http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-12-guerrila-cambridge-to-close
Sony close Guerrilla Cambridge
Sony close Guerrilla Cambridge
Big for a VITA and PSVR studio... Doom and Gloom Sony will soon close Sony Bend, Media Molecule, Polyphony Digital, London Studio listening GAF... or at least all UK studios because Brexit...
They were never an AAA-churning kind of team. But I do remember some very technically impressive titles on the PS2!
They did impressive games on VITA too... But working as a VITA studio and after work on a 60 dollars/euros PSVR launch title is not a gift...
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While they were the main developer behind the MediEvil franchise during the 90s, it seems that within the last ~10 years they were left mostly as a studio for outsourcing jobs in tittles from other studios like Ninja Theory and Guerrilla Amsterdam.
Killzone Mercenaries was actually pretty great, but as I said before RIGS is a total brainfart. Making a 60€ game that only works in multiplayer for a tiny PSVR userbase was completely ridiculous. I'd very much like to know if this idea came from the studio itself or some bean counter in SCE's publishing department.
That said, Mercenaries may have been a money loser (Sony had practically dropped the console years before the game released) and RIGS probably isn't making any money either.
So I'd understand closing the studio if they were responsible for the concept of RIGS.
But if all these guys are being laid off because someone else ordered them to make the game then screw you SCE. You're becoming horrible.
Please tell me it's not to whine about how everyone hates MS and loves Sony for the 999th time...
Killzone Mercenaries was actually pretty great, but as I said before RIGS is a total brainfart. Making a 60€ game that only works in multiplayer for a tiny PSVR userbase was completely ridiculous. I'd very much like to know if this idea came from the studio itself or some bean counter in SCE's publishing department.
That said, Mercenaries may have been a money loser (Sony had practically dropped the console years before the game released) and RIGS probably isn't making any money either.
So I'd understand closing the studio if they were responsible for the concept of RIGS.
But if all these guys are being laid off because someone else ordered them to make the game then screw you SCE. You're becoming horrible.
Why is this even remotely important?
Please tell me it's not to whine about how everyone hates MS and loves Sony for the 999th time...
It's relevant. He's putting the spotlight on the perception that MS is evil and Sony is a saint in the eyes of gamers. Many Xbox gamers feel this way about it, it's a _terrible_ marketing problem that MS has to overcome. I can see why Xbox gamers get frustrated by it, because it's always, no games on Xbox, Forza/Halo/Gears... etc etc. no risks, no risks, no games, no IPs, always playing it safe, dude bro games only; Closing down studios that will make Xbox brand better. The frustration is not very different from how Android fans get upset by Apple fans and call them Sheep.
Targeting Gaf is correct, because they are the 5th largest forum in the world in web traffic, let alone the #1 gaming forum. Their pull is huge, the hive mind opinion there counts because it affects so many channels on the internet.
I get this may not be the thread to post about it though, but honestly you can just _read_ the frustration in the posts, you can read it over there, here, anywhere. The frustration comes from the disconnect about how people feel about Xbox, and the actual experience of owning and using an Xbox.
Considering the backlash towards MS the other day, with some folks calling for Spencer to be replaced as head of Xbox, yea I think it would be reasonable for someone to double check if there is a double standard occurring there. edit__: reasonable to make commentary about double standards... but we should not be derailing threads for it.
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Nope, this is the second:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIE_Worldwide_Studios#Studios
They closed three in 2012 before the current gen was released and 2 more since then.
In the meanwhile they opened another four: the Sony Manchester Studio for VR content (which is where I guess they'll be sending most of the Guerrilla people that don't get fired), PixelOpus for smaller indie-ish titles, Sony San Mateo who are working in VR and Insomniac's Spiderman and Forwardworks which seems to be for mobile stuff only.
At a high-level, I think closing Guerrilla Cambridge makes a lot more sense than Evolution, which were (and are?!) still working on DriveClub VR when the closure was announced. Now that was an odd decision.
So it is just to whine about it.
Got it.
Because had @BRiT 's comment (and yours) been reversely done in a thread regarding a Microsoft 2nd-party developer being closed, some mod would already have gone into full-panic mode and ninja-erased both your posts.
That or they had been moved to a thread with some not-biased-at-all titles like "Amalgam of posts from people who keep bitching about Microsoft's lack of failures".
But in a thread about a Sony first-party studio closing doors? Of course it's totally cool to derail the thread just to whine about how it's so unfair that some other dev team or game was shelved and Microsoft got more flak about it in some other forum.
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While i agree that gaf has a clear bias against Microsoft. I dont think the two situations were even remotely similar. Believe it or not, even reddit XB1 subforum had like 1800 posts about the cancellation of Scalebound, looking at PS4 subreddit, the cancellation of this studio has 28 comments. So clearly losing one of the showcase games for 2017 is a much bigger deal than cancellation of a studio that hadnt even announced a game yet?
As for double standard.. even with the closing of this studio, you can see Sonys first party output is much higher than Microsofts. You can be a fan of a company without burying your head in the sand about its shortcomings. Sony got rightfully flamed about the mod situation, EA access and probably BC if they skip that with PS5
It's not. I'm just trying to put in some context around it. There's a lot of shit that goes across forums as well. I'm not saying its the right thing to do. I'm just saying, I can see why he wrote it. and i'm not speaking for him either. He just wanted to know if shit was going cray over there. It could be a curiosity post.
Empathy does not equate to just cause.
edit: and you're right, we shouldn't be derailing threads over it. Thats probably the big no no.
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I do believe it. There were mistakes with Scalebound and i have my thoughts about that for sure. No one here is burying their head in the sand about the decisions being made recently. But these failures are a result of decisions made long ago (2014 for Scalebound). If Scalebound was never announced in 2014 it would probably see the day of light right now.
The topic we should be discussing right now isn't who is closing what... but why studios are getting closed/projects being cancelled.
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It's a death sentence, yes.
But was Sony ever hoping that PSVR titles would make them money within 3 months of the platform's release?
AFAIK, the number of PSVR sales wasn't far off their estimates, on the contrary. They should have known that people would start out with demos and small games like Playroom VR, and then gradually invest more in the platform (that's already pretty expensive from the start).
Or were they expecting the whole couple of million PSVR users to shell out $60/60€ for a small multiplayer-only and competitive VR title?
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If the game price was 30 or 40 dollars it would have done better...
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Shutting a studio is different. People 'lost their shit' where it become known that Sony Santa Monica (God of War) had a title cancelled a few years back but nobody cares any more because the studio carried on.
I really don't 'get' these reactions, especially after so many studio closures over the past five years. It's like people seem to think the games industry is like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory or some weird kind of charity. Nobody in under any misapprehension about Hollywood being profit/result driven so it should come as no surprise that the even larger revenue-generating videogames industry is any different.
