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Which acclaimed developer fell off the hardest?

Gaiff

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
You know who they are. They were once hailed as the cream of the crop in the business but a slate of terrible decisions along with shit games sank them.

A few candidates: BioWare, Rocksteady, Naughty Dog, Blizzard(?), Konami, and many I'm forgetting.
 
Konami, they're sleeping on a treasure trove of renown IPs still salvageable after their disastrous last efforts in the previous generations. Let's cross fingers for SH2
 
Squaresoft was one of my favourite devs when i was little and now i can't give enough fucks about most of their project and i actively hate some of them.

But sure konami is a good canditate aswell.

I would add obsidian to that list if their next game is as mid as their last one, they are not kotor2 material anymore.
 
Magic Carpet said:
Tango didn't fall, They were given a swift kick in the pants and shown the door.
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they were shanked by their boss and then left to die in the middle of the floor while the janitor had to put on his gloves


But Konami without a doubt. Tango was glorious from start to finish. Konami's gotten so terrible they can't even develop games themselves anymore
 
Bioware-logo.png
 
Blizzard, BioWare and Rocksteady. The first two were on a decline for a long while, but considering how many people on Rocksteady left during development of Suicide Squad, they do make sense to be mentioned
 
64bitmodels said:
But Konami without a doubt. Tango was glorious from start to finish. Konami's gotten so terrible they can't even develop games themselves anymore
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Such a shame. Konami used to one of my favorite developer/publishers. And they were good up until PS/360. Then somewhere in between, completely fell off after the whole Kojima departure.
 
West Texas CEO said:
Bethesda and Bioware.
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fall off? what did Bethesda even fall off from?

there's like Oblivion and Morrowind and then everything else was shit. They never fell off they were a one trick pony that lost their edge once other RPG studios (CD Project, Larian, Obsidian) came into the fray
 
gaming_again said:
Squaresoft? The excitement over their games when they were just Square... hard to imagine now.
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After the merger with Enix, they still make/made good games that get hype. FFVII Rebirth released not-so long ago. And (GAF going to go after me for this) XVI was decent too.

They had a lul period with XIII to XV though XI wasn't bad and XIV is regarded as a good game.
 
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Rocksteady, Bioware, and Blizzard probably in that order although we will see what happens when Dragon Age: Deadname comes out. This should be a poll.
 
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Rocksteady is a silly answer when they made two acclaimed games and one bomb. I loved Arkham Knight but nobody cared about it at the time.

Blizzard are the people who brought you World of Warcraft, Warcraft 1-3, Starcraft 1 + 2, Diablo 1-3, Hearthstone and Overwatch, and since then they've been more and more off the rails for the last 8 years.

Also BioWare and Bethesda.
 
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64bitmodels said:
fall off? what did Bethesda even fall off from?

there's like Oblivion and Morrowind and then everything else was shit. They never fell off they were a one trick pony that lost their edge once other RPG studios (CD Project, Larian, Obsidian) came into the fray
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Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim. Hell, even Fallout 4 was critically and commercially well received but not to the same extent as the other games. They were considered the premier open-world RPG dev for over a decade so I certainly would agree that they fell off considering that they haven't made a top-tier RPG in over a decade after scoring 4 major hits in a row.
 
Blizzard & BioWare for me.

I used to worship Blizzard in my childhood and teens. And it all kinda started to fall apart when they moved to their new HQ. And in particular after Cataclysm. StarCraft II was alright but I think splitting it up into 3 parts hurt it more than it helped. Then Project Titan failed and they recycled the husk into the piece of garbage that was/is the Overwatch IP. Diablo 3 was a disappointment. Diablo 4 is just some live-service abuse of the IP. WarCraft 3 Reforged is a fucking kick in the nuts; the worst remake ever made by anyone. Thankfully they cancelled their stupid survival game, at least.

Edit: I've forgotten about Heroes of the Storm, which was just Blizzard being salty at Valve and Icefrog. And Hearthstone, which I've never played.

Konami bowed out themselves, so I give them credit for that.
 
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First thought was Rare, but I think people are right about Konami. I think they went from being like a top 5 developer to trash, and in a way that's frequently insulting to fans. Blizzard did the same thing, but I liked Konami's stuff way more, so I'm biased towards them.
 
Konami is the more obvious pick but I think Bethesda deserves to be in the conversation. With Arkane and Tango both gone, Starfield being a major disappointment, and FO5/ES6 both years away, they need the next Doom game to be a masterpiece or they're cooked.
 
Bioware went to shit, from CRPG kings to whatever the fuck the do nowadays.
Blizzard went to shit, Warcraft III Reforged must be one of if not the most blatant "fuck you" to a fanbase I've ever seen.
Konami just fucking sucks, but they seem to be coming back from hell, just very slowly.
Platinum aren't at their peak either, guess they got really fucked up with all the Scalebound fiasco.

But for me, the one that hurts the most isn't really a fall off, but a disappearance...

TreasureCoLogo.png


Where the fuck are they?
 
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Arkane Austin, as they went from making some of my fav games, to making trash and getting immediately closed down. Their closure makes their fall 'the hardest'. After that its a tie between suicide squad and BioWare, will BioWare redeem themselves with dragon age? Will Rocksteady survive the axe? and if they do will their next game also be a redemption?...so too soon to tell on the final fate for them.
 
A few mentioning Rare, it's not. Kameo, Nuts and Bolts, Viva Piñata and SoT all great games in their own right.

One that's not been mentioned:

Dice.

From GOAT tier games like Battlefield 3 and 4, to an absolute joke and laughing stock of a developer. 2042 was one of the worst online video games I've ever played.
 
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mdkirby said:
Arkane Austin, as they went from making some of my fav games, to making trash and getting immediately closed down. Their closure makes their fall 'the hardest'. After that its a tie between suicide squad and BioWare, will BioWare redeem themselves with dragon age? Will Rocksteady survive the axe? and if they do will their next game also be a redemption?...so too soon to tell on the final fate for them.
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I don't think a studio should be shuttered because they made one bad game.

especially when their parent company FORCED them to make what was going to be a clearly obviously bad game, and then when it was obviously reviewed and sold bad, they shut the studio for it.
 
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