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[Heisenberg007]

or maybe the should fuck all that and just make an MP game that capitalizes on everything that made factions great with part 2 gameplay, for a deliberately smaller audience rather than trying to make ALL THE MONEY

Honestly, I want that GTA Online / RDR 2 Online type game in the TLOU universe. I'm not particularly interested in the Factions 2 game mode as such.

If not for the former, I'd rather them work on single-player-games only.

 

[touchfuzzy]

Yikes, rough week for Playstation fans.

Microsoft can really start to turn some heads if they actually have a decent show in June and Starfield looks awesome. Some big "If's" for them, but we'll see.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Having to reevaluate a game after it's been in development for a while is the definition of development hell. The state of something failing to progress for a long period of time. Development hell.

Not at all. The reason is important in this case.

And the report clearly mentions the reason, i.e., Bungie thought that long-term engagement and monetization will be difficult. Nowhere does it say that the game wasn't coming along, or it was stuck in pre-production, or devs kept leaving: which are all examples of development hell.

 

[FunkMiller]

Who wants to fucking bet they’ve been told to make it easier to stick micro transactions everywhere from the Sony top brass?

Cancel this fucking GaaS bullshit and do what you’re good at Naughty Dog.

Honest to god, GaaS will kill this stupid industry off.

 

[rofif]

Sony only drops high quality, they felt the game was not up to that standard. They don't want to drop another Resistance 2 that dies off after 6 months.

So they need to either cut their losses and double down on what they do best, or stick with diversifying their portfolio.

So when these Live Service games do drop, they match the quality you guys have come to know with the SP games.

anecdotally, I would love resistance and killzone collections on ps5...

 

[Clear]

How did you conclude development hell from this?

Bungie analyzed the game and said that long-term engagement and monetization will be an issue with the current model, so they are reevaluating how the game should be to maximize its long-term engagement and revenue potential.

ND could release the game if Sony's plan weren't as ambitious.

Yep. What's the point leaving staff working on seasonal content when your engagement and monetization plan are up in the air?

Also, why do they desperately need to announce Factions at this point? Its not like they haven't just revealed 3 other first-party GaaS at the same show? The show is between seasons and they are still cleaning up after the messy launch of Part 1 on PC.

Seems to me like they have the luxury of time to try and properly maximize the potential of the property. They don't want to release something that doesn't live up to people's expectations based on ND's track record and all the hype on the brand. They cannot afford to Redfall it.

 

[gothmog]

Now you starting to believe the COVID issues?

I have been telling people about that for a long time, and no one believed me here.

It wasn't that I didn't believe. It was that I didn't think the timeline and impact was as big. Basically the crater is much larger than I thought.

 

[ChiefDada]

"Fix" in action:

I KID I KID

Did you read the article or did you just skim the tweet?

Sony has invested heavily in “games as a service,” or video games designed to be monetized beyond their initial sales through ongoing purchases. As part of that push it asked another of its video-game studios, Seattle-based Bungie, to evaluate the games across its portfolio. Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project’s ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment.

That isn't describing a "development hell". Development hell consists of continuous failures in achieving project benchmarks stemming from managerial or operational deficiencies that remain unchecked/unresolved over excessive period. Naughty Dog thought they were making a great GAAS game from their perspective. Bungie, a company with infinitely more success and experience in the genre, disagreed. Sony went with Bungie's evaluation.

If anything, Sony/Bungie's actions prevent a development hell from forming and/or failed project from releasing.

The term you want to use is "scrapped concept" of a project, some of which may or may not experience development hell.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Yikes, rough week for Playstation fans.

Microsoft can really start to turn some heads if they actually have a decent show in June and Starfield looks awesome. Some big "If's" for them, but we'll see.

I think it's just the recency of it all that's making us think like that.

At its core, the PlayStation Showcase was an hour-long commercial. One poor commercial -- in which Sony didn't show much -- does not undo years and years of hardwork. Games like Returnal, HFW, GOWR, GT7, TLOU, Spider-Man 2 etc. were not undone by that. And the next 18 months are also jam-packed with exclusive games.

I hope Xbox has an excellent show because competition drives excellence. But this one little episode will not make any difference -- especially when Xbox itself is coming on the back off of a nearly 2-year stretch of bad news. What's 1 week in front of it.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Not at all. The reason is important in this case.

And the report clearly mentions the reason, i.e., Bungie thought that long-term engagement and monetization will be difficult. Nowhere does it say that the game wasn't coming along, or it was stuck in pre-production, or devs kept leaving: which are all examples of development hell.

Yep. The hyperbole and FUD will now ensue.

 

[Bartski]

"reassessed" is a nice way of saying it's getting rebooted or canceled.

 

[Yoboman]

Honestly sucks but hopefully the delay means it's good when it releases. There's that old Nintendo quote about a delayed game

The Bungie purchase seems to be paying dividends in terms of ensuring when these games come out, hopefully they are done right. Nobody is going to accuse PlayStation Studios of being leaders when it comes to multiplayer.

I wonder if that leaked Horizon game got similar treatment seeing as we saw nothing

That said hopefully not too much time was wasted on this and it didn't take away from whatever the next Druckmann project is, which would have mostly been preproduction work since TLOU2 completed. We know at a minimum that Naughty Dog did beef up to have something of a separate multiplayer arm for the Factions project, so hopefully it's been relatively smooth on the SP project

 

[near]

Not at all. The reason is important in this case.

And the report clearly mentions the reason, i.e., Bungie thought that long-term engagement and monetization will be difficult. Nowhere does it say that the game wasn't coming along, or it was stuck in pre-production, or devs kept leaving: which are all examples of development hell.

Which attributes the following: indecision on principle design ideas; no confidence on its marketability; wasted resources for the last 5 years. Etc etc. There is always a reason associated with games that are in development hell, this doesn't suddenly mean the project is going through a normal development process.

 

[cormack12]

Sees title. Sees 8 pages.

 

[DForce]

Having to reevaluate a game after it's been in development for a while is the definition of development hell. The state of something failing to progress for a long period of time. Development hell.

It would be in development hell if there were problems pre-existing before the evaluation process.

Games often get reevaluated.


This also happened to Street Fighter 6.

Street Fighter 6 was planned to be released in 2021, but it was delayed after a poor reception.

Rumor: Street Fighter 6 was slated for a 2021 release but has been internally delayed due to poor reception from testers

www.eventhubs.com

Ono was out of the project and they released another season for Street Fighter 5. Capcom brought in new developers for Street Fighter 6 to work on the game.

Bayonetta & Mega Man Developers Reveal Street Fighter 6 Involvement

Bayonetta's director is working on Street Fighter 6

www.dualshockers.com

 

[feynoob]

It wasn't that I didn't believe. It was that I didn't think the timeline and impact was as big. Basically the crater is much larger than I thought.

Unless the game was in the final cycle, it couldn't have avoided that lockdown issue. Losing a valuable time was going to be a big issue.

 

[sono]

How can a story driven game like this have a meaningful multiplayer. Maybe I am tired of mp add-ons but I say move on put your resources in next sp

 

[sankt-Antonio]

Not gaas enough atm. I’m sure that’s the problem.

 

[SecretAgentHam]

TLOU 2: Remake/Remaster for PS5 Pro and Multiplayer coming 2025 or something I guess.

Not a good look after the lackluster showing of 1st party titles on the PS Showcase this week.

 

[reksveks]

Worrying about MAU's doesn't seem like a Sony studio trait but it may become one.

Bungie this month.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

3 years....Next ND Game could have come out next year....Let That Sink In.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Which attributes the following: indecision on principle design ideas; no confidence on its marketability; wasted resources for the last 5 years. Etc etc. There is always a reason associated with games that are in development hell, this doesn't suddenly mean the project is going through a normal development process.

A change in direction =/= development hell.

Games can change direction for a variety of reasons. In this case, it was the long-term monetization model. Bungie essentially said "it's not GaaS enough."

Development hell is a term that's used when management milestones are not being hit by studios.

 

[feynoob]

Honestly sucks but hopefully the delay means it's good when it releases. There's that old Nintendo quote about a delayed game

The Bungie purchase seems to be paying dividends in terms of ensuring when these games come out, hopefully they are done right. Nobody is going to accuse PlayStation Studios of being leaders when it comes to multiplayer.

I wonder if that leaked Horizon game got similar treatment seeing as we saw nothing

That said hopefully not too much time was wasted on this and it didn't take away from whatever the next Druckmann project is, which would have mostly been preproduction work since TLOU2 completed. We know at a minimum that Naughty Dog did beef up to have something of a separate multiplayer arm for the Factions project, so hopefully it's been relatively smooth on the SP project

It has to pass Bungie test. Otherwise, Sony might put the game on the oven to meet the expectations, or worse case cancel it.

 

[Luigi Mario]

"reassessed" is a nice way of saying it's getting rebooted or canceled.

They will eventually cancel it.

 

[ZehDon]

The scaling down of the team is the piece that stands out to me. That indicates the issue isn’t the battle pass progression or something along those lines, something relatively minor. No, the issues with their game are big enough that Sony wants to minimise costs. That means they’re seeing issues that require fundamental changes - changes that they’re expecting to take so long they’ve moved the team on to something else while a smaller team tries to figure out what to do.

With their need to fuel the HBO show past season three, and the lead in time for games meaning they need to get moving on that, I imagine ND are now moving into production on TLOU3. I wonder if they scrap the GAAS no one cares about and just bake it into the TLOU3 as it’s multiplayer mode? That raises its own issues.

What a bad week for Sony.

 

[Withnail]

Sony will have a big lesson to learn this gen that most gaas/mp games are difficult to make and that they usually fail by losing the playerbase within weeks/months (or even not getting enough attention in the first place). It's not as easy to make a successful, profitable gaas title and in some cases it's just about it being a surprise hit, not something that was supposed to succeed based on all the calculations.

No shit, why do you think they paid so much for Bungie. Destiny has its faults but it also gets a lot right. Halo Infinite shows how difficult it is.

 

[DeepEnigma]

"reassessed" is a nice way of saying it's getting rebooted or canceled.

It could also mean that they reassess the type of game they want to market this as. If it's not going to work ala Destiny model, but will still work as an OG Factions/UC2 or traditional (Counter Strike/CoD/Etc) model, then that too is an option.

Sees title. Sees 8 pages.

Naughty Dog thread?

Naughty Dog thread.

 

[gothmog]

Unless the game was in the final cycle, it couldn't have avoided that lockdown issue. Losing a valuable time was going to be a big issue.

This goes way beyond games but yeah. If you were in steady state or polishing you were probably okay.

 

[skit_data]

I said this in the redfall thread or maybe it was the Phil Spencer thread where he said that they realized in october of last year that the game didnt connect with players so they decided to patch up the bugs and ship it knowing it stank. I said then that they shouldve cancelled it.

I think Jimbo should cancel this game. Sometimes things dont pan out. PvE is almost impossible to get it right. Many have tried, only bungie has somewhat succeeded and as someone who put in 1000 hours into D1 and D2, i can tell, everyone hate plays those games anyway.

lets go back to SP and get those out instead.

Yeah, I saw the Bloomberg update just now. Sounds like a ”cut your losses”- type of situation.

 

[FrankWza]

yeah, i'd say that it's very likely, as masters of the universe, they thought that factions would be a cakewalk &, given the nd fanbase thirst, an easy win. as you say, they obviously seriously misjudged things, including their own sense of development infallibility...

I wouldn't categorize it that way. They've had a successful multiplayer game. But this is a different animal and there's a chance they didn't want to dumb it down towards monetizing and that's what GaaS games end up being for the most part.

 

[proandrad]

Good hopefully that means they have given up on that gaas bs and just add it as a regular multiplayer for TLOU part 3.

 

[Banjo64]

So yeah. Development hell like I thought. Unbelievable.

 

[[Sigma]]

Not exploitive enough long term. That's all you need to know about that model. It's not even about fun lol.

 

[Metnut]

This is the best news I’ve read in a while. I hope the game ends up being completely canceled. The last thing in the world I’d want to see is Last of Us multiplayer start making a lot of money and Naughty Dog ends up pulling a Rockstar. Hopefully the same thing happens to the Guerilla/Horizon multiplayer project.

Seeing that most of the Naughty Dogteam has been moved onto the next single player project is great news for PlayStation owners. Better than I could’ve hoped for honestly. What a great story to go into the long weekend!

 

[Yoboman]

Sony has invested heavily in “games as a service,” or video games designed to be monetized beyond their initial sales through ongoing purchases. As part of that push it asked another of its video-game studios, Seattle-based Bungie, to evaluate the games across its portfolio. Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project’s ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment.

This reads to me like "how do you plan to keep this updated frequently and seasonally". It may not even be a quality issue but basically an assessment that they will Halo Infinite themselves if they don't get their content pipelines ready. And by Halo Infinite I mean release a game people enjoy at launch but quickly abandon because it's not getting updated

Seems to be a common thing with games wanting to be GAAS but they are really just multiplayer games with a short lifespan of interest

 

[Ronin_7]

It has to pass Bungie test. Otherwise, Sony might put the game on the oven to meet the expectations, or worse case cancel it.

Likely alot of tests before it's even approved at this point.

Bungie is ruthless

 

[angrod14]

There you have it. They never should've entered in this GAAS bullshit.

 

[Elios83]

Egoistically I'm happy the focus is back on SP

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[vaibhavpisal]

This Bungie meddling is BS.

Sony should allow Dev's to make what they want. Actually practice creative freedom they bandied around so much.

 

[Fake]

ND fanboys are asking for a GaaS game from them? Why?

I guess is because the GAAS is around the universe of TLOUSpart2.

 

[feynoob]

This Bungie meddling is BS.

Sony should allow Dev's to make what they want. Actually practice creative freedom they bandied around so much.

Arkane says hi.

 

[Warnen]

Truth

 

[Moridianae]

Honestly,

A big takeaway here from me is the fact that they talked about the new single player experience.

Its a pretty clear indicator that the Showcase was VERY poorly received and more GAAS was not wanted.

 

[Bartski]

It could also mean that they reassess the type of game they want to market this as. If it's not going to work ala Destiny model, but will still work as an OG Factions/UC2 or traditional (Counter Strike/CoD/Etc) model, then that too is an option.

That is true. Could mean scaling it way back for the better. Definitely sounds like we won't be seeing it anytime soon

 

[near]

A change in direction =/= development hell.

Games can change direction for a variety of reasons. In this case, it was the long-term monetization model. Bungie essentially said "it's not GaaS enough."

Development hell is a term that's used when management milestones are not being hit by studios.

Reevaluating a game is not the issue, reevaluating after it's been in developments for half a decade which at some point already included a reboot is what I would certainly call development hell. There is only a finite number of times you can change direction with a project before it stops being a project at all. We don't need to add other definitions to the term, it's self defining. It steams from film production, and is used identically for video games. The project has been delayed again, and I'm not sure why you're so inclined to believe this is going through an acceptable development cycle.

 

[Yoboman]

It has to pass Bungie test. Otherwise, Sony might put the game on the oven to meet the expectations, or worse case cancel it.

Which I think can hopefully be a good thing

I trust a Bungie evaluation a lot more than Hermen

This is exactly what we were complaining a month ago that Microsoft DIDNT do with regards to Redfall so I am not going to be a hypocrite about it.

 

[Fake]

This Bungie meddling is BS.

Sony should allow Dev's to make what they want. Actually practice creative freedom they bandied around so much.

Yeah. Babylon Fall 2 if they want.

 

[Luigi Mario]

 

[Fbh]

Honestly I'd be nice if they cut their losses and just used the content they have to release a straight sequel to the original factions.
No story mode, no loot grind, no central hub area or PVE areas or whatever other generic GAAS stuff they were planning. Just a fun 6-8 player PVP with tactical gameplay and stealth elements on Ps5, Ps4 and PC.

It would probably fail because no one seems to want regular PVP anymore (unless you are called counter strike or COD). But it seems like whatever they were working wasn't too hot either so there's nothing to loose.