publishers in say 2010 and compare it to now you see a stark and frankly somewhat disturbing decline
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For every Car game that's made and the studio goes under, we get Project Cars. That's what I'm saying. Studios open and close all the time. MS opened a bunch of new studios year or so ago.

People that come from a larger studio break off and create a new AAA studio. Look at Robert Bowling, guy started a AAA studio not too long ago after MW3.

So I have no clue what your talking about. Indie developers get bigger start making AAA type games. Rocket league to me is a AAA made game just priced accordingly.

Psyonix isn't going anywhere anytime soon. neither is WILD HOG studios guys who made shadow warrior.

For every big studio as in 100+ employee closure another couple smaller studios who make AAA style games are born.
 
****!!!

I guess I could have seen this coming with the massive layoffs but come on.. Evolution Studios.

Damn... I guess this is the last year of content for DriveClub
 
Hey Rushy, Sorry to hear about the studio being closed and thanks for Driveclub, It's a great game, but you never brought us the mustang, or any fords. I was still holding out hope.
 
Chucker said:
So now Sony has:
No Wipeout (Edit: Yes I know they're not evolution, I'm just stating what has been lost in the past.)
No Driveclub
No Motorstorm

I really dislike GT, but those come out once in a blue moon.

3rd party racers it is, I guess.
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The racing genre in general has massively declined since the PS1 and PS2 days. It's a shame, but I think having a specialist racing studios is a dangerous game nowadays.
 
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