Changes at MS UK & Denmark, Fable Legends Development Ceased

Enough with the hookers and strioers. Back on-topic, has anyone tryed drinking coke and smoming cigarrets? It heightena the worst in both. I doubt they actually did that in thar order.
 
Its a shame as Fable legends wasn't a bad game at all. I would certainly have played it for free (as I was and enjoying it too) . They should have released it as a dx 12 show case across the platforms.
 
It's nice to see that Microsoft was open to someone buying Lionhead while keeping the Fable IP (same as with Bungie). Only unlike Bungie, the employees couldn't swing the purchase and no one else was interested in Lionhead without the Fable IP.

And what I'm getting from the rest of that article.

Phil Harrison wanted F2P games as a service across all games in all studios under his control.

Phil Spencer wanted anything labled Fable to be a AAA game with AAA spit and shine.

Phil Harrison then left and a succession of people were in charge of Microsoft Europe.

Either of the first two in isolation probably would still see Lionhead at Microsoft.

Fable Legends needed to release back near the start of 2015. It needed to have monetization in place as soon as it entered closed BETA in 2014 and it needed to have a way to keep people interested and engaged for long periods of time. It needed to have a non-AAA budget (which doesn't meant non-AAA graphics, just look at Warframe).

But none of that happened. Phil Harrison wanted F2P games as a service but I don't really think he understood what it means to be a F2P game. Not surprising as most people in charge at large publishers don't "get" F2P and what makes F2P successful.

Phil Spencer wanted Fable to look and play like a AAA game to anyone that tried it or looked at it. And that isn't unreasonable consider Fable is (or I guess was) one of the cornerstones of the Xbox franchise. I have a feeling he would have been just fine with a AAA Fable 4, but...Phil Harrison was in charge of Europe and there was nothing he could do about that. All he could do was try to at least make anything bearing the Fable game have the fit and finish of a AAA game. Which then made it impractical for it to succeed as a F2P game without established roots in that area or similar areas.

IMO, trying to go F2P with Lionhead as the developer was just a bad decision for Fable. It may have been a good game, but most Fable fans were likely going to be a bit turned off by the fact it wasn't a story based Fable 4.

If Phil Harrison wanted a F2P Fable game, it should have been contracted to a smaller studio with some experience in that area. But his ego wouldn't allow that and hence ALL studios under his control had to go that route. Meh, just a bad idea. It's a shame that he was put in charge of Microsoft Europe in the first place.

I was looking forward to getting a Fable 4 at some point. I was hoping Lionhead were working on Fable 4 with another team. Unfortunately that latter wasn't happening and the former is fairly unlikely.

But I'll hold onto my small but unrealistic hope that Microsoft and Molyneux are working out a deal to make Fable 4. :p

Regards,
SB
 
Really can't see the point of the card game I'm afraid.... though I couldn't see the point of Legends either (especially after playing it...) :)
 
At this point I think it's more about getting a game that makes money using Fable. If this is succesful, an attempt can be made at a more Fabley game. Going all out "we want to make Fable 3" would be quite the challenge. Although maybe that'd still see better backing?
 
I think it would, though it would also probably crash and burn as a small team of ex-fablers would really struggle to produce something of the scale necessary.... thinking of that though it would be a nice goodwill gesture from MS to 'gift' them the rights to the Legends code and assets as I think a lot of that could be re-purposed with much less effort.
 
xexuxjy said:
I think it would, though it would also probably crash and burn as a small team of ex-fablers would really struggle to produce something of the scale necessary.... thinking of that though it would be a nice goodwill gesture from MS to 'gift' them the rights to the Legends code and assets as I think a lot of that could be re-purposed with much less effort.
Click to expand...

I'm sure Microsoft would be fine doing that assuming they signed all relevant licensing agreements.

After all Microsoft are already somewhat involved in that Kickstarter. The developers had to get permission from Microsoft to continue to use the Fable franchise monitor. And Microsoft were fine with that.

Likewise, the CCG started development at Lionhead over a year ago with funds approved by Microsoft for the project. If Microsoft weren't willing to cooperate they could have easily prevented Flaming Fowl Studios from using anything that was developed at Lionhead. Instead, they gave them the license and everything else related to the project.

Microsoft will no longer provide additional funding for the project, however, and hence the relatively modest Kickstarter to just finish the game which was already in development for over a year. Obviously there will be some light restrictions. Not least of which that it can appear on any platform that isn't a competing console platform. And there might be some licensing revenue based on the games financial performance for using the franchise.

This is almost unheard of when a publisher dissolves a first party studio. There is obviously still goodwill at Microsoft with regards to developers from Lionhead who were recently let go.

Back to the idea of Fable Legends being continued. I'd imagine that if any former Lionhead developers wanted to do something similar with Fable Legends, Microsoft would have been more than willing to work something out with them. After all they were willing to allow the Fable Fortune team to continue to use everything as is from development done at Lionhead. I can't stress enough how rare it is for something like that to happen.

Granted the CCG on Kickstarter is far smaller in scope and that's what makes it possible for a small team to continue with it. To continue on with Fable Legends would require a far more substantial development team in order to continue with it. And the ongoing maintenance costs would be higher as well, making it a far riskier project for any team wanting to take it on.

In short, if former Lionhead developers were willing to start a development studio and were serious about continuing Fable Legends and could muster up a large enough team to do it, I think Microsoft would be fine with letting them take a shot at it.

Regards,
SB
 
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